One week ago, six major corporations pulled their advertising from Facebook. Then the British government followed suit. Now the social networking site has introduced a solution that may bring them all back.
First, though, comes a recap of the strange event that caused the mass departure: it seems that these companies’ ads were being shown on the British National Party’s Facebook page. And yes, that sounds innocent enough, but you must stop to consider that the BNP is “committed to stemming and reversing the tide of non-white immigration . . .”
Naturally, no one wanted to be associated with that sort of thing. Hence the advertisers’ exodus.
But losing that revenue – and, quite possibly, getting a lot of questionable press – just wouldn’t do, so “Facebook has added a tweak to the site so that advertisers can opt out of the groups section entirely,” according to the Guardian Unlimited’s Jemima Kiss. Facebook has also “emailed all its UK advertisers and agencies to point that out.”
Because of this development, it’s probable that most (or all) of the advertisers that left will return.
Lastly, for a bit of fun, we’ll check back in on a couple of Facebook groups. “A Chief Export of Chuck Norris Is Pain” now has 12,747 followers, while the “The British National Party”’s got about 1.7 percent of that with 217 members.
