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Verizon suspends advertising on Facebook, joins growing boycott

reuters.com

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Re: Verizon suspends advertising on Facebook, joins growing boycott

#151

Post by Spooky23 »

forbiddenvoid wrote: post #6

Sounds like Verizon's Facebook advertising spend is losing value because of COVID-19, so they're using this a way to redirect focus away from the negative impact on their business. All of the companies doing this right now are 'pausing spend' rather than redirecting. They're reducing their marketing budgets and pointing the finger at Facebook so no one looks too closely at the implications of their reduced ad spend.

Really?

Consumer facing telco is booming right now. TMobile has a purple ice cream truck selling phones in my neighborhood.

What is the PR hit of reducing ad spend anyway? Ads are the most liquid corporate spend, it dries up in days if not producing a return.

Re: Verizon suspends advertising on Facebook, joins growing boycott

#152

Post by joshribakoff »

narag wrote: post #137
Consultant32452 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The triggering event, as I understand it, is they did not censor the President of the United States who said something to the effect of riots lead to death. There's two ways to interpret this. One way is that eventually people will get hurt in some way if riots continue. Another way to interpret it was as a death threat to protesters. FB's position was that even if it was a threat, that the protesters needed to know…

Thank you for the clarification. Now I remember reading something about an "antifa" flag, that seemed unconclusive... please, remember I'm a foreigner so my judgement may lack some insights you have. Actually all this seems absurd. Trump is a politician, actually a public officer, so censoring his speech is a alien concept to me. In my country certain politicians IMHO deserve jail for the outrageous nonsense they say…

He’s posting factual inaccuracies about mail in ballots. Twitter appended the fact check information, so people could pursue their right to vote. Facebook did nothing

This isn’t due to one single event, it’s a pattern.

Re: Verizon suspends advertising on Facebook, joins growing boycott

#153

Post by hedora »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #127
solidasparagus wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He just parrots what he sees/hears and he spends a lot of time looking at far right content.

Can you name a place on the internet that regularly uses a red triangle as a racist symbol that Trump might have parroted this from?

Hitler didn’t have much of a web presence, and I guess whatever’s left of the Nazi party hasn’t set one up. However, people have scanned some of the nazi propaganda:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_concentration_camp_badg...

Also, at least when I was a kid, public grade schools covered WWII, and taught us about the triangles.

Here’s a story from the history channel:

https://www.history.com/news/pink-triangle-nazi-concentratio...

Red was reserved for political prisoners, and the LGBT movement co-opted the pink triangle. Good for them.

Have you seriously not heard of any of this? Are you not from the US, or have holocaust deniers been tampering with school curricula?

Re: Verizon suspends advertising on Facebook, joins growing boycott

#154

Post by jariel »

anoncareer0212 wrote: post #12
forbiddenvoid wrote: post #6

Sounds like Verizon's Facebook advertising spend is losing value because of COVID-19, so they're using this a way to redirect focus away from the negative impact on their business. All of the companies doing this right now are 'pausing spend' rather than redirecting. They're reducing their marketing budgets and pointing the finger at Facebook so no one looks too closely at the implications of their reduced ad spend.

Fact-free assertions :/

Ad spending is down universally, that much is true. [1] And everyone in ads knows this.

This also makes it very easy for execs to spin some PR in whatever direction they want.

It would be hard to provide 'evidence' that of the cynical take that VZ is just using this as an excuse, but there's no doubt the calculus works.

[1] https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/06/coronavirus-advertisi...

Re: Verizon suspends advertising on Facebook, joins growing boycott

#155

Post by pdkl95 »

kingaillas wrote: post #117
Consultant32452 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're giving Trump too much credit. I find it difficult to believe Trump is highly educated about anything, much less esoteric quotes and symbols used by dead racist people.

Perhaps it is giving Trump too much credit - the actual blame likely lies with the team running his campaign. All the same, it seems strangely coincidental that he keeps on stumbling into racist material and symbolism. I mean yeah, it was just a coincidence he restarted his rallies on Juneteenth in Tulsa, OK, that he then moved under pressure/outcry. Also a coincidence he used a quote from a racist police chief, and…

> used a nazi triangle

If anyone doubts that this was an intentional dog whistle to white supremacists: the first sentence of the ad with the nazi triangle had 14 words[1]. His campaign ran 88 [2] on the facebook pages for Trump, Pence, and Team Trump.

These are very well-known references used by white supremacists/neo-nazis they often use as dog whistles.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteen_Words [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/88_Precepts

Re: Verizon suspends advertising on Facebook, joins growing boycott

#156

Post by Consultant32452 »

joshribakoff wrote: post #149
Consultant32452 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The triggering event, as I understand it, is they did not censor the President of the United States who said something to the effect of riots lead to death. There's two ways to interpret this. One way is that eventually people will get hurt in some way if riots continue. Another way to interpret it was as a death threat to protesters. FB's position was that even if it was a threat, that the protesters needed to know…

He also said he asked to slow coronavirus testing down. When his staff said we were misinterpreting him, he corrected his staff and said he said what he meant. He also used racial slurs to describe coronavirus. How many gaffes before we stop presuming good intent?

Facebook presumed bad intent. They presumed the president literally threatened to murder protesters.

Re: Verizon suspends advertising on Facebook, joins growing boycott

#157

Post by jariel »

aabhay wrote: post #67
throwaway_jobs wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Sounds like Verizon’s Facebook advertising spend is losing value because if COVId-19 “We’re pausing our advertising until Facebook can create an acceptable solution that makes us comfortable,” Doesn’t sound like it has anything to do with Covid-19 to me but rather advertisers don’t want to spend money advertising on a platform promoting hate speech. But let’s say this was a conspiracy by all these companies to save…

I see it as a "kill two birds" situation. Corporate ethics is a very different beast from human ethics. Getting any decision through a board room typically requires at least two entirely plausible value propositions.

No, it takes no decision from the board to cut ad spending due to COVID, which is happening universally.

The bit about 'Facebook' is a very secondary thing and it's not in the same category of 'birds'.

One is existential to the nature of the business, the other is a PR line.

Re: Verizon suspends advertising on Facebook, joins growing boycott

#159

Post by avsteele »

gguevaraa wrote: post #128
crazygringo wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hate speech is widely viewed as a legitimate exception to free expression, along with other classic examples of things like yelling fire in a crowded movie theater. Not by every country to be sure, but by many democracies. You're portraying this as some kind of whim that changes with people's moods, but that's a complete, total, 100% straw man. There are decades of legislation and jurisprudence, particularly in Europ…

Meh, the 'yelling fire in a crowded theater' is, rightfully, not protected under free speech but "hate speech" (which has no legal definition in the US) has consistently been allowed by the Supreme Court. Doubt we'll reach a hate speech exemption anytime soon.

"falsely shouting..."

all should listen to Chris Hitchens on this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z2uzEM0ugY

Re: Verizon suspends advertising on Facebook, joins growing boycott

#160

Post by cdavid »

cwhiz wrote: post #140
crazygringo wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hate speech is widely viewed as a legitimate exception to free expression, along with other classic examples of things like yelling fire in a crowded movie theater. Not by every country to be sure, but by many democracies. You're portraying this as some kind of whim that changes with people's moods, but that's a complete, total, 100% straw man. There are decades of legislation and jurisprudence, particularly in Europ…

What is hate speech? Can you define it for me? Better yet, use legal definitions.

As the OP mentioned, many countries, including democratic ones, do have laws around hate speech. Wikipedia has a few words about it in English: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hate_speech_laws_in_France#The...

You also have laws against defamation that consider it illegal to defame people based on race and other criteria (since the 19th century in France).

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