Facebook Disappoints Boycotting Advertisers in Private Meeting by Refusing to Censor Political Speech

Facebook’s choice to uphold the First Amendment has drawn plenty of criticism over the course of the last few months – which certainly seems like a strange and unnerving reality to find ourselves in.

The social media leviathan has distanced itself from the conservative censorship of other, similar platforms in recent days, possibly in a bid to avoid complaints of bias as the 2020 election approaches.  In doing so, however, Mark Zuckerberg has ignited a firestorm from the far left, who are appalled that Facebook won’t be throttling the Trump campaign’s reach, among other things.

In a private meeting with a number of boycotting advertisers, Zuckerberg doubled down on this free speech initiative.

Civil rights and activist groups blasted Facebook’s leadership on Tuesday after meeting with CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other executives to discuss the demands of a large advertiser boycott that now includes hundreds of brands.

“The meeting we just left was a disappointment,” said Rashad Robinson, the president of Color of Change. “[Facebook] showed up to the meeting expecting an ‘A’ for attendance.”

Free Press, a media activist group and one of the organizers of the #StopHateForProfit campaign to halt ad spending on the social network, said Facebook still has not taken the boycott’s calls to action seriously.

“Instead of committing to a timeline to root out hate and disinformation on Facebook, the company’s leaders delivered the same old talking points to try to placate us without meeting our demands,” said Free Press Co-CEO Jessica Gonzalez. “Facebook approached our meeting today like it was nothing more than a PR exercise.”

Despite the complaints, the fact remains that Facebook has indeed booted a number of hate-based and white supremacist content creators from the platform.  This leaves only the conclusion that these boycotting ad buyers are upset about the continued presence of right-wing politics on Facebook.

Facebook has previously stated that they will not be censoring political speech, much to the dismay of these advertisers.