Why Verizon stopped running ads on Facebook – and what the social-media giant needs to do next

Verizon, the telecoms company, halted its advertising spend on Facebook, the social network, in relation to a concern about brand safety, and is actively working to help tackle this problem.

Social-media platforms have been on the receiving end of a backlash from many large advertisers in the last year, as the effort to fight hateful and misleading online content draws greater attention from the corporate world.

This long-simmering dispute between brands and the titans of social media – especially Facebook – reached new heights due to the COVID-19 pandemic and widespread protests in support of the Black Lives Matter movement following the death of George Floyd in May 2020. These events inevitably caused a wave of divisive and deceitful content to spread, and to fresh calls from advertisers for measures...

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