MOSCOW, September 24 (RIA Novosti) - Facebook will sever ties with a controversial rightwing group against climate change legislation called the American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec), The Guardian reported Wednesday.
"We reevaluate our memberships on an annual basis, and are in that process now. While we have tried to work within ALEC to bring that organization closer to our view on some key issues, it seems unlikely that we will make sufficient progress so we are not likely to renew our membership in 2015," Facebook was cited as saying by the newspaper.
The company made the decision to refrain from funding the group late Tuesday, following both Google and Microsoft who also halted cooperation with Alec.
Google's chairman, Eric Schmidt said after cutting ties with the controversial group this week that he believed Alec was "making the world a much worse place." Schmidt added that the group's denial of climate change was "just literally lying."
Microsoft separated itself from the group in August claiming its views "conflicted directly with Microsoft's values."
"Alec's position on climate change is really indefensible outside of a room full of coal and oil lobbyists. There is now an enormous amount of pressure on public-facing companies like eBay and Yahoo to join Google and Facebook in leaving Alec. Anything less is going to end up hurting their brands," director of research at the nonprofit Center for Media and Democracy, Nick Surgey was quoted as saying by AFP.
Facebook along with other tech firms originally sided with Alec supporters in the name of tax cuts, immigration reform among other issues.
Companies which remain connected to Alec include Exxon, Koch Industries, eBay and Yahoo who are now all under pressure to sever ties.
In the past Alec was supported by companies including Amazon, Coca-Cola, General Electric, and McDonald's, but lost its sponsors in 2012 after the group's support of the "stand your ground" legislation following the shooting of an unarmed teenager, Trayvon Martin, in Florida.
Alec is a non-profit organization which acts as a forum for state legislators and private sector leaders to discuss public policy issues. The organization has over 2,000 Republican and Democratic state legislators as members.
