Patagonia joins growing list of companies boycotting Facebook ads

I respect the hell out of Patagonia and always have. I could go on and on about things they do that are capital-C Correct. This is obviously the right move.<p>They’re a very rare company in terms of being bullheaded about their principles: for sure, something they maintain from their founder.<p>I’d love to own stock in them but i’m happier to have them stay private and not beholden to anyone else’s interests.

As a consumer, I have lost all confidence in facebook adverts. I see no shortage of scams with no real way to report them as a scam. One example was a series of adverts for a bike computer &#x2F; light &#x2F; alarm that was launched on kickstarter that I backed. I saw repeated adverts from various companies reporting to sell these devices for $15 to $20. I checked with the actual company who confirmed they were not real. Every time I blocked &#x2F; reported the advert a few weeks later the same advice would reappear but a different seller.<p>Often adverts show you a great product sold for a third of what should be charged. If you buy they send you something worth a fraction of what you paid. If you pay they ask you to send it back for a full refund or they might offer to return some of the money. You need to pay for the return though. Facebook have these scams all over the place. I have lost all trust in the platform!

They also wont let banks or oil companies purchase co-branded clothing...<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;boingboing.net&#x2F;2019&#x2F;04&#x2F;02&#x2F;fintech-bros-not-welcome.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;boingboing.net&#x2F;2019&#x2F;04&#x2F;02&#x2F;fintech-bros-not-welcome.h...</a><p>IMO the whole refusing service is weird, not giving out advertisement dollars to specific companies make sense though.

I applaud Patagonia for being principled and for standing for something.<p>I deeply question justifying the decision based on this list of wrongs facebook did:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.stophateforprofit.org&#x2F;#comp-kba0i6jc" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.stophateforprofit.org&#x2F;#comp-kba0i6jc</a><p>This is not very convincing. It&#x27;s very emotional and I couldn&#x27;t find a single source, or link, or evidence of these any of these claims on that website. It&#x27;s basically one large corporation not really known for its ethics (the ADL) saying &quot;side with us!&quot; and telling you to hate the other large, faceless corporation not known for its ethics.

This is doing the right thing for the wrong reasons.<p>I haven&#x27;t used Facebook for years, because their entire platform is based on collecting data and manipulating users to sell ads. They sell the collected data even when it&#x27;s a gross violation of users&#x27; privacy, and manipulate even when it causes depression, addiction, fear, and anger. I absolutely support boycotting Facebook and in fact all social media[1].<p>But like it or not, Facebook has become a communications platform for a huge portion of our population, and as such, they have a responsibility to protect the free speech of their users. Starting off as a communications platform and then turning into a censored platform at this point would be a bait and switch, and a serious step toward totalitarianism.<p>Totalitarianism enforced by corporations isn&#x27;t better than totalitarianism enforced by government. Free speech is an inalienable human right, and doesn&#x27;t disappear because you&#x27;ve (foolishly) put a corporation in charge.<p>And while I do agree that totalitarianism enforced on behalf of good ideas like anti-racism is better than totalitarianism enforced on behalf of bad ideas is better, once we decide to give totalitarian power to corporations, there&#x27;s no going back. I don&#x27;t trust corporations with that power--Facebook has already shown that they cannot be trusted with this power when they censored Palestinian journalists in Israel, and cooperated with totalitarian regimes during the Arab spring to censor pro-democracy content. History has shown us over and over again that totalitarianism in the name of noble ideals always becomes corrupt.<p>[1] I&#x27;m notably a hypocrite with regards to Reddit. But just because I&#x27;m a hypocrite doesn&#x27;t mean I&#x27;m wrong.

Increasingly, I&#x27;m bothered by corporate activism. Now, it&#x27;s not merely a transactional exchange of value, but one of ideological posturing. I prefer business to be transactional, because it&#x27;s honest and straightforward. Everything else is a facade. This company doesn&#x27;t care about me. Google, for example, doesn&#x27;t care about &quot;not being evil&quot;. They just want dominance and money. They were supposed to be the anti-Microsoft and now, like the pigs in Animal Farm, I can&#x27;t tell the difference between them and the humans. Same goes for all the other tech monopolies.

