Facebook Unfriended in Ad Boycott
Facebook, according to first principles; 1.7 billion users; 1.7 billion eyeballs. Its feed is a mass billboard, and marketers love to splash it. If your mates join social, so do you, and so do advertisers. If your mates leave social or it becomes antisocial, you leave, and so do advertisers. The process is fast on the way up and fast on the way down. The stock, too!
Mark Zuckerberg is in hot water again. His social suite (Facebook and Instagram) attracts hate speech, users are mad, and the adpocalypse has begun. Zuck refuses to fact-check, not because of the first amendment, but because it’s hard. There’s a thin line between computer rage and hate speech, and computer rage is great for engagement.
The combination of cabin fever and Black Lives Matter has some hot and spicy posts trending. It’s too much for some. We’re seeing advertisers clean up their image and boycott Facebook for failing to moderate content; Starbucks, Coca-Cola, Ford, hundreds more, and #stophateforprofit is also viral. Facebook stock has fallen 10% in just one week!
The Invstr community is still super bullish (97%), though, lapping up shares at depressed levels. The Invstr community probably remembers Cambridge Analytica, data breaches, and when Facebook effectively held the door open for election meddlers.
The advertisers weren’t gone for long.
In fact, the debacle barely put a dent in revenues. There was antitrust risk, but it came to nothing, so it turned out to be a golden buying opportunity for investors. The risk-reward skew this time could be even better if Facebook’s crumbling image doesn’t mark it down as a sin stock, but then, who cares about a brand when you have dopamine on your side?
