The Labour Party is launching a “complete boycott” of Facebook advertising to support Black Lives Matter and “show that we stand against hate online”.
The boycott is supposedly in aid of the Stop Hate for Profit campaign, which is seeking to persuade people to pull advertiser money from Facebook due to what it perceives an insufficient zealousness as censoring allegedly hateful content on the platform.
“This is a complete boycott, meaning we can’t use Facebook to advertise anything at all and can’t use it to boost posts,” read an email sent to senior Labour staffers, as quoted by The Times.
“Social channels are a powerful place for us to get our message across. But they also have a duty in stopping the spread of hate,” the email lectured.
A source within Labour said that it was backing the boycott “to show that we stand against hate online, especially in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, and urge Facebook to take stronger steps to tackle it on their platforms.”
Quite what the connection between the death of George Floyd and “hate” on social media might be is not specified, but Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, the supposedly “moderate” successor to far-leftist Jeremy Corbyn, has struggled to persuade the radical left he is on their side in recent months, despite publishing a picture of himself kneeling for Black Lives Matter and sending himself to “unconscious bias” training, and may be seeking to burnish his social justice warrior credentials.
Curiously, Stop Hate for Profit has already received the backing of several multinational corporations, including Coca-Cola, and Starbucks.
Facebook Chief Operating Officer (COO) Sheryl Sandberg has vowed that the tech giant will get “better and faster” at censoring alleged “hate speech” — but claims this is not because it is capitulating to outside forces.
“We are making changes — not for financial reasons or advertiser pressure, but because it is the right thing to do,” she claimed.
“We are never going to be perfect, but we care about this deeply. We will continue to listen and learn and work in the weeks, months and years ahead.”