"Misinformation shared on social media has a
serious impact on our elections and undermines our democracy,"
Kardashian West wrote in an Instagram post on Tuesday expressing
support for the "Stop Hate for Profit" campaign against Facebook
Inc <FB.O>.
Actors including Kerry Washington, Jennifer Lawrence and Sacha
Baron Cohen also tweeted on Tuesday, calling on Facebook to do
more.
The campaign, launched by civil rights groups this summer, won
the support of hundreds of major companies in an advertising
boycott of the social media giant in July, although it had
little impact on Facebook's bottom line. (https://bit.ly/2Rwh9CO)
This week, organizers encouraged users to post about the harm
Facebook is causing and "freeze" their use of Facebook-owned
Instagram for 24 hours on Wednesday. (https://bit.ly/33uPR5f)
The embrace of that call by Kardashian West, a businesswoman and
reality TV star with one of the top 10 biggest Instagram
followings worldwide, threatens a fresh blow to Facebook's image
and careful management of its relationships with celebrities.
The company devotes substantial resources to celebrity
"partnerships," with dedicated teams handling special requests
and giving stars early access to new products, according to two
former employees familiar with the operation.
Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The company has said it would team up with civil rights groups
to develop more tools to fight hate speech, although the groups
say executives have shown little commitment to action.
Kardashian West has become an influential powerhouse of social
change, raising the issue of climate change to her 188 million
followers and lobbying the White House for criminal justice
reform.
(Reporting by Katie Paul in San Francisco; additional reporting
by Uday Sampath in Bengaluru and Jill Serjeant in Los Angeles;
Editing by Arun Koyyur and Richard Chang)
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