Facebook is no stranger to controversies, and founder CEO Mark Zuckerberg is more than often in the spotlight.
From hosting hate speech on the platform, infringing on users' privacy rights, leveraging users' personal data, monopolizing the digital media, and even suffocating local journalism.
The company also ran into troubles when it was reported to have influenced the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election with the Cambridge Analytica scandal, and more.
Due to its massive influence on the community, the politics, and economy, Zuckerberg has been called to testify in front of Congress for several times.
And following the murder of George Floyd, Facebook is again facing yet another controversy.
With the company stating that it refuses to take down U.S. President Donald Trump posted language that seemed to violate the company's own rules, a group of Facebook employees staged a virtual walkout to protest Zuckerberg and the company's refusal to act.
Some even resigned, to then give harsh criticisms to Zuckerberg and his policies as they left.
And just as the employees started protesting for what they saw as hate speech on the platform, threats of violence and voter-suppression tactics on the platform, advertisers are also getting themselves in on the act.
A coalition of non-profit groups, including the NAACP, the Anti-Defamation League, and Sleeping Giants, have formed an organization called Stop Hate For Profit (#StopHateForProfit).
"We are asking all businesses to stand in solidarity with our most deeply held American values of freedom, equality and justice and not advertise on Facebook's services in July," the group says on its website.
The group goes on by accusing Facebook for allowing violence to be incited against Black Lives Matter protesters, and also for its stance that elevated news sites like Breitbart and The Daily Caller, that were known to have worked with white nationalists.
The campaign was launched on June 17 and already attracting some big brands.
From the outdoor retailers and clothing companies like The North Face, REI, Eddie Bauer, Arc’teryx and Patagonia, digital ad agency 360i, Magnolia Pictures, McCormick, Discover Financial Services, and Unilever have all expressed their solidarity.
After smaller companies started to take similar stances, they were all joined by the likes of Nike, Anheuser-Busch, Upwork, Dashlane, and Ben and Jerry's.
Advertising agency Goodby Silverstein, owned by the Omnicom Group, also joined the campaign to pull its advertising from Facebook. The agency's clients include, and not limited to: BMW, HP, PayPal, Pepsi, Doritos, and Adobe.
Other advertising agency, 360i, has encouraged more than its 50 clients to join the boycott. Chemistry, another advertising agency, is also said to encourage its more than 20 clients to consider stopping their ad purchases with Facebook and Instagram.
Joining the advertiser exodus also include Rakuten, that not only said that it would stop advertising on Facebook, but also plans to remove Facebook integration with its messaging app Viber, including Facebook connect, Giphy support, and the Facebook SDK at the start of July.
The list of participating businesses goes on.
Mozilla and Firefox have not advertised on Facebook and Instagram since March of 2018, said Mozilla on its blog post.
"We deeply 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," said Carolyn Everson, VP of Facebook's global business group, in a statement.
Mark Zuckerberg sought to address those advertisers concern personally.
Part of the reason that Facebook is under fire, is because Zuckerberg as the CEO that controls most of the company, and also because the company is essentially a tech giant that has monopoly in social media.
Facebook owns Instagram and WhatsApp, which are both very popular. Facebook, along with Google, dominates digital advertising.
With the power and monopoly, Facebook's advantages and networks affects essentially means that there is nothing similar to Facebook out there, even when people are disgusted with the company.
No other social network has nearly as many users and influence as Facebook and its properties.
Zuckerberg's decision notably contrasted with what Twitter's founder and CEO Jack Dorsey. The underdog but influential social media has begun adding disclaimers to such tweets, saying that they glorify violence.
Zuckerberg has even went as far as to call out Dorsey for the policy, and said that Twitter was wrong for fact-checking President Donald Trump.
This moment of controversy has again resurface the #deletefacebook as a popular hashtag on Twitter.
In the past, there were similar movements against companies.
Like Uber and Fox News for example.
But the case against Facebook may not be the same, since Facebook has a diverse range of revenue sources from its millions of businesses that have registered as advertisers.
Many of them, big and small, probably need Facebook more than the social network ever needs them.
What's more, for a company as big and powerful as Facebook, its properties with so many competitive advantages can help the company to not be affected by much in the stock exchange.
