Don't Scapegoat Facebook—It's Far
Too Easy
How much blame does Facebook actually deserve in the wake of
the Cambridge Analytica Scandal that gravely affected the
outcome of the 2016 presidential election? Perhaps only Mark
Zuckerberg knows.
Facebook
Stock Chart Highlighting Date of Trump Entry Announcement for
2016 Presidential Race
3/21/18 J.D. Lakota (Boston, MA)
Facebook's
stock price has done very well since June 19, 2015. In the
one-year period prior to Donald Trump formally announcing his
run for the presidency, Facebook stock bobbed along at about
70 dollars a share. In the year after, it topped 100 dollars
for the first time, continuing skyward to a high of $185 shown
above.
What the chart doesn't show is the recent losses from the
stock being down over 10% in the last two days due to the
widely reported revelations about data theft and targeting
that came to light courtesy of a Cambridge
Analytica whistleblower.
Needless to say, Facebook made money off of advertisements
used to target voters for nefarious purposes. But, how much
money did they make? What percentage of their revenue was derived from these
ads? Did they know it was a problem and allow it to continue
because those ads drove revenue for opposition advertisements
as well? All valid questions.
When it comes to just the
presidential campaigns themselves, the Hill reported in
November of last year that both campaigns together
spent a total of $81M on Facebook advertisements. A
relatively small amount when compared to the $10.3B in revenue
FB brought in in just one quarter of that same year. That's
less than ten percent of a single quarter, but that figure
doesn't include the rest of the political machine on both
sides of the aisle.
Facebook in Focus
On ly Mark knows if
Facebook expressly benefited from the online battlefield
created through the purchase and proliferation of the divisive
ads. Interestingly, though, Mark's New Year's resolution was
to "fix Facebook." Apparently, he understood that something
was indeed wrong.
Under the guise of stifling free speech, shutting down
fiendish advertisers during a heated campaign battle might not
have even seemed like an option at the time. In hindsight, the
world learned how powerful a force was actually wielded. Maybe
Facebook fell to the same fate. Hindsight 20/20 for all, even
Mark Zuckerberg?
Think of
Facebook as building with broken glass around the entire
perimeter. Those who compromised Facebook not only broke in
and stole, but they stayed for a while. They used the building
and its capabilities for an extended period of time. The
broken glass "surrounding" the building was almost entirely
invisible, until recently. If Facebook was simply under-prepared,
overwhelmed, and naive, scapegoating them is akin to blaming a
soldier fresh out of boot camp for "losing the war." It's one
that has been raging since the late eighties.
If you're old enough to remember the name Michael Dukakis, you
also probably remember the name Willie Horton. During the 1988
presidential race, the same type of media manipulation was
used, but it was for the very first time. Historically, the first
"fake news story" was fabricated and propagated for the
purpose of swaying a presidential election. Facebook was
compromised in the same way, using new dirty tricks from that
same old playbook.
|
