Facebook’s final Civil Rights Audit report was released today, and it reads as a laundry list of disappointing inaction from Facebook. Over the past two years, our team at the National Hispanic Media Coalition (NHMC) has been working with other civil rights organizations and the authors of the civil rights audit to push Facebook to take action for change in their business model, leadership makeup, and discriminatory impact. This final report only confirms what we already know: Zuckerberg does not plan on changing anything that affects his profit margin anytime soon.
Last week, NHMC joined civil rights allies to lead the Stop Hate For Profit campaign, calling for a boycott of Facebook’s advertising service. NHMC is also a founding member of the Change the Terms Coalition, where we have worked for years to hold social media companies, like Facebook, accountable for enabling hate on their platforms. Since its inception more than 35 years ago, NHMC has fought to eliminate hate against the Latinx community and other marginalized communities. We are deeply committed to the eradication of hate both online and in our communities.
Yesterday, Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg met with civil rights leaders to parade more lies and PR stunts to disguise their complacency in white supremacy and hate. This final civil rights audit report leaves no clear path for further engagement or accountability with the company - something that feels personal and purposeful in the wake of Zuckerberg’s recent remarks.
Today’s audit report provided several opportunities for Facebook to take further concrete action, including building out a team to support their new Vice President of Civil Rights role, a remapping of Facebook’s voter suppression policies, and establishing long-term infrastructure for civil rights organizations to engage with the company. The Auditors also publicly called on Facebook to do more to identify trends in hate and white supremacy activity that repeatedly targets marginalized groups, and to take action to better protect those targeted groups. In particular, NHMC supports the Auditors’ assessment of Facebook’s inconsistent enforcement of its content moderation policies, and firmly stands against any actions, intentional or otherwise, that favor and allow politicians like Donald Trump to incite violence, spread lies, and promote hate on the platform.
I write to you today to reiterate our energy in this fight, despite the lackluster response from Facebook this week. Facebook and other social media platforms have the opportunity to be on the right side of history and to take a stand against racism, sexism, xenophobia, homophobia, and overall hate. We will continue to ensure that Latinx are a part of this important conversation, and that our pain and voices are not silenced.
In conjunction with the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), Color of Change, Common Sense, Free Press, Sleeping Giants, and Mozilla, we say thank you to the nearly one thousand businesses and organizations who have joined the #StopHateForProfit campaign thus far. Businesses and individuals who are interested in joining our movement can learn more at https://www.nhmc.org/stophateforprofit.
Yours in the movement,
Brenda Victoria Castillo
President & CEO
National Hispanic Media Coalition
