The Walt Disney Company has cut its advertising spending on Facebook as the social media giant faces an ad boycotts over its handling of controversial content.
According to the WSJ, Disney has paused ads for its news Disney Plus streaming service on Facebook, and paused ads for its Hulu streaming service on Facebook’s Instagram platform.
In the first half of 2020, Disney spent an estimated $210 million on Facebook ads for Disney+ in the U.S. and spent $16 million for Hulu ads on Instagram between April 15th and June 30th.
Disney representatives had no immediate comment, while Facebook said in a statement that it knows it “has more work to do.”
Civil-rights groups including the Anti-Defamation League and NAACP called on advertisers to pull ad spending for July, arguing Facebook hasn’t made enough progress enforcing its policies on hate speech and misinformation.
Many brands big and small, including Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream, Coca-Cola, Firefox and Reebok, have pledged to stop advertising on the platform for July, and in some cases, longer.