Should Companies Disavow Facebook?

Facebook’s struggles over the past three years are readily identifiable at this point. The dogged focus on expansion and growth, the selling of customer data, the denials and then eventual apologies, the attempt at public confidence building, and then a repeat scandal process have become almost routine. We’ve more often read about Mark Zuckerberg and the shortcomings of Facebook over the past three years than most other stories, Russia not withstanding (though these topics are inexorably interwoven). As someone whose role at a nonprofit partly includes overseeing the company’s social media channels, I have focused my attention on Facebook’s multitudinous scandals because the ethics and ethos of my company are reflected in our presence on Facebook’s platform. I have wrestled with whether we should continue to remain on the platform and what would be the proverbial red line that would indicate our needed retreat. Was it Cambridge Analytica? Was it the accumulation of customer data and call logs? Was it Zuckerberg’s mechanistic attempt at being a real human? I’m asking these questions while reading that we are beyond the point of questioning the importance of social media to digital marketing efforts (Vaynechuk, 2013). Ultimately, I’m asking myself and my superiors the question “Do the benefits of a capitalistic company outweigh the horrendous ethics of an amoral corporation bent on global expansion regardless of casualties?”

The past week has felt different. The latest Facebook scandal feels like the red line has come and passed. In October 2017, after years of slow leaks from Facebook and journalists over Facebook’s role in the 2016 election, Facebook hired Definers Public Affairs. Definers was founded by GOP presidential political operatives who specialized in applying campaign tactics to corporate public relation strategies (Frenkel, Confessore, Kang, Rosenberg, & Nicas, 2018). Facebook’s and Definer’s political tactics began in innocuous support of bills that other tech companies shunned as a way to curry favor with politicians and the public. Soon, however, Definers took a more insidious approach. First, Facebook used Definers to impugn opponents like George Soros, a billionaire who funds Democratic policies and candidates and is cast as a villain by the GOP (Frenkel et al., 2018). Soros has disparaged Facebook’s role in the 2016 election, so Definers sought to float stories to outlets that cast Soros as the architect of anti-Facebook protests. Next, the company employed Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer, whose daughter works at Facebook, to convince GOP colleagues to back-off their criticism and investigation of Facebook. Government scrutiny of the company, Schumer argued, should ease so that it can work with Facebook (Frenkel et al., 2018). Finally, it used a third-party, NTK Network, to distribute stories criticizing Facebook’s rivals, most notably Google (Nicas & Rosenberg, 2018).

One could rightly argue this happens everywhere and Facebook is no different. True, I’ll concede that. But should that matter? Should it matter that other companies employ deceitful tactics that disparage rivals and curries favor with politicians? Shouldn’t we care what companies are doing? It is our choice whether to use these companies or not. That’s how capitalism functions. Supply and demand and all of that. Facebook is actively targeting politicians so that it can escape retribution for its role in the 2016 election and in its continued role in atrocities across the world. Further, Facebook is courting politicians so that it can continue expanding with its role in global geopolitics being a backroom byproduct as it “brings the world closer together” (the corporate mission statement). I’m not sure I have an answer to this and I’m not sure I know when I’ll push my company more on removing our presence on Facebook. But Facebook’s devolving into a corporate menace means we should be more scrupulous in whether we attach our institutions or ourselves to companies that are actively working to the make the world a worse place. This is surely a longstanding question that many organizations over the decades have faced, but the technology is enabling companies like Facebook to do more damage across the world. We should start paying more attention and caring more about what organization’s are doing throughout the world.

Frenkel, S., Confessore, N., Kang, C., Rosenberg, M., & Nicas, J. (2018, November 14). Delay, deny and deflect: How Facebook’s leaders fought through crisis. New York Times, Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/14/technology/facebook-data-russia-election-racism.html?module=inline

Nicas, J., & Rosenberg, M. (2018, November 15). A look inside the tactics of Definers, Facebook’s attack dogs. New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/15/technology/facebook-definers-opposition-research.html

Vaynerchuk, F. (2013). Jab, jab, jab, right hook: How to tell your story in a noisy social world. HarperCollins Publishers: New York.