We can no longer in good conscience be on, or pay money to, a platform that is unwilling to take a stand against dangerous, toxic propaganda by extremist groups or messages of violence and misinformation by Donald Trump and the groups associated with him. Therefore, we have made the decision to permanently delete our Facebook page and cease all advertising spends on any Facebook, Inc. products (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, etc). We also believe that if enough people choose to leave the site, it will decrease the power that it has chosen to give to dangerous lies and deceptive messages. So, with that in mind, we hope that anyone in a position to do so thinks about doing the same. For now, we will remain on Instagram and we know this might raise some questions, so we have provided a full explanation of our decision here.

What happened?

Last week, Donald Trump posted on Facebook threatening to use the military against protesting citizens, adding “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.” Despite clear policies that prohibit Facebook posts from inciting violence, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg decided to make an exception for the president, leaving the post up. As Facebook engineer Timothy Aveni put it upon resigning this week, “Facebook will keep moving the goalposts every time Trump escalates, finding excuse after excuse not to act on increasingly dangerous rhetoric.” We cannot continue to be on a platform that allows such dangerous rhetoric to take place, especially when it comes from a position of such power as the president.

Helpful resources:

The New York Times: Early Facebook Employees Disavow Zuckerberg’s Stance on Trump Posts
Facebook mutiny by Judd Legum
CNBC: Civil rights leaders say they’re ‘disappointed and stunned’ after call with Facebook’s Zuckerberg and Sandberg

Why leave Facebook?

A business’s presence as a page on Facebook helps the platform in several ways:

• Facebook, Inc.’s company value lives and dies on the number of active users and pages on the site. Its value to advertisers and shareholders is directly linked to the number of people on the site. So the fewer users and pages there are, the less value and leverage the company has.
• Having a Facebook page sends a signal to others that we are at the very least not appalled enough at their actions to leave. But we are.
• Facebook collects our data and the data of others with whom we interact on the platform, which is in turn used to generate revenue for itself.

Why stop advertising on all Facebook, Inc. products (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp)?

Spacebomb has spent around $15,000 on advertising across Facebook and Instagram to help promote our artists and music we release. This is fairly normal amongst even small companies, because the way Facebook’s algorithms work mean that a small percentage of a page’s followers see any given post organically without spending money to “boost” it or advertise using the post. We no longer want to provide any direct money to Facebook, Inc. at all, so we will find other routes to spend that marketing money to help promote our artists and sell music.

But Instagram is owned by Facebook, Inc. Why remain on Instagram but delete Facebook?

It’s likely that the reason you’re here is that you found our message on Instagram. We believe there is value in continuing the conversation, and for now, Instagram is the place where the largest part of the community and the conversations are happening. While it’s tempting to remove ourselves from the entire Facebook, Inc. ecosystem, we feel the need to not completely disassociate so that we can continue having a voice. We will regularly review our use of Facebook, Inc. products, and if we can find a new place to communicate with enough people, we will be there.

Why not stay on Facebook so you have a voice there?

We considered this and decided that as a company, turning our Facebook page into a platform to have dialogues with those we may not agree with isn’t how we choose to engage with making change. We’re doing this elsewhere, but not on Facebook.