Five canadian banks boycotted Facebook

Photo: Olivier Zuida Archives The Duty
The Bank of nova Scotia, the Royal Bank of Canada and CIBC are committed to no longer buy advertising on Facebook for a month.

Five of the largest banks in canada are joining an international movement of boycott against Facebook in reaction against the complicity of the social network to spread the racism, violence and misinformation.

The Bank of nova Scotia, the Royal Bank (RBC), CIBC, Bank of Montreal (BMO) and TD Bank have committed to no longer purchase advertising on the digital platform for one month, like from great brands such as Lululemon and MEC. They join the movement #StopHateForProfit.

It is an initiative launched by various groups, including the national Association of american for the advancement of Black people (NAACP) and the Anti-Defamation League, which fights anti-semitism and hate speech. This mobilization comes in response to the proliferation of publications of anti-semitic and anti-Black on Facebook.

The companies that support the movement are committed to not buy any advertising on the platform throughout the month of July.

Scotiabank has announced its support Tuesday, while four other financial institutions have confirmed Wednesday afternoon that they were going to follow suit.

A spokesman for RBC said the bank account in the fight against racism, and acknowledges the systemic nature of this phenomenon, which disadvantage black people, aboriginal people and racialized.

“One way to do that is to oppose the disinformation and hate speech, which makes racism even more widespread,” said AJ Goodman.

In recent months, Facebook has been the subject of much criticism for what his detractors refer to as his indifference to the idea of controlling the misinformation and hateful ideology conveyed by its users.

But after that several companies had begun to withdraw their advertisements from the social network, the latter has started to remove some of the publications of a political nature, considered false or misleading.

Without wanting to directly react to the boycott, a spokesperson for Facebook pointed to the recent suspension of more than 250 groups, white supremacist.

And Facebook is not immune to the criticisms to the house.

At the beginning of the month of June, shortly after Donald Trump had threatened to order the army to fire on demonstrators, anti-racist, hundreds of employees of Facebook have disengaged from virtual to denounce the company’s refusal to recognize the character hate of this publication of the american president.

Facebook and The canadian Press have recently announced a collaboration called the Scholarship Program to Facebook and The canadian Press for the New. Through this agreement, Facebook will have no involvement in the creation of journalistic content produced in the framework of the program, which must begin in the fall ; The canadian Press will retain its full editorial independence.