Kim Kardashian West, who has one of the biggest Instagram followings in the world, said Tuesday that she would be joining other high-profile users in a protest against Instagram’s parent company Facebook and its handlng of misinformation and hate.
Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Orlando Bloom, Kerry Washington and Sacha Baron Cohen are among those also taking part in the protest, which is slated to take place on Wednesday.
“I love that I can connect directly with you through Instagram and Facebook, but I can’t sit by and stay silent while these platforms continue to allow the spreading of hate, propaganda and misinformation,” Kardashian West wrote in a post published to multiple social media accounts Tuesday.
She added, “Misinformation shared on social media has a serious impact on our elections and undermines our democracy. Please join me tomorrow when I will be ‘freezing’ my Instagram and FB account to tell Facebook to #StopHateForProfit.”
The coalition of civil rights groups that organized July’s Facebook ad boycott announced on Monday it was calling on companies and celebrities to stop posting on Instagram for a day on Wednesday to protest Facebook’s handling of hate on its platform and to call on the company to stop allowing politicians to lie in political ads.
The organizers, including the ADL and NAACP, pointed to Facebook’s failure to shut down the page of a Kenosha militia group as one reason to protest.
Asked about Kardashian West’s announcement, a Facebook spokesperson declined to comment.
