The selective deafness that has afflicted Facebook head man Mark Zuckerberg has been cured by the sudden realisation that this unusual handicap may hit him where it really hurts - in his wallet. The social media platform had been under fire for some time over the amount of hate speech and Fake News that was being published there; Zuck couldn’t hear the critics. But he could hear the advertisers preparing to leave.
Zuckerberg and his pals knew full well that Facebook was being used, most often by right-wing adherents of Combover Crybaby Donald Trump, to push falsehood and misinformation. His excuse for not intervening was that this would amount to censorship. The kind of content that got through can be easily described.
A poster called Joshua Feuerstein had put out a photo with the caption “
DISGUSTING! BLM protestors decided to vandalize a veterans’ memorial for those who died in the Vietnam War! But yeah … These are normal people who are sane and peaceful. NOT! I hope this pisses you off enough to share it!” And many did just that.
Kevin Roose of the
New York Times responded “
The #3 overall post on US Facebook today, with almost 200,000 shares, is a photo of a Vietnam War memorial vandalized by BLM protesters. Except the photo is from 2016, the vandals weren't BLM-affiliated, and it was debunked by a fact-checker weeks ago [citation]”.
Was this an isolated incident? Marshall Cohen of CNN had bad news: it was not. "
200,000 shares of unadulterated, already-debunked garbage. This happens every single day on Facebook”. But hey, FREEZE PEACH! The Facebook money machine was bringing in the Dollars, and Zuck wasn’t for listening. Then the advertisers began to lose patience.
And as Donie O’Sullivan of CNN observed, we were talking some very big advertisers. "
Coca-Cola is pausing all social media advertising ‘for at least 30 days’ beginning in July. This Facebook ad boycott is getting bigger by the hour”. Any advance on Coca-Cola?
You bet. Judd Legum, who writes the Popular Information newsletter, had a very big name to pitch. “
‘Unilever said it will halt U.S. advertising on Facebook and Twitter for at least the remainder of the year, citing hate speech and divisive content on the platforms’ … This is HUGE. Unilever is one of the biggest advertisers in the world”.
Suddenly Zuck was all ears, as the
Guardian has reported. “
Facebook has announced changes to its policies around hate speech and voter suppression … Mark Zuckerberg on Friday announced tweaks to a number of policies, hours after the multinational Unilever said it would pull its advertisements from the platform for the next six months”.
And the effect of this was what, exactly? “
Zuckerberg’s announcements, however, did not halt companies’ demands for change. On Friday afternoon, Coca-Cola, Honda, the chocolate brand Hershey, and the apparel companies Lululemon and Jansport joined the more than 100 brands boycotting advertising on Facebook … Facebook makes about 98% of its $70bn in annual revenue from advertising”. Too little, too late. Zuck is out of time.
The time of Mark Zuckerberg as Facebook CEO was for a time,
but not for all time.
Enjoy your visit to
Zelo Street? You can help this truly independent blog carry on talking truth to power, while retaining its sense of humour, by adding to its Just Giving page at
https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/zelostreet6
So you don't support freedom of speech and expression? Rhetorical question!
ReplyDeleteBut you do support BIG business dictating what we see and hear. How odd that it is the right that now fight for our hard won freedoms. The left seek to enslave us and dictate our thoughts nd deeds.
What will you do when the wokesters decide you have to be cancelled for just being you?
Dear13.35 ... Irather think it’s a case of what’s right not RIGHT If you take my point. You are undoubtedly one of those ‘free speechers’, And good n you, but’ who’d be the first to whinge if someone interrupted your ‘circle of friends’ telling them Anonymously about the saville parties you used to attend and your time spent at the elm lodge guest house. Course you’ll decry it till your purple in the cheeks but That’s hardly the point is it. Zuckerberg only listeners to the sound of money and if That on this occasion Is what it takes then so be it.
ReplyDeleteDear Anonymous 13.35 : no-one's freeze peach is being nobbled. You and everyone else are free to start your own Facebook / Twitter /Instagram etc type entity at any time and craft your own rules.
ReplyDelete## Can you give me your address? I've got some super graffiti I'd like to plaster all over your front wall. You wouldn't have a problem with would you? Free Speech and all.
@13:35
ReplyDeleteSo you don't demonstrate signs of intelligent life? Rhetorical question!
"The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic. [...] The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent."
What will you do when the intolerables make false tweets about BLM in order to cause a panic?
Don't freeze peaches!
ReplyDeleteActually the council wouldn't like you climbing up the flats to graffiti the outside of the 12th floor, just put your super stuff on here and I will do it myself. Personally I wouldn't keep an asylum seeker here, no free wi-fi and I have to cook my own meals, the money's not great either but I do get a free bus pass!
So you are old and embittered, explains your tragic contributions on here.
DeleteYou clearly don't recognise a classic reverse-con when you see one.
ReplyDeleteDear Anonymous 18.28. I had no intention of climbing up to the 12th floor. I'm thoroughly modern and intended to project it. Super that it is the 12th floor. Everyone will see it. A free bus pass? Bloody socialism.
ReplyDelete