The Facebook Scandal of 2018.
Facebook is a scary company. When I was younger, the platform was just a page on the computer. I didn't know how to use it, and my mom would scroll up and down on. Now and again, she would play games like Bejeweled or Mafia City, but it seemed like the site was just a bunch of nonsense posted by my mom's friends. Now that I'm older, I can see just how much of a waste of time and energy the site is. Yes, you can be 'friends' with your long lost family and see what they're doing, but who cares? Anytime I log on, I get to see estranged political discussion, family disowning family, and worst of all: Dallas Cowboy fans.
Up until recently, however, I never really heard of scandals involving Facebook. When I was younger, I remember everyone being excited about the new platform as they ditched Myspace. I don't ever remember hearing anything bad about Facebook until the mid-2010s, which is probably due to getting older and learning to listen to what's going on. However, no bad news about Facebook has hit harder than the 2018 Cambridge Analytica scandal, which is what I'm going to be talking about.
Background
In 2015, Harry Davies, a reporter for The Guardian, reported on illicit personal data harvesting by Cambridge Analytica through Facebook's apps. He claimed that Cambridge Analytica was working with United States Senator Ted Cruz to build voter profiles through Facebook ahead of the 2016 U.S. Presidential Elections. Three more reports were published through Das Magazin in December of 2016, The Guardian in February of 2017, and The Intercept in March of 2017. Facebook refused to comment on any of these claims, and the story fell through.
Things were silent until ex-employee of Cambridge Analytica Christopher Wylie emerged as a whistle-blower and confirmed the claims. The scandal erupted in March 2018 and crowded all of social media with trends to #DeleteFacebook. Founder Mark Zuckerberg was ordered by the Federal Communications Commission to testify in-defense of Facebook's activity in data-mining. Facebook stocks plummeted as shareholders attempted to get away from the company as quickly as possible.
Crisis Management
Facebook may have handled this scandal in the worst way possible, but I'm going to save the big-kahuna for last. Let's do a quick rundown of what they could've done better.
1. Faster Response Times - Facebook, and Mark Zuckerberg for that matter were very, very slow when responding to the media outcry. Not only did they decline to comment when the story first broke in 2015, but it also took nearly a month for the company to respond to the stories and the FCC.
2. Failure in Transparency - 'Fake News' is a big issue on Facebook as it's easy to spread. During the 2016 U.S. Presidential Elections, Zuckerberg and Facebook denied the spreading of fake news through the site and said that the company would be taking significant steps to continue to deter the spread of untruthfulness. However, the company was very reluctant to tell how they would be combating fake news or how the stories had begun to spread in the first place.
3. Being Authentic - There are certain companies that just 'feel right.' It's a hard nature to explain, but Facebook is not that. Facebook feels like a backstabbing friend who can turn on you an instant. What do you think about CocaCola? I don't feel like a refreshing Coke Zero would ever betray my trust.
So how did Facebook handle the scandal? The short answer: they didn't. To start, Facebook's PR Firm, Definers Public Affairs, has a PR issue of its own. The firm was found to have done some gossiping about other companies, such as trying to push a story about liberal bias at Apple or a negative article about the scooter company, Bird. To make matters worse, the firm was accused of pushing out fake news through Facebook, which they of course denied. To put the icing on the cake, Zuckerberg, in a conference call with journalists, announced that, "In such a company of over 10,000 people, you don't get to hear everything." In addition to that, Zuckerberg was robotic during the FCC hearing, which quickly became a meme. Nice job, Mark!
The apology letter from Facebook came in the form of full-page front-page ads in nine newspapers in the United States and the United Kingdom apologizing for their breach in trust to their members. The ad made headlines across the world.
Facebook is still feeling the effects of this scandal, and we'll probably all be hearing about it for years to come.
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