Messaging app Viber on Thursday announced it is cutting ties with Facebook over its mismanagement of user data and failure to combat violent rhetoric.
Viber with over 1 billion said that effective immediately, it will stop all ad spending on the social networking platform, and it plans to remove Facebook Connect, Facebook SDK, and Giphy from the app by the start of July.
Viber CEO Djamel Agaoua said, “Facebook continues to demonstrate poor judgment in understanding its role in today’s world.
“From the company’s mishandling of data and lack of privacy in its apps to its outrageous stand of avoiding the steps necessary to protect the public from violent and dangerous rhetoric, Facebook has gone too far. We are not the arbiters of truth, but the truth is some people are suffering from the proliferation of violent content and companies must take a clear stand.”
Viber’s announcement references Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica scandal as a major cause for concern, and calls the platform’s inability to curb the spread of hate speech following the killing of George Floyd “the last straw.”
Viber which is owned by Japanese multinational company Rakuten says it hopes its decision serves to “level up” the Anti-Defamation League and NAACP’s #StopHateForProfit movement, which calls on Facebook’s advertisers to pause ad spending during July in light of the proliferation of hate speech on the platform.
