AHF Seeks to Fuel #Faceboycott—Via Ads on Facebook

AIDS group believes social media giant may try to censor ads that drive to its national #StandAgainstH8 advocacy campaign and also encourage expanded Facebook advertiser boycott

“Facebook won’t suppress hate speech but likely WILL censor ads … about Facebook!”

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) the largest global AIDS organization, today announced seemingly counterintuitive plans to hold Facebook accountable for the unfiltered proliferation of hate speech on its site by fueling the growing boycott of Facebook—via paid ads on AHF’s Facebook platform urging advertisers to #Faceboycott.

However, AHF believes that Facebook may likely try to censor its new ads that drive to AHF’s national #StandAgainstH8 advocacy campaign and also encourage other Facebook advertisers to join the mushrooming boycott.

As a nonprofit medical care provider operating in 45 countries, Facebook has become a critical tool to reach patients and the public with important information on AIDS care, HIV and STD prevention and other health, wellness and advocacy messaging. AHF spends nearly $2 million annually on social media advertising, the bulk on Facebook.

“Facebook won’t suppress hate speech but likely WILL censor these AHF advocacy ads … about Facebook!” said Michael Weinstein, president of AHF. “It’s a long shot that these ads will ever see the light of day on Facebook, but as Wille Sutton famously said, he robbed banks because that’s where the money is. We are similarly trying to reach other Facebook advertisers where they are—on the platform.”

In late June amid the growing advertiser boycott, AHF issued a challenge to Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg to act quickly to reduce and dismantle hate speech from its site or AHF would pull its advertising. AHF gave a July 4^th deadline for Facebook to take some meaningful steps or it would pull the plug on its ads.

As an alternative, it is now challenging Facebook to allow AHF’s advocacy and boycott ads to run, even with some labeling of the ads if necessary (as it now reluctantly does with some Trump and other posts), to allow Facebook distance from the ads if it is so thin-skinned.

If censored as anticipated, AHF notes the ad rejection will expose Facebook’s hypocrisy in continuing to promote rampant hate speech in paid ads and individual posts while rejecting advocacy ads about the company, its leaders and their ethics.

According to CNBC, the boycott effort is being led by the groups the Anti-Defamation League, the NAACP, Sleeping Giants, Color of Change, Free Press and Common Sense – which are asking “… large Facebook advertisers to show they will not support a company that puts profit over safety.”

Earlier this week, officials from many of the groups leading the #StopHateForProfit boycott held a virtual meeting with Mark Zuckerberg but called the meeting and Facebook’s plans “..a disappointment.”

AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the largest global AIDS organization, currently provides medical care and/or services to over 1.4 million individuals in 45 countries worldwide in the US, Africa, Latin America/Caribbean, the Asia/Pacific Region and Eastern Europe. To learn more about AHF, please visit our website: www.aidshealth.org, find us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/aidshealth and follow us on Twitter @aidshealthcare.