Will social justice lead to economic justice? It is a question raised by the Black Lives Matter movement, which has spotlighted systemic racism in the US and the economic inequality that accompanies it. But it is also a question for the corporate world more broadly — and in particular for Big Tech.
Social media companies such as Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter are losing advertising dollars from large companies worried about being associated with the inflammatory content published on these platforms. However, it will take far more than an ad boycott around hate speech to curb the economic power of Big Tech.
For starters, the boycott may be just an opportunistic way to do some virtue signalling when marketing budgets are already down. Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg is betting on that, reportedly telling employees, “my guess is that all these advertisers will be back on the platform soon enough”. Whether or not he is right, boycotters including Starbucks, Coca-Cola and Unilever make up a small share of overall social media ad revenues. More than 70 per cent of Facebook’s $70bn of advertising revenues comes from small businesses.