• TechDigest, Monday, August 6, 2007 11 AM

Corporate responsibility is great, but advertisers pulling ads from Facebook isn't what the site had in mind. Sure, it's appropriate for brands to stay away from videos of violent beatings and fights circulated on online video sites like YouTube, but to withdraw advertising from Facebook because it could end up on pages run by a right-wing British party is ridiculous.

Fearing such an inappropriate brand association, Vodafone and First Direct, two major British advertisers, decided to take advertising off Facebook a few days ago. Virgin Media, the AA, Halifax and Prudential all followed. Regardless of their political affiliation, the BNP has every right to run a network on Facebook, and Facebook users have every right to espouse their beliefs on the site. The ridiculous thing about the decision is that it looks as though these brands think Web consumers actually think that advertisers on BNP pages are affiliated with the party.

"Corporate responsibility is to be applauded, but I don't think this is the right way to go about it," TechDigest's Jonathan Weinberg says. "I'm still waiting to hear of the firms ditching the sites showing youngsters brandishing guns on video..." Moreover, most Web users understand that brands have no idea where ad-servers will place their ads.

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