“Can an ad boycott fix Facebook's hate speech problem?” (Front Burner)

Taylor Owen
July 3, 2020

The “Stop Hate for Profit” movement, an initiative calling for corporations to boycott Facebook advertising due to the spread of hateful content, has garnered support from companies such as Unilever, Starbucks, and HP to name a few. The big question remains — why now? Why not when Facebook aided in the spread of violence against the Rohingya in Myanmar or the spread of disinformation facilitating the success of Duterte, the President of the Philippines?

Centre director, Taylor Owen, discusses the Facebook ad boycott with Jayme Poisson of CBC Radio’s Front Burner and asks what — if anything — it’s actually accomplishing. Owen is weary of market solutions to market failures. He argues against Facebook’s usual line of defense, it’s not that Facebook doesn’t regulate content; it in fact moderates the content and speech of billions of users each day. So what happens when a user has political capital? What separates news from opinion from misinformation? 

Facebook has responded with announcements that it will soon provide labels for political content which would otherwise be flagged, and mark violations from political figures as “newsworthy.” Is this effort enough? How can civil rights groups affect real reform in Facebook’s policies? For Taylor Owen, the crux is democratic governmental reform. 

Check out the episode of Front Burner to learn more, and read Owen’s take on why governments, not markets, need to address tech monopolies.