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.
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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