Unloc has announced its support of the Stop Hate for Profit campaign and has therefore suspended all advertising on Facebook and Instagram. We are joining other businesses, NGOs and nonprofits in calling for Facebook to do more to stop hate speech on all its platforms, including Instagram. As it stands, Facebook cannot provide sufficient reassurance that Unloc’s advertisements will not appear alongside content from groups sharing hate speech or misinformation.
Unloc has traditionally used these platforms to advertise open access training programmes, online competitions and job vacancies. These adverts will be paused until we can be sure that Facebook has taken the action needed to prevent its platforms being used to promote hate, bigotry, racism, antisemitism and violence. We join thousands of other businesses in committing to the advertising pause as part of the Stop Hate for Profit campaign including our partners at Verizon.
As an organisation, we are committed to tackling inequality and injustice – and at this point in time we are not convinced Facebook is doing enough to prevent content that promotes hate.
Hayden Taylor, Unloc’s Managing Director commented, “We are adding our voice to the growing calls for Facebook to do more to prevent hate speech on its platforms. We are a small scale advertiser but we treat our responsibility to ensuring we advertise in an ethical way very seriously.”
