Before today, I don’t think I’d ever heard of the British National Party – guess I need to brush up on my racist, far-right organizations. But it would seem that Vodafone and five other major corporations know the name, and they pulled out of deals with Facebook after their ads were placed on the BNP’s profile page.
“First Direct, Vodafone, Virgin Media, the AA, Halifax and the Prudential have all withdrawn ads,” according to the BBC. And according to Wikipedia (I don’t feel like giving the official BNP site any traffic), the BNP is “committed to stemming and reversing the tide of non-white immigration . . .” I’m not sure what to say to that – perhaps a scream would be appropriate?
Anyway, considering that this is still fresh news, it wouldn’t be at all surprising if other companies also pull their advertisements. That would leave Facebook in a precarious situation; those organizations aren’t going to come back unless some assurances are made, and the social network will lose money for every day that passes in the meantime.
Oh, and here’s one last BNP-related tidbit that should make you think better of humanity: as noted by The Register’s Chris Williams, “Two Facebook groups representing the crypto-racist organisation have clocked up 150 and 31 members respectively. By comparison, the non-aligned group ‘A Chief Export of Chuck Norris Is Pain’ has 12,550 members.”
