#LogOutFacebook: NAACP Organizes Facebook Boycott

The NAACP organized a boycott of Facebook and Facebook-owned platforms Instagram and WhatsApp, Tuesday, receiving support from Amy Schumer and ice cream company Ben & Jerry’s.

“NAACP has returned a monetary donation we recently received from Facebook, and we are calling on supporters to log out of Facebook and Instagram on Tuesday, December 18,” posted the NAACP on Twitter. “We implore you, our partners, friends, and supporters to join us. #LogOutFacebook.”

In a press release, the NAACP claimed the protest was “in response to the tech company’s history of data hacks which unfairly target its users of color.”

“NAACP is also calling on Congress to conduct further investigations on Facebook after a report released for the Senate Intelligence Committee revealed that the Russian influence campaign ‘made an extraordinary effort to target African-Americans.’ Over the last year, NAACP has expressed concerns about the numerous data breaches and privacy mishaps in which Facebook has been implicated,” the organization stated. “And since the onset of the Silicon Valley boom, the organization has been openly critical about the lack of employee diversity among the top technology firms in the country. Recent revelations that Facebook hired an opposition research firm and its work with other deeply partisan strategy firms call into question the notion that Facebook operates with a non-partisan view.”

“NAACP has returned a donation it recently received from Facebook and will lead a #LogOut of Facebook and Instagram for one week, starting on Tuesday, December 18, 2018. The organization is asking its partners, social media followers, and supporters to do the same,” the NAACP continued, adding, “The #LogOutFacebook is a protest – a way to signify to Facebook that the data and privacy of its users of color matter more than its corporate interests and that as the largest social network in the world, it is Facebook’s corporate social responsibility to ensure that people of color are well represented in their workforce and recognize that users of color have a right to be protected propaganda and misinformation.

In a statement, NAACP President Derrick Johnson proclaimed, “Facebook’s engagement with partisan firms, its targeting of political opponents, the spread of misinformation and the utilization of Facebook for propaganda promoting disingenuous portrayals of the African American community is reprehensible.”

The protest received support from actress and comedian Amy Schumer, environmental organization Sierra Club, ice cream manufacturer Ben & Jerry’s, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, Million Hoodies, Muslim Advocates, and progressive nonprofit People for the American Way.