The boycott’s power lies less in its financial might than its PR profile, new Harris polling finds

The Facebook boycott—which includes more than 500 companies, from Coca-Cola to Denny’s to Unilever—has gained momentum. But will it get enough traction to drive the change its organizers seek?

That’s a more complex question than you might think. The answer depends on how one measures the boycott’s power and quantifies its results. The boycott clearly has gotten the social media giant’s attention: Facebook executives, including founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg, met virtually with the activists leading the boycott to discuss issues including removing hate-driven content from the site. But the boycotters left unimpressed and plan to release a scathing independent audit of Facebook’s civil rights practices. Zuckerberg has expressed skepticism about the campaign’s impact, saying he expects the advertisers to return “soon enough.”

A perplexing contradiction

Yet the same survey found Facebook to be overwhelmingly the most popular social media platform, with fully 75 percent of Americans claiming they use the platform—more than YouTube (60 percent), Instagram (46 percent), Twitter (31 percent), Pinterest (30 percent) or Snapchat (27 percent). Although Americans support and applaud the boycott, they aren’t changing their own habits. It's no surprise that users find it hard to stop scrolling through their feeds and posting validation-seeking pictures, especially at a time of diminished in-person social activity.

On one hand, companies gain a brand boost by doing what seems right by standing with civil and equal rights at a time of national turmoil and racial reconciliation. And on a more practical level, as firms scramble to cut costs in the face of the economic slowdown, advertising dollars unspent are a bonus.

Bad narrative for Facebook

• Corporate leaders are doubling down on promises to promote racial justice in the wake of nationwide Black Lives Matter protests.


• This is, in part, because more employees and customers are speaking up about racial injustice and inequality, experts previously told Business Insider.


• A new survey by research firm The Harris Poll and the nonprofit JUST Capital asked 2,000 Americans what changes they want to see from the C-suite.


• More than 60% agree that promoting diversity and inclusion within companies is important.


• And the majority of Americans, especially Black Americans, agree paying people a living wage is key to advancing equality.

Discouraging workers from going back to their jobs?

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To help with this, we recommend taking regular breaks every two hours to let your brain re-charge, limiting meetings to 30 minutes, or punctuating long meetings with small breaks when possible.

June 2020 - Stress in America Press Release: As protests continue, more than half of black Americans report discrimination as significant source of stress.