Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg held a meeting with the organizers of an ad boycott against the company on Tuesday, and it sounds like it didn't go especially well.
Facebook executives including Zuckerberg spoke with groups who organized the Stop Hate for Profit campaign, which has called for companies to pause ads on Facebook and demand it change the way it deals with hate speech on the platform. But after the meeting, one of the organizations, Free Press, released a statement expressing disappointment.
"#StopHateForProfit didn't hear anything today to convince us that Zuckerberg and his colleagues are taking action," Free Press Co-CEO Jessica J. González said. "Instead of committing to a timeline to root out hate and disinformation on Facebook, the company's leaders delivered the same old talking points to try to placate us without meeting our demands."
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Color of Change head Rashad Robinson also said Facebook seemed to be "expecting an A for attendance" by holding the meeting when "attending alone is not enough," The New York Times reports. And NAACP President Derrick Johnson told the Times that "we thought that they'd at least have a response" to the campaign's list of demands, but "there was just no response."
Zuckerberg previously met with civil rights leaders to defend his position on not removing posts by President Trump that Twitter flagged for glorifying violence; the leaders subsequently released a statement blasting him for his "incomprehensible explanations." Zuckerberg reportedly told employees recently that "we're not gonna change our policies" because of the ad boycott and "my guess is that all these advertisers will be back on the platform soon enough."
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