The company has survived previous seemingly existential crises with little damage to its monarchical structure

On the evening of 13 July 2013, a few hours after George Zimmerman was acquitted over the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, Alicia Garza logged on to her Facebook account and typed a phrase that would change the world: “#blacklivesmatter”. A few minutes later, she posted again: “Black people. I love you. I love us. Our lives matter.”

That Facebook played a small role in the inception of a movement that may have become the largest in US history is the kind of story that the embattled company likes to point to when it makes its case that it does more good than harm. CEO Mark Zuckerberg boasted of the hashtag’s origin on Facebook in October 2019, when he delivered a speech about his view of free expression at Georgetown University.

Civil rights groups say company did not commit to concrete plan to address hate speech and misinformation

The organizers behind a major advertiser boycott of Facebook have called a meeting with Mark Zuckerberg and other executives “disappointing”, saying the company failed to commit to concrete solutions for addressing hate speech and misinformation on the platform.

Officials at Facebook, including Zuckerberg, the CEO, and Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer, met with members of the coalition of civil rights groups over video chat for an hour on Tuesday to discuss the largest boycott in Facebook history, which has gained the support of more than 1,000 of its advertisers, including Unilever, Coca-Cola, and Starbucks.