The world’s most famous social platform is amid a storm, being hit on several fronts. Scrutiny has been getting only worse since September 13
th
when The Wall Street Journal began running a series titled “The Facebook Files” causing shares of Facebook Inc (NASDAQ: FB) to drop 12% since then.
Massive outage
Just as Facebook’s Antigone Davis was live on CNBC
defending the company over a whistle blower’s accusations that it encourages hate speech for profit’s sake, company-owned services suddenly went offline for nearly six hours, making the company’s worst outage in years owed to a configuration issue. Ms Frances Haugen revealed internal research data that suggests Instagram is harmful for mental health of teens.
“The Facebook files”
On Tuesday, the former Facebook product manager testified in front of the senate that the company’s sites and apps harm children’s mental health and encourage society divisions, after she told CBS News on Sunday that she had shared internal Facebook documents with the Wall Street Journal that showed the app is harmful to girls’ mental health.
The 37-year-old turned whistleblower, heavily criticised the company during her hearing in the Senate. Founder Mark Zuckerberg didn’t keep quiet. He found the latest accusations to be illogical and at odds with the company’s goals.In a letter to staff, he even emphasized the company’s efforts to prevent and combat harmful content.
The world’s most popular social media site has 2.7 billion monthly active users but hundreds of millions of people also use the company’s other products, including WhatsApp and Instagram.
But the social media giant is being criticised for not protecting the privacy of its users as well as for not taking adequate action to combat the spread of disinformation.
Haugen claims that the company’s leadership is working in the shadows because it knows how to make the platformssafer, but it won’t make necessary changes because astronomical profits are prioritized over people.
It seems that Facebook fears Apple more than the regulators
Back during July’s earnings call, CFO David Wehner warned of the potential effect of the iOS changes that Apple Inc (NASDAQ: AAPL) introduced to give iPhone and iPad users a choice to opt out of being tracked for ad-purposes. Management expects to see a greater impact in the third quarter. In a September’s blog post, Facebook informed advertisers that it’s been underreporting performance on iPhones because of this change.
This time is different
Facebook’s business kept dancing in the rain even after the Cambridge Analytica scandal that involved improper use of data of 87 million Facebook members the site didn’t change much. This time around, this will hardly be the case. Zuckerberg still passionately believes that Facebook is a force for good but it’s getting harder and harder to find people on Capitol Hill who share his sentiment. His arguments are also at times overly simplified. He poses a question of why a company would want to make people angry, yet it’s been proven more than once that provoking any emotion, whether it’s joy or anger, increases engagement on social media platforms.
“The Big Tobacco moment of truth”
On Monday, for more than five hours, we remembered what life was like without Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. According to the 37-year-old whistleblower, the platforms were disabled from deepening divides in the society, destabilizing democracies and making girls and young women feel bad about their bodies. Big Tech is facinga jaw-dropping moment of truth just like when Big Tobacco firms hid the harmful effects of their products. AlthoughFacebook does not agree with Ms Haugen’s accusations, it did admit that it’s about time to create standard rules for the internet. Afterall, it’s been 25 years since they were updated. However, regulation is never good for business so it seems that this time around, Facebook will have to make some changes if it wants to stay in business.
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