Unilever Threatens to Withdraw Ads from Facebook and Google
Unilever has threatened to pull out their ads from Facebook and Google if the digital platforms continue to be harmful to society, especially to children.
The largest consumer goods company, responsible for the making of Ben & Jerry's ice creams, Vaseline and Dove soaps to name a few, is the fourth-largest global advertiser.
Keith Weed, Unilever's chief marketing officer, has released a speech retrieved by Reuters wherein the company asked the digital platforms to be more transparent and to properly gain the trust of their consumers.
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"Unilever, as a trusted advertiser, do not want to advertise on platforms which do not make a positive contribution to society," Weed said. Weed also described the online networks as toxic with the growing prevalence of fake news and offensive content.
Unilever has announced its commitment to the insurance of proper gender representation, child protection, and social unity in their advertising. With this, it has pledged to partner only with responsible organizations that are committed to the same.
Facebook and Google have both been bombarded with criticism in the last year, with the issue that both failed to protect their consumers from extremism, hate speech, child exploitation, racism, and sexism. Both digital platforms shared their sentiments in their desire to advance the security in their technological platforms.
"We fully support Unilever's commitments and are working closely with them," Facebook said in a statement retrieved by USA Today. Google echoed this in its own statement, saying that they value the trust and security of their users.
However, they have yet to prove to their critics that they are indeed working on their issues. EMarketer principal analyst Karin von Abrams told the BBC that Facebook and Google both had slow responses in addressing these problems.
"Yes they are now addressing these problems, but they should have been quicker to put money into these things. The efforts they're making are not enough at the moment to weed out these comments and content," she said.
