A whistle blower from Facebook could be the straw that broke Mark Zuckerburg’s back, obviously not financially. Facebook literally makes squillions of $$$ every second. How does a multi-billion dollar company stay true to billions of users and millions of advertisers simultaneously? Side note: Advertisers contribute the largest percentage of revenue to Facebook’s $28 billion dollars (give or take) of revenue each quarter (Dec 2020 figure).
Internal documents collected over years by Ms Frances Huegen showed that Facebook can be a polarising platform that “hurts some children’s self esteem and abetted human trafficking” as discussed in this New York Times piece. This has now become a contested issue at Facebook HQ, a divider amongst employees. The range of responses are wide and they reflect a divided company in a polarised society. Some employees believe that Frances Haugen has reported what other employees have been suggesting for years and that no-one in the executive was listening. Other employees believe that Ms Haugen has a bone to pick with the company and she was not technically astute to know how and/or where Facebook had improved their services, over the years, to protect its users. Mr Zuckerberg himself is, unsurprisingly, denying everything stating that her claims are “pretty easy to debunk.”
However, it was enough to ruffle Zuckerberg’s feathers and withhold the launch of Instagram for children AND make a desperate attempt to clean the slate. Facebook has rebranded as Meta, this is public relations 101. When a company has so many scandals behind it including, but not limited to, election fraud, data mining, user privacy and spreading misinformation, the only way to get out of the mud is to rebrand. Although, Mark is attempting to rebrand without actually talking to anyone that might criticise him or the company about it’s new found direction or name. The social media giant Facebook no longer wants to be associated with its suite of other apps, Instagram and Whatsapp to name a few. The monopoly is real and intimidating for smaller players and nullifies the essence of competition.
On the back of Mark Zuckerberg’s announcement to get on the Metaverse enterprise, the press was annoyed and ambivalent. Complete dismay was on display in Rusty Foster’s blog post, Kissing the Zuckerbutt, providing real examples of how archaic Mark Zuckerberg’s new look actually was, check out Today in Tabs. Maybe it is time for Zuckerberg to find a new project, as recommended by Ms Haugen, and leave the Metaverse for a cave to reflect on his life experience to this point. Report back Mark when you are ready to repent.