I much prefer Facebook&#x27;s relatively laissez faire approach instead of Twitter&#x27;s politically biased approach where hateful things are allowed as long as they are from the left side of the political spectrum.<p>Drawing the line on what is hate speech is a hard enough problem already, and companies like Google, Twitter don&#x27;t even try to be impartial, their execs have clearly taken a side. Add to that the weird times we&#x27;re living in and how people&#x27;s fundamental moral ideas have diverted so much in the last 10 years, and you have a perfect disaster.<p>Facebook&#x27;s approach is less harmful than the alternative right now.

Boycotting Facebook ads for a month and a half. Then they&#x27;ll be back at it.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;patagonia&#x2F;status&#x2F;1274832569398292480" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;patagonia&#x2F;status&#x2F;1274832569398292480</a>

Are there any people trading on companies trading their profitability for moral righteousness? Many companies are doing poorly now anyways, but I wonder if it is actually possible to convert these types of actions into gains.

I find it scary that so many companies are asserting their political will so aggressively. I don&#x27;t think this will end well.

Yawn... So what happened to the #DeleteFacebook campaign.<p>With the number of times Facebook has been cancelled, one is still shocked their is anything to boycott.<p>Haven&#x27;t been a fan of Zucks but he has earned my respect for being the sane head in the Chaos.<p>Funny, they are also using Facebook to organize to boycott... That should say something to them

They really do make the best clothing I have ever owned, fantastic comfort, practical, good styling and colour palettes.<p>A great bonus that they also have a strong ethics. My jacket uses down that is certified as being cruelty free, the factories are checked for fair working practices.

I don&#x27;t like Facebook ads, and I wish there was no hateful messages. BUT I hate censorship even more and I think Facebook&#x27;s approach is better than Twitter&#x27;s. And personally even if I like Patagonia and North Face (own multiple products of both), I just won&#x27;t be able to buy their products anymore with a clear conscience because they push censorship. I think it&#x27;s fine to be a left leaning company, I know North Face and others have support immigration policies, which I&#x27;m all for. But trying to force other businesses to shut up is another level.<p>The beauty of this country is diversity. But if you are applying selective diversity until it fits 100% your views that&#x27;s not good either.

What are they asking Facebook to do?

Will they still let Facebook buy co-branded clothing?

They&#x27;re getting an awful lot of free advertising by grandstanding that they won&#x27;t pay for advertising.

...during July.<p>Goes to show which of the two companies is actually more powerful.

I do t think advertised boycotts will really sway Facebook. At the end of the day, they provide access to a billion users. That is valuable, and companies are going to pay money to advertise to those users.

Sitting here in my Patagonia shorts thinking that I will never buy another product from them. If they want to play in politics, they will lose half of their customer base.

Meta: what&#x27;s with the top-level comments in here? A lot of serious tangents, praising or digging at Patagonia&#x27;s practices, instead of focusing on the subject at hand. Trying to signal moral standing of the party in question, so people can decide how to respond to this action?

Where&#x27;s that picture of obama giving himself a medal when you need it?

Given there are a very large amount of nearly identical t-shirts and caps you can buy, a clothing company&#x27;s sole strategy is marketing. If you think this &quot;boycotting&quot; isn&#x27;t also marketing, you&#x27;re a sucker. Stop with all the comments about their &quot;principles&quot;. They sell goddamn t-shirts. Manufactured in China btw.

Facebook should indefinitely suspend any company who partakes in this from using their platform (advertising, fan pages, groups, etc).<p>See how much those companies like censorship when it impacts their bottom line.

Seems like a marketing ploy. Everyone is cutting spending right now due to the economic downturn. What better way to cut spending you were going to cut than turn it into a publicity stunt that translates into likes on Twitter!<p>Great time to buy outdoor apparel ads on FB, btw.

Does Patagonia have influencers or ambassadors on Instagram?<p>If so, this is a bit of virtual signaling as they&#x27;re still advertising on FB but not directly.<p>Facebook&#x2F;IG ads is one of the best ad placements left on the market, IMHO.