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TECHNOLOGY Friday 3 July 2020
A pinch where it hurts: Can Facebook weather the ad boycott?

By BARBARA ORTUTAY any reason to bend fur-
AP Technology Writer ther to meet protesters' de-
On Wednesday, more than mands.
500 companies officially "Data of past boycotts
kicked off an advertising suggests the observable
boycott intended to pres- impact is relatively mild,"
sure Facebook into taking said Brian Wieser, global
a stronger stand against president of business intel-
hate speech. CEO Mark ligence at GroupM, ad-
Zuckerberg has agreed vertising holding company
to meet with its organizers WPP's media agency arm.
early next week. At the same time, he add-
But whether Zuckerberg ed, given these "extraor-
agrees to further tighten dinary times," it's possible
the social network's care- that a long-term, pervasive
fully crafted rules probably boycott could shift adver-
boils down to a more fun- tising dollars away from
damental question: Does Facebook to other com-
Facebook need big brand panies. q
advertisers more than the
brands need Facebook?
In a broad sense, the cur-
rent boycott, which will
last at least a month, is In this Oct. 25, 2019, file photo, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks at the Paley Center in
like nothing Facebook has New York. Associated Press
experienced before. Fol-
lowing weeks of protests rather than a boycott. cline. That's less than the few concessions, and in-
against police violence "Many businesses told us 8% drop Facebook shares stead repeated Zucker-
and racial injustice, major how they had been ig- sustained on Friday after berg's frequent talking
brands have for the first nored when asking Face- global consumer-products point that "the only way to
time joined together to book for changes," cam- maker Unilever said it would hold the powerful to ac-
protest still-prevalent hate paign organizers wrote in pause advertising on Face- count is ultimately through
speech on Facebook's a letter to advertisers this book and Instagram for the the ballot box." He pointed
platforms by taking aim at week. "Together, we finally rest of the year. to Facebook's get-out-the-
the social network's $70 bil- got Facebook's attention." On Wednesday, Nick vote efforts as evidence
lion in annual ad revenue. But Facebook's already- Clegg, Facebook's vice of the company's commit-
After years of piecemeal tarnished public image president of global affairs ment, along with the billions
measures to address hate, may sustain more dam- and communications, tried of dollars, tens of thousands
abuse and misinformation age than its business. If the to reassure businesses that of content moderators and
on its service, Facebook's ad pause lasts one month, Facebook "does not ben- other investments it has
critics hope that pinching Citi Investment Research efit from hate" and said the made in trying to improve
the company where it hurts analyst Jason Bazinet es- company has every incen- its platform.
will push it toward more timates, the likely impact tive to remove hate speech While Facebook is making
meaningful change. As of on Facebook's stock will from its service. He ac- efforts to hear out its crit-
Wednesday, 530 compa- be $1 per share. Based on knowledged that "many of ics, it remains clear that ul-
nies have signed on — and Wednesday's closing price our critics are angry about timate decisions will always
that's not counting busi- of $237.92, that's a decline the inflammatory rhetoric rest with its founder and
nesses like Target and Star- of less than half a percent. President Trump has posted CEO, who holds the major-
bucks, which have paused If the businesses extend on our platform and others, ity of the company's voting
advertising but did not for- their boycott indefinitely, and want us to be more shares and could effective-
mally join the "Stop Hate Bazinet suggests the likely aggressive in removing his ly run the company for life,
for Profit" campaign, which impact would be $17 a speech." should he desire to.
calls its action a "pause" share, or about a 7% de- Clegg, however, offered It's not clear that he'll see

Study: World’s pile of electronic waste grows ever higher

BERLIN (AP) — The world's The authors of the study
mountain of discarded calculated the combined
flat-screen TVs, cellphones weight of all dumped de-
and other electronic goods vices with a battery or
grew to a record high last a plug last year was the
year, according to an an- equivalent of 350 cruise
nual report released Thurs- ships the size of the Queen
day. Mary 2.
The U.N.-backed study es- Among all the discarded
timated the amount of e- plastic and silicon were In this photo taken on July 13, 2018, old mobile phones fill a bin
waste that piled up glob- large amounts of copper, at the Out Of Use company warehouse in Beringen, Belgium.
Associated Press
ally in 2019 at 53.6 metric gold and other precious
tonnes (59.1 tons) — almost metals — used for example a sixth of it was recycled, worth about $57 billion
2 million metric tons more to conduct electricity on the remainder of those — weren't reclaimed, the
than the previous year. circuit boards. While about valuable components — study found.q