Lush Cosmetics to deactivate its social network accounts

The U.K. retailer announced its plan Monday to cease posting on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and Snapchat

Lush Cosmetics will deactivate its social network accounts later this week in a bid to get tech companies to make online platforms safer.

The U.K. retailer, which sells bath and body products, announced its plan Monday to cease posting on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and Snapchat accounts by Friday.

The company has four million followers on its Lush Cosmetics North America Instagram page and 1.2 million on Facebook.

The company, which likened social media to “a dark and dangerous alleyway,” said the deactivation decision is meant to address consumers’ mental health challenges and will not be reversed unless the platforms are made safer.

There is now overwhelming evidence we are being put at risk when using social media, said Lush co-founder Mark Constantine, in a news release. I’m not willing to expose my customers to this harm, so it’s time to take it out of the mix.

Instead of using the platforms, Lush will invest in new ways to connect and for now can still be found on Twitter and YouTube.

Lush had previously tried to abandon social in 2019 with just its U.K. accounts, but came back when the COVID-19 pandemic began.

It said it decided to bring back “some limited use of the channels we had mothballed”, to offer service to customers during coronavirus lockdowns.

Lush is now bringing back the deactivation and applying it to all 48 countries it operates in because its “resolve has been strengthened” by information from whistleblowers who recently laid out harms young people face because of algorithms and “loose regulation.”

Over the last few months, Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen accused the company of prioritizing engagement and user growth over online safety.

Documents from the former Facebook data scientist suggested the social media giant knew about the harms its products cause and often did little or nothing to mitigate them.