Facebook just dropped its $ 56 billion market value, caught up in an unprecedented wave of boycotts, stopped advertising by hundreds of brands.

Critics of Facebook say the social network has failed to come up with adequate policies for misleading content on its platforms. As a result, a series of brands including Unilever and Coca Cola have announced they will stop advertising on their platform.

Specifically, Unilever said it would not advertise on Facebook and Twitter nor Instagram from now until the end of the year. Coca-Cola, meanwhile, has taken a more aggressive move, saying it will stop advertising on social networks globally within 30 days. “Coca Cola will suspend all paid advertising on all social media platforms globally for at least 30 days. We will take this time to review our advertising policies to verify “We also expect greater accountability and transparency from social media partners,” the Coca Cola representative said in a statement.

Other big brands, including Honda in the US, Patagonia and Verizon Communications, have made similar statements. To date, more than 100 companies have joined the “boycott” of social networks.

Shortly after the above statements, Facebook shares fell 8.3%, blowing away US $ 56 billion of market capitalization. What is even more worrying, however, is that those decisions pose serious risks to Facebook’s advertising business.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg worked to address advertising concerns during an online Q&A session with employees on Friday. He announced a series of minor changes to the company’s and main advertising activities. content book. Mark even asserts: “There are no exceptions to politicians in any policy I have just announced today.” However, these efforts seem to be insufficient.

Organizations struggling to create a wave of boycotts on Facebook say that the changes that Mark claims are “too small”.

“We used to do this with Facebook. They apologized. But every time they did it, they made a small move. So we want everything to end now.”

Facebook’s past threats don’t seem to be as big as this one – related to advertising – their money-making machine. The company accounts for 23% of the total digital advertising market in the United States. They also dominate the social network with over 3 billion users across platforms.

For years, Facebook has overcome many scandals and its business has grown steadily. The company’s advertising revenue saw a 27% increase in 2019 to $ 69.7 billion despite regulatory threats, past ad boycott calls and a user movement that encouraged people to worldwide delete account. But just four months before the presidential election and amid nationwide nationwide protests on race and social policy, Facebook was becoming the center of heavy criticism.

Earlier, Facebook also warned that advertisers tend to spend less money due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Currently, many businesses are under pressure to cut costs, including advertising budgets due to difficulties from the disease. Therefore, this wave of intense boycotts is expected to create an unprecedented difficulty for Facebook.

“It is clear that Facebook and their CEO Mark Zuckerberg are not merely negligent but actually complacent with misinformation posts,” said Derrick Johnson, president and CEO of a US company.