Mark Zuckerberg Loses Over $7 Billion Due to Advertising Boycott
Written by SOURCE on June 27, 2020
Mark Zuckerberg has lost over $7 billion after a host of companies pulled their ads from Facebook, Inc.’s network, Bloomberg reports.
On Friday, shares in the company fell by 8.3%. This is the biggest drop in three months and comes after one of the world’s largest advertisers, Unilever, decided to join other brands in boycotting the site by removing their ads.
Unilever announced that it would stop spending money with the site due to Facebook’s inadequate policing of hateful and misleading content. Companies like Verizon Communications, Inc., Hershey Co., Honda Motors, and more have joined the boycott. Also, Coca-Cola Co. revealed on Friday that it would pause its ads on Facebook for at least 30 days.
This boycott took $56 billion from Facebook’s market value while dropping Zuckerberg’s net worth to $82.3 billion—which is about $7.2 billion less than his net worth before the boycott began. Now, Zuckerberg is no longer the third richest person in the world. He’s fallen out of the top three with his spot being taken over by the chairman and chief executive of Louis Vuitton, Bernard Arnault.
Zuckerberg responded to the growing criticism on Friday. He announced that the site would label all voting-related posts with a link urging people to look at its new voter information feature. The site has also revised its definition of hate speech, revealing a clause that claims no adverts will be allowed if they’re labeling other people as dangerous.
