Facebook’s critics have often argued that the social media platform’s policies are too permissive, citing phony news articles designed to influence voters in the 2016 election.
But for one customer, adult entertainment firm Playboy Enterprises, the rules aren’t liberal enough. The Los Angeles-based company said Wednesday that it will deactivate its accounts, blaming claims that Facebook data was improperly used by a consulting firm linked to President Trump’s 2016 campaign.
That was merely the icing on the cake, though.
“We’ve tried to craft our voice for the platform, which in our opinion, continues to be sexually repressive,” Cooper Hefner, the company’s chief creative officer and son of founder Hugh Hefner, said on Twitter. “Learning of the recent meddling in a free U.S. election further demonstrates another concern we have of how they handle users’ data” and made executives realize it’s time to sever ties, he said.
More than 25 million customers visited Playboy’s Facebook pages, and the company doesn’t “want to be complicit in exposing them to the reported practices,” it said. “Playboy has always stood for personal freedom and the celebration of sex. Today we take another step in that ongoing fight.”
We are stepping away from Facebook pic.twitter.com/4yFIdk2eDE
— Cooper Hefner (@cooperhefner) March 28, 2018
Playboy’s announcement will likely brighten the spotlight on Facebook, whose CEO is facing pressure to testify before Congress after disclosing that Trump campaign consulting firm Cambridge Analytica obtained some user data through a third party.
Trump, ironically, appeared on the cover of Playboy magazine in 1990, and former Playboy model Karen McDougal claims to have had an affair with the real estate mogul in the mid-2000s.
