Facebook fails to appease organizers of ad boycott

SAN FRANCISCO: Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s two top executives, met with civil rights groups on Tuesday in an attempt to mollify them over how the social network treats hate speech on its site.

But Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, and Sandberg, the chief operating officer, failed to win its critics over.

For more than an hour over Zoom, the duo, along with other Facebook executives, discussed the company’s handling of hate speech with representatives from the Anti-Defamation League, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Color of Change and other groups. Those organizations have recently helped push hundreds of companies, such as Unilever and Best Buy, to pause their advertising on Facebook to protest its handling of toxic speech and misinformation.