Adidas, Reebok Join the List of Brands Pulling Advertising From Facebook and Instagram

Ella Chochrek
·2 min read

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Adidas and Reebok are the latest brands to pull advertising from Facebook and Instagram.

In a statement emailed to FN, the athletic labels said that they will pause all advertising on Facebook and Instagram globally during the month of July.

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“Racist, discriminatory, and hateful online content have no place in our brand or in society,” the statement read. “Over the next 30 days we will develop criteria to hold ourselves and every one of our partners accountable for creating and maintaining safe environments.”

A coalition of civil rights organizations — including The Anti-Defamation League, NAACP, Sleeping Giants, Color Of Change, Free Press and Common Sense — joined forces earlier this month on an initiative called “Stop Hate for Profit,” which calls out tech companies for “not doing enough to fight hate on their platforms.”

“We are asking all businesses to stand in solidarity with our most deeply held American values of freedom, equality and justice and not advertise on Facebook’s services in July,” the group wrote on its website.

Several outdoor companies had previously made the decision to exit advertising on the platform. The North Face was the first major consumer brand to take the stance, followed by REI and Patagonia. A growing number of companies have also joined the fray, including clothing labels Eddie Bauer and Eileen Fisher as well as Coca-Cola, Starbucks and Verizon.

Amid mounting pressure, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced on June 26 that the company would crack down on hate speech in ads that run on the site.

“Today we’re prohibiting a wider category of hateful content in ads. Specifically, we’re expanding our ads policy to prohibit claims that people from a specific race, ethnicity, national origin, religious affiliation, caste, sexual orientation, gender identity or immigration status are a threat to the physical safety, health or survival of others,” he wrote. “We’re also expanding our policies to better protect immigrants, migrants, refugees and asylum seekers from ads suggesting these groups are inferior or expressing contempt, dismissal or disgust directed at them.”

However, more businesses have continued to sign onto the Stop Hate for Profit” campaign, with some participating companies and nonprofits — Patagonia included — indicating that Zuckerberg’s announcement was not enough.

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