Facebook: Time to Face the Music
Leslie GottliebThe precipitous $119 billion fall of Facebook stock recently underscored the precarious position of the social media monolith. It is time for Facebook to face the music.For years the tech giant has pursued policies which have threatened the privacy of millions, harmed our democratic process and spread false information and fake news.Let’s look at 2 of the most egregious examples:
Russia’s Influence in the 2016 Presidential Election
In 2016 following the Presidential election, CEO Mark Zuckerberg immediately said the idea that Facebook has influenced the election was “crazy.” Its official position then was the company was “unaware of any cases of Russian agents buying ads to influence the US politics.” It issued a similar statement in July, 2017 eight months later.Finally, after mounting pressure from Congress and the public, Facebook was forced to change its tune. On September 21, 2017 after an internal review it said it found more than 3,000 ads bought by 470 accounts and pages run by a Russian troll farm.In November, 2017 Zuckerberg was called to testify before Congress. Senator Diane Feinstein warned “We are asking about …the beginning of cyerwarfare. We are talking about a major foreign power with sophistication and ability to involve themselves in a presidential election and sow conflict and discontent all over the country. We are not going to go away gentlemen.”Aware of Congressional pressure, market forces as well as public concern, the company announced a number of actions. It said it would identify the buyer of each ad, hire thousands of new staff to check for hoaxes and recruit third party fact checkers and allow them to mark hoaxes as disputed. It bought newspaper ads etc.And last week Facebook was uncharacteristically proactive when it disclosed it found a political influence campaign potentially designed to disrupt the midterm elections from similar sources as the Russian interference in 2016.
User Privacy Protection
In March 2018 media reports disclosed that as many as 87 million Facebook users may have been compromised by Cambridge Analytica, a political data firm hired by President Trump’s 2016 campaign, which gained access to private information from Facebook including the personalities of Americans and information about their friends.Initially, Facebook said it routinely allows researchers to have access to data for academic purposes and users consent to this. It later admitted it had learned about the data breach in 2015 and asked them to fix it, but discovered later they had not. However, Facebook failed to inform the pubic or its investors about the breach. Some investors sued the company. This followed a 2011 Federal Trade Commission suit against FB for deceiving consumers by telling them they kept their personal FB information private. FB settled the case.The public response? In a Reuters/Ipsos poll March 26, 2018, only 41% of Americans said they trust Facebook to obey laws that protect their personal information.Again under pressure from the public, lawmakers, FB users and some employees, in May, 2018 it announced it had suspended about 200 apps related to the investigation yet it declined to provide more details such as how many people were affected. It also outlined many steps it would take such as: notifying users whose data was included in the set allegedly received by Cambridge Analytica; Investigating all apps with access to Facebook data and demanding audits of any app with "suspicious activity"; and launching a tool at the top of the News Feed that will show users which apps have access to their data and allowing them to revoke those apps' permissions.Also in May, 2018 the European Union -- which has been much tougher and more aggressive against Facebook, Google and other tech giants for serious infringements -- fined Facebook $122 million for giving misleading information about its acquisition of Whatsapp.Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes told CNBC in May, 2018, he doesn’t think FB has done enough to protect users’ personal data. He suggested the public should put pressure on FB to ensure data are secure, including a consumer date protection bureau. “There is a sense these companies have gotten very big very fast. Perhaps too big.” he added.As practitioners and personal users Facebook continues to be a major force. Even with its stock down, it has more than 2 billion monthly users worldwide. We still need to advise our clients, companies and organizations and how best to connect to its vast audiences and key influencers.However, I can’t simply divorce my personal and professional use of Facebook from its corporate policies of delay, deception and dissembling. So I will be an activist – online and off -- to urge FB to act responsibly, to urge the FTC and other regulatory agencies to be vigilant and urge Congress to be stronger and curb the abuses not only of Facebook, but Google and other megatech giants.As communications professionals we know the basic tenets of good PR: own your message, tell the truth, take responsibility upfront for mistakes or harm you caused, apologize and be sincere, describe specific steps you are taking to alleviate the problem and then tell the public what you accomplished. From a communications perspective I would grade Facebook a D.Maybe last week’s disclosure of a new Russian threat demonstrates that the company has learned important lessons. I hope so. A good corporate citizen is supposed to protect our privacy and our democracy -- not just their bottom line.
About the Author: Leslie Gottlieb, LG Strategic Communications, is an expert in successful integrated strategic communications, marketing, digital and media campaigns for leading organizations.
