Why Is Kim Kardashian West Boycotting Instagram Today? She and a group of celebrities including Katy Perry, Michael B. Jordan and Leonardo DiCaprio are calling for action from Instagram's parent company, Facebook.
By Jessica Thomas •
Kim Kardashian West, Katy Perry, Michael B. Jordan and more celebrities are boycotting Instagram today to protest its parent company Facebook's policy towards hate speech on its platforms. In a post Tuesday, Kardashian West wrote she was joining the #StopHateforProfit movement, a campaign that attempts to hold Facebook and other social media companies accountable for the rise of bigotry and misinformation propagated on their platforms.
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In a recent incident, Facebook refused to take down a page for a militia group in Kenosha, Wisconsin, despite it being reported for violating the site's policies more than 450 times. The page was only removed after a shooting that left two protestors in Kenosha dead, which Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg called an "operational mistake."
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Stop Hate for Profit is calling on Facebook to take stronger action against groups and messages promoting hate, bigotry, racism, anti-Semitism and disinformation.
"I love that I can connect directly with you through Instagram and Facebook, but I can't sit by and stay silent while these platforms continue to allow the spreading of hate, propaganda and misinformation — created by groups to sow division and split America apart — only to take steps after people are killed," Kardashian West wrote to her 188 million followers. "Misinformation shared on social media has a serious impact on our elections and undermines our democracy. Please join me tomorrow when I will be 'freezing' my Instagram and FB account to tell Facebook to #StopHateForProfit."
The celebrity boycott, which also includes Ashton Kutcher, Leonardo DiCaprio, Naomi Campbell, Sacha Baron Cohen and Amy Schumer, follows a similar corporate boycott earlier this summer. Starbucks, Verizon, Coca-Cola, Ben & Jerry's and a slew of other advertisers vowed to pull their ads for the month of July to protest Facebook's lack of action regulating hate speech on its platform.
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