The State of Social Media One Year After Stop Hate for Profit
By: Mesh Communities
Tags: Social Media, Stop Hate For Profit, Creators, Creator Economy, Surveillance Advertising

The State of Social Media One Year After Stop Hate for Profit Mesh Communities Jun 17·4 min read

Written by J. Zakira Wise and Caldwell Clarke

One year ago, in response to protests ignited by the murder of George Floyd, Donald Trump posted, “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.” Despite an obvious promotion of racism and violence, Facebook refused to remove the post. In response, a handful of activist organizations, including the ADL, NAACP, Color of Change, Common Sense Media, Free Press, and Sleeping Giants organized Stop Hate for Profit, a campaign calling for advertisers to boycott social media companies for the month of July in an attempt to persuade the social giants to change their policies and enforcement of hate speech. The boycott was joined by hundreds of large advertisers, celebrities, and organizations, including Adidas, Ford, Verizon, and Hershey.

While the campaign did elevate the conversation around ethics in social media to a more mainstream audience, it didn’t make a dent in social media platforms’ profits (profits have actually increased since summer 2020). It wasn’t until the January 6 insurrection, incited by a “Stop the Steal” disinformation campaign organized and amplified on social media, that we saw a broad cultural reckoning of the dangers of social media and surveillance advertising.

In response, platforms pledged to invest in AI to detect and remove harmful content and accounts, appointed oversight boards, and changed their policies. But, to quote surveillance expert and Harvard Kennedy School Shorenstein Center Visiting Research Fellow Chris Gilliard, “if the left hand is promoting Nazis or selling white supremacist gear, and the right hand is saying Black lives matter, those are inconsistent. It can’t be both.” The problem is not enforcement. The problem is not policies. The problem is the business model. When a company’s revenue depends on surveilling users, trapping them on their platform, and extracting as many ad dollars as possible, your product is going to be addicting, exploitative, and harmful.

A number of venture-backed social startups are trying to address the toxicity of surveillance advertising by promising a completely ad-free experience. But that doesn’t serve creators or small businesses, considering that the single highest revenue source for the majority of creators is advertising.

To “fix the internet,” we can’t just throw away a key part of the ecosystem. We have to address the root of the problem. We have to fundamentally change the business models and incentives that drive our individual and collective behaviors. We have to move to Community-based Advertising.

An Introduction to Community-based Advertising

We designed the Community-based Advertising model around three core ideas:

People want more control of how their data is used and their overall online experience Creators want to monetize their content and community Small businesses want to connect directly with their consumers in a brand-safe environment

How does it work? The simple explanation (we’ll dive into more details in later articles), is that community-based advertising establishes a direct relationship between advertisers and the creators that build our online communities. Creators choose brands (and vice versa) that share their values to advertise to their community and keep the majority of the revenue. In-feed ads, community sponsorships, video ads, audio ads, branded content — the possibilities are endless. This relationship creates a financial incentive for editorial responsibility and makes creators accountable for the safety of their community.

If adopted by the entire social ecosystem, the Community-based Advertising model would:

infuse 60% of the $100B+ in annual ad revenue that currently goes to a small handful of giant corporations back into creators and their communities.

reward trust and safety in addition to engagement.

establish accountability loops for all stakeholders.

center privacy and consent.

fund local journalism and reduce the spread of disinformation.

support small businesses and value-based consumerism.

Say Hello to Mesh, the Architects

Like most people, we’ve found joy on social media. Discovered new artists. Learned new perspectives. Made friends with random internet strangers. Social media is not all bad. But it has to be better.

We founded Mesh to build a fair and sustainable economy for communities and creators. We want to cultivate a safe and trusted space for people to exchange ideas, build meaningful connections, and share quality content.

Over the next few months, we’ll release more in-depth articles about the big problems we are trying to solve, the desired outcomes, and our proposed solutions. Most will be co-authored and/or edited by the domain experts on our team. Our goal is to start a conversation, so we’ll cite our research and our sources, and encourage you to reach out with feedback, corrections, counters, and questions.

If you believe in what we’re building and want to:

- invest, you can own a piece of Mesh for as little as $100

- build a community, you can sign up

- advertise, you can join our waitlist

- join our team, you can say hello

- write about mesh, you can contact us

- follow our journey, you can subscribe to our newsletter and see us on Mesh!