* Verizon has pulled its advertising from Facebook, joining a growing list of companies boycotting the social-media firm over its content moderation.
* A group of six nonprofit organizations started the boycott last week, calling on companies to withdraw their advertising over the spread of hate speech and misinformation on Facebook.
* On Thursday, June 25, the Anti-Defamation League said it found a Verizon ad next to anti-Semitic video.
* Verizon's chief media officer said the company was suspending advertising on the social network and on Instagram, which Facebook owns, "until Facebook can create an acceptable solution that makes us comfortable and is consistent with what we've done with YouTube and other partners."
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Verizon has joined the growing list of companies boycotting Facebook by not placing ads on the platform, CNBC reported on Thursday, June 25.
The wider boycott started on June 17, when a group of six nonprofits including the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the NAACP published an open letter calling on advertisers to stop their business with Facebook, saying the platform is a hotbed for hateful content and misinformation.
Major brands including The North Face, Patagonia, and Ben & Jerry's joined the boycott, and on June 25 the ADL sent another open letter calling on companies to pull their ads, in which it specifically named Verizon.
"We found an advertisement for Verizon appearing next to a video from the conspiracy group QAnon drawing on hateful and antisemitic rhetoric, warning that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is planning to bring on civil war with concentration camps and coffins at the ready and claiming Americans are already quarantined in militarized districts," the letter read.
In response, Verizon's John Nitti told CNBC that the company was suspending its advertising with Facebook. "We're pausing our advertising until Facebook can create an acceptable solution that makes us comfortable and is consistent with what we've done with YouTube and other partners," he said.
In a statement to Business Insider following Verizon's suspension, Carolyn Everson, vice-president of Facebook's global business group, said: "We respect any brand's decision, and remain focused on the important work of removing hate speech and providing critical voting information. Our conversations with marketers and civil rights organizations are about how, together, we can be a force for good."
Color of Change, one of the signatories on the original June 17 letter, said in a statement that Verizon's decision was a "huge step."
"Facebook's leadership can withstand regulatory, legal, and media scrutiny because of the billions of dollars the company receives in advertising. Major corporations that have publicly shared their sympathies for the struggles Black Americans face can and should go one step further by taking our pledge to halt the funding of racism and hate," Rashad Robinson, president of Color of Change, said.
Verizon's announcement is a major blow to Facebook, which has been scrambling to placate advertisers while simultaneously signalling it won't bow to the boycott. "We do not make policy changes tied to revenue pressure," Everson said in an email to advertisers sent over the weekend of June 20 and 21, seen by the Wall Street Journal.
Before the June 17 letter, the platform was trying to justify its moderation policies to advertisers, with Mark Zuckerberg personally addressing a client meeting of top advertising execs on June 11. Marketing analytics firm Pathmatics told CNBC the social-networking giant spent an estimated $1.8 million on Facebook and Instagram ads between May 22 and June 20.
The company came under pressure from civil rights groups after it decided to take no action on two posts from US President Donald Trump in late May — one that falsely claimed mail-in voting in California would be "substantially fraudulent," and another about the George Floyd protests in Minneapolis, in which the president said "when the looting starts, the shooting starts."
Twitter applied cards fact-checking and blocking the posts, but Facebook decided to leave them untouched, a move that provoked intense backlash from both civil rights groups and Facebook's own employees.
SEE ALSO: Facebook says its business could afford to get rid of news
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