Facebook Inc. shares declined by about 4 per cent in early trading on Monday, nosediving to $216, 08, as they were poised for a second consecutive day of losses after more companies, including Starbucks Corp. and Global drinks giant Diageo Plc., which owns brands like Guinness, Smirnoff, and Johnnie Walker, joined the growing number of businesses intending to pull their ads from the social media platform.
2.6 percent was shaved off Twitter, which fell to $29.05 per share.
On 26 June, its stock had tumbled by 8.3 percent to $216.08 per share at closing time on Nasdaq after Unilever, one of the world’s largest advertisers, announced it would cease spending on the social media platform’s properties this year, wiping out US$56 billion in Facebook market value.
Starbucks and Diageo subsequently announced that they were joining Unilever, Coca-Cola Co, Dove, Honda, Ben & Jerry and several other companies in an ads pullback from Facebook in support of the #StopHateForProfit campaign.
Earlier, Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder and chief executive of Facebook, the company behind the world's largest social-network, lost at least $7.2 billion, dropping to fourth place on Bloomberg's billionaire index.
On the list of the world's richest people Zuckerberg is now preceded by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Luis Vuitton CEO Bernard Arnault.
#StopHate4Profit
Multiple companies, including Coca-Cola Company, US telecommunications firm Verizon, consumer goods giant Unilever, and The North Face have been pulling their ads from Facebook and Twitter as part of the #StopHate4Profit campaign. The boycott was initiated by the US National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and other minority rights groups, claiming Facebook was not doing enough to stop hate speech online.
Launched on 17 June by minority rights groups amid the ongoing wave of civil rights protests in the US following the death of black man George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis, the campaign lambasted Facebook for allegedly enabling content that incited violence against protesters.
On Friday, Facebook responded to criticism for failing to act on “inflammatory posts, vowing it will start labeling controversial content that violates the social media company's policies.
Zuckerberg added that Facebook would ban ads that claim people from groups based on race, religion, sexual orientation or immigration status are a threat to physical safety or health.