Lush to cease some social media till it is ‘safer’
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Lush said they will be closing their Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Snapchat pages. The new policy will be rolled out in all 48 countries Lush operates in.
Lush will continue to operate on Twitter and YouTube “for now” as it tries to “build better communication channels elsewhere”.
Chief Digital Officer and product inventor at Lush, Jack Constantine said: “[Social media channels] need to start listening to the reality of how they are affecting people’s mental health and the damage they are doing by their craving for the algorithm to be able to generate content all the time, whether or not it is good for the users . “
The retailer previously closed several of its UK social media accounts but said it was “back on the channels despite the best of intentions”.
It said it had decided to bring back “limited use of the channels we mothballed” to provide service to customers during the coronavirus lockdown.
Now, however, Lush said that despite the potential losses it incurs if it abandons platforms popular with its target audiences, it will stay offline for a year.
The company has four million followers on its Lush Cosmetics North America Instagram page and 1.2 million on Facebook.
“We already know there is £ 10 million of potential sales damage and we need to be able to reclaim that,” said Constantine.
“We have a year to get that back and let’s hope we can do it.”
Lush said the “serious impact” of social media was poorly recognized and compared the situation to “climate change has been ignored and mitigated for decades”.
In particular, Mr. Constantine highlighted algorithms that kept showing users content that could affect their mental health by aggravating unhealthy thoughts.
“You become something that you get so easily addicted to,” he added.
He also accused Facebook of removing chronological timelines from the platform, making it harder for posts from influencers and companies to be seen by their followers.
Mark Constantine, Co-Founder and CEO of Lush, said, “I have stopped putting harmful ingredients in my products my entire life. There is now overwhelming evidence that we are at risk when using social media: “I’m not ready to expose my customers to this harm, so it’s time to put it out of the mix.”
Lush said he hoped platforms would introduce “best practice guidelines” and that international regulations would be turned into law.
“We are thinking about how we can influence the world positively instead of negatively,” said Jack Constantine.
“We are definitely concerned that our presence on Instagram, Facebook, Tiktok and Snapchat is more harmful than healthy. We may have to check YouTube again, but we don’t see it as negative at the moment. “
