The scary face of Facebook

Roopinder Singh 

The live streaming, on Facebook, of the terrorist killings in Christchurch, New Zealand, sparked off widespread revulsion, and criticism of the social media platform. New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s response to the tragedy has won her many admirers worldwide. She promised to, and within a week, banned the kind of assault rifles used in the attack. Her empathy with the victims stood out for its genuineness and, unfortunately, a rarity in this time and age.

Now some firms in New Zealand are removing their advertisements from Facebook. The PM wants answers from Facebook regarding how such a video was allowed to be shared and asserts that the responsibility for the removal of videos from the scene ultimately rests with social media platforms. For the record, YouTube, too, struggled to remove the shooting video. 

The Association of New Zealand Advertisers (ANZA) and the Commercial Communications Council’s joint statement is telling: “The events in Christchurch raise the question if the site owners can target consumers with advertising in microseconds, why can’t the same technology be applied to prevent this kind of content being streamed live?” 

It is highly unlikely that the answer to such a question will come from Facebook. Zucked, however, provides it: “The goal of growth hacking (the company’s mantra)... is to generate more revenue and profits, and at Facebook, those metrics blocked out all other considerations. In the world of growth hacking, users are a metric, not people. It is unlikely that civic responsibility ever came up in Facebook’s internal conversations about growth hacking.”

The book by one of the earliest Facebook admirers and investors, who has now turned into a critic, is timely. It lays bare the culture and much of the inner working of the social media behemoth. Google and Twitter also make guest appearances, in this book that scares the reader.

Zucked comes at a time when the social media giant’s callous disregard for the privacy of its users’ data as revealed by the Cambridge Analytica scandal became just one of a series of consequences of bad decisions taken by the management, which means Zuckerburg. The growing unease about the manipulation of Americans in the presidential election by Russian players, as well as Facebook’s role in the Brexit referendum showed its capability in subverting democratic institutions.  The Rohingyas of Myanmar were targeted using Facebook, as were the ethnic Tamils in Sri Lanka, where the platform was banned for some time. 

India has the largest number of Facebook users in the world, more than three-fourth are men. Social media criticism, however, has been concentrated more on WhatsApp, owned by Facebook, which has often been used to spread dissent and feed mobocracy. Many times administrators have chosen to shut down access to the Internet in times of social disorder. 

 “Facebook has managed to connect 2.2 billion people and drive them apart at the same time,” says the author. Indeed it has, and for the most part, managed to get away with apologies rather than being forced to reform its ways. It has managed to escaped largely unscathed from the scrutiny by the US Congress. Indeed, it moved its data centres from Ireland to escape the European Union’s scrutiny and strict interpretation of consumer-centric privacy laws. The only pressure that has had an effect is that of the advertisers. Well, that too is happening. After the Christchurch massacre, ANZA and the Comms Council challenged “Facebook and other platform owners to immediately take steps to effectively moderate hate content before another tragedy can be streamed online.” New Zealand’s Lotto pulled its advertisements from Facebook, and others were considering it. AirAsia chief Tony Fernandes quit the platform citing Christchurch as the last straw that broke the camel’s back. The backlash may be small, but Facebook, of all entities, should realise that it can snowball very quickly indeed. 

Will the social media giant learn? History suggests that it will merely weather it out, as it has done with other such crisis. After all, if anyone knows the inflexion points of the fleeting nature of human engagement and the art of manipulating it, it is Facebook. As we go to print, it has been reported that user passwords were visible to Facebook employees. This is a massive breach of trust, and history has many ruins of massive companies who took consumers for granted, till it was too late.