If you’re a regular reader of this site, you already know my feelings about Facebook. The company sells everything they know about you to the highest bidder. They have proven time and time again that they are incapable of keeping your private data safe. And the site is a great tool for individuals and nation states that want spread hate and meddle with elections.

In short, Facebook is a cancer on humanity, and it needs to be shut down.

Over the last couple of years, there has been a gradual shift in people’s attitude towards Facebook. They are beginning to realize that the company is indeed bad. But how can regular people like you and me make Facebook change its vile ways? As consumers, a boycott is one way of telling a company that we don’t approve of them. Consumers have to vote with their wallets, because money is the only language corporate executives understand. The challenge with boycotts, however, is that it needs a lot of people to participate for it to be efficient. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of a single consumer boycott that has made any real difference.

But if a consumer boycott won’t make much of an impression on Facebook, perhaps an advertisement boycott by big brands can negatively impact the company’s bottom line?

#StopHateForProfit

As a reaction to Facebook’s continuos inability to silence the most venomous snakes on their platform, hundreds of brands are now boycotting Facebook by halting their advertising on the site. As of the time of writing, 804 brands have joined the #StopHateForProfit campaign. I’ve never heard of the majority fo the brands in the list, but there are certainly some sluggers among them, like the Volkswagen Group, Verizon, The North Face, Target, Starbucks, SodaStream, Siemens, SAP, Reebok, PUMA, PlayStation, Pepsi, Microsoft, Levi’s, LEGO, HP, Honda, Coca-Cola, and Adidas¹.

The vast majority of Facebook’s revenue comes from advertising, so this is a move that could potentially hit them where it hurts. But is the boycott really that efficient? When the #StopHateForProfit campaign get some traction last week, Facebook’s share price took a dive. Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO and evil social media villain, had $7 billion wiped off his fortune when it was announced Coca-Cola halted all their social media advertising for 30 days.

But it turned out to be a very temporary success. Now the share price is pretty much where it was last week, and Zuckerberg’s pile of dirty money has grown back.

Delete Your Facebook Account Today

Even though I wholeheartedly applaud the effort, I’d be surprised if the #StopHateForProfit campaign is able to make any real difference. Facebook might pretend they care by making a few superficial changes to their pretty much non-existent content vetting process. To quote Zuckerberg himself; “my guess is that all these advertisers will be back on the platform soon enough”. I think he is absolutely right. That these big brands pause their advertisement on Facebook for 30 days will not make a difference for the social media company.

Nothing will really change and Facebook will continue to grow into an even bigger pile of shit that will eventually cover us all.

But Facebook itself isn’t really the problem. The problem is you, the person who still have a Facebook account. The company’s business model revolves solely around what you feed Facebook with. Your likes, your comments, your pictures, your clicks, your messages, your friends, your family, your colleagues, and every single bit of personal information they can gather about you. In short, Facebook’s business model is to sell your privacy, your personality, and your life to advertisers.

If you delete your Facebook account there will be no data to collect and sell to advertisers. No users means no advertisers, which means no money and eventually no Facebook. If you don’t like what the world is turning into, you have to realize that Facebook plays an integral role in that transition. You can help counter this by deleting your Facebook account. And then you can try to convince your friends, family, colleagues, and every single person you talk to that they should also delete their Facebook accounts.

And in the end, the giant will fall.