Participating in the Facebook Ad Boycott

Update, July 20, 2020: Montanya has made the following donations related to this ad boycott and in support of Black Lives Matter: $555 to the Colin Kaepernick Foundation, $350 to the ACLU Foundation of Colorado, and $350 to the Loveland Foundation.

As a small business, every day brings decisions that affect the wellbeing of our company, our employees, our community and our planet. Some days, these impacts are obvious. Some days, we have to think deeply about the effects because they’re harder to see (but nonetheless there). It is this kind of careful consideration that has prompted us to join a boycott of Facebook advertising and paid promotions throughout the month of July.

The sign in front of Montanya, drawn by our bartender Kass.

Companies like Patagonia, the North Face, Starbucks and Ben & Jerry’s are answering a call from civil rights groups to join the boycott as a statement against Facebook’s “hands-off policy” toward content that is factually inaccurate, inflammatory, or promotes violence. While the company has publicly pledged support for Black Lives Matter and donated funds to the movement, the platform enables the spread of messaging that undermines the movement by inciting violence and hatred. Our decision to participate is not political, it is moral.

Why We Are Participating in the Facebook Boycott

As a small business whose Facebook advertising spend is quite frankly minuscule compared to the retail giants joining the boycott, we ultimately decided that we could not ignore this opportunity to take a stand. Here’s why:

• We have professed our support for radical change when it comes to how Black citizens are treated in this country, and this is one way to demand it.

• Nearly 76% of Facebook advertising dollars come from small to medium sized businesses (learn more here). If businesses like ours don’t join the boycott, its impact will be limited.

• With so much learning to be done about how to be good allies and do so without putting the burden of our own growth on the Black community, this is one step we know we can take.

• To ignore it is a form of privilege. The system at Facebook is set up in a way that we can get what we need from it without having to see the harm it causes. That is exactly the type of systemic issue that people are protesting.

• We support the right to free speech but not the right to hate or violent speech in any form.

Joining is also in alignment with a quote that we have looked to for guidance, shared in Cleo Wade's book, Where to Begin: "There are times when we must speak, not because you are going to change the other person, but because if you don't speak, they have changed you."(Although recent adjustments coming from Facebook, such as content warnings, suggest they’re paying attention.)

How We Will Communicate During July

This post from Cleo Wade has given us a lot of inspiration and guidance. The irony is not lost on us that we’re boycotting ads on social media when social media helped us find it. That’s just one reason we’re joining the boycott. Social media holds value for us and our rum fans—it’s more important than ever, then, to make it better.

Some articles have highlighted the difficulty small businesses face in participating in the boycott because they depend on Facebook to connect with customers. This is true for us as well. Facebook is one essential medium through which we connect with our local community and with Montanya rum fans across the country and around the world. It is especially important now as we attempt to balance the busiest season in our Tasting Room with the need for stringent safety protocols related to COVID-19.

As a result, after much consideration, we will post on our page, but we will not pay to boost posts or place ads. We will do the same on Instagram, which is owned by Facebook. Here’s why: There are so many systems we need and use in life to connect with others and have the resources we need to thrive—the idea isn't to quit them but to change them.

To stay in touch with us please visit our Facebook page. To see the content in your feed, click on the three dots on the top right, select "follow" or "following" and then select "see first." This will help you see our posts even though we're not paying for that to happen. We will also continue to communicate through our website, our blog, and our newsletter which you can sign up for at the bottom of this page.

What We Will Do with the Advertising Funds

We will donate the funds that would typically be spent on Facebook advertising to the ACLU Foundation of Colorado and The Loveland Foundation. If you’re able, we encourage you to join us in doing so or donate to the organizations of your choosing. In the face of such widespread unrest and the sheer magnitude of the problems, it can feel difficult to know what to do. We choose to believe that each small step adds to the one that came before—ours and those of our friends, family, neighbors and rum fans—until they too grow in scale and create real change. ❤️