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Facebook is about to reveal its long-awaited civil-rights audit amid an advertiser boycott, but it's already saying it won't follow every recommendation (FB)

* Facebook is publishing the results of its two-year civil-rights audit on Wednesday. * But the company won't make all of the changes that the audit calls for, Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg said. * Facebook is facing an unprecedented advertiser boycott over its approach to hate speech and intense criticism from civil-rights leaders. * It's not clear whether the changes Facebook makes will be enough to satisfy the company's critics. * Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. In 2018, Facebook announced it would undergo a civil-rights audit led by Laura Murphy and the law firm Relman, Dane, and Colfax to examine the company's influence on communities of color. The audit's final report is due to be published on Wednesday amid an unprecedented advertiser boycott over Facebook's approach to hate speech. But Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg said Tuesday that not every change it recommended would be carried out. "While the audit was planned and most of it carried out long before recent events, its release couldn't come at a more important time. It has helped us learn a lot about what we could do better, and we have put many recommendations from the auditors and the wider civil rights community into practice," Sandberg wrote in a Facebook post. "While we won't be making every change they call for, we will put more of their proposals into practice soon." It's not yet clear what specific recommendations Facebook plans to reject. A Facebook spokesperson pointed Business Insider to a number of changes that the company is making — such as an audit of monetization policies and brand-safety controls for advertisers and updates to its quarterly disclosures about rule-breaking content to include more information on hate speech. The company will also join the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, an ad industry body that works on brand-safety issues. Sandberg's comments, however, suggest the changes Facebook makes will not be far-reaching enough to satisfy civil-rights leaders, who have been intensely critical of the social network and helped to organize the boycott, which runs throughout July. The Stop Hate For Profit coalition behind the boycott has separately issued a list of demands — including the appointment a C-suite-level executive "with civil rights expertise to evaluate products and policies for discrimination, bias, and hate"; regular third-party audits of Facebook examining hate speech and misinformation; refunds to advertisers whose ads appear next to hate speech; the removal of white-supremacist groups; fact checks of political advertising; and the ability for users who have been harassed to speak to a live Facebook employee. Hundreds of high-profile brands have paused their advertising on Facebook (and sometimes other social-media platforms) amid the boycott — including Coca-Cola, Unilever, and The North Face. It's the largest advertiser action against the company in its history, but it remains unclear what its lasting influence will be. In an internal meeting, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he expected advertisers to return to Facebook in due course and insisted that he wouldn't make changes in response to financial pressures, The Information reported. Sandberg echoed this in her post, arguing that any changes Facebook makes are not because of the boycott. "We are making changes — not for financial reasons or advertiser pressure, but because it is the right thing to do," she wrote. "We have worked for years to try to minimize the presence of hate on our platform. That's why we agreed to undertake the civil rights audit two years ago." Sandberg, Zuckerberg, and other senior leaders at Facebook are also meeting with the organizers of the Facebook boycott on Tuesday, as well as other civil-rights leaders, Sandberg added. Do you work at Facebook? Contact Business Insider reporter Rob Price via encrypted messaging app Signal (+1 650-636-6268), encrypted email (robaeprice@protonmail.com), standard email (rprice@businessinsider.com), Telegram/Wickr/WeChat (robaeprice), or Twitter DM (@robaeprice). We can keep sources anonymous. Use a nonwork device to reach out. PR pitches by standard email only, please. SEE ALSO: LEAKED MEMO: Alphabet's healthcare unit Verily suspended bonuses mid-pandemic to fund diversity programs instead, frustrating employees Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: Tax Day is now July 15 — this is what it's like to do your own taxes for the very first time
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