“We build technologies to give people the power to connect with friends and family, find communities and grow businesses.” from the FACEBOOK purpose statement.
One part of Facebook’s brand positioning (or is it Mark Zuckerberg’s?) is built around its desire to not be “arbiters of truth” and this position entailing non-censorship of political, violent or racist posts on its platform, is starting to look decidedly precarious. Not only does it reflect the company’s moral ambiguity but its especially exposed when it already imposes what it calls “Community Standards” and, for example, censors nude images in artworks on its platform. Thus the right to be somehow immune from the effects of purposeful and sometimes improper use of its technology to incite or malign becomes dangerous to defend.
Already this week large corporate business such as big advertising spender Verizon are pulling advertising from the platform, not just for a month, but are permanently pausing their activity until they say Faceboook ‘can create an acceptable solution that makes us comfortable". In 2019 Verizon was estimated to have spent $2.64 billion across all media (see Verizon advertising spend) so its likely it will have some impact. This comes alongside an already announced month long advertising pauses from Ben & Jerry’s USA, North Face and Patagonia.
While it’s clear this is not going to make a big dent in the $4.9b revenues it reported in the first quarter of this year, its brand and brand reputation are likely to face further damage until Zuckerberg starts to align the business closer to those of others in the tech sector like Twitter and Google who have made better effort.
The problem with Facebook is that its failure to stamp out racism and violent posts on the platform doesn’t equate with very principled brand values - “be bold; focus on impact; move fast; be open; and build social value”. As an enabler brand, it sees its role as a technology creator and facilitator and thus a distant hands-off role with any ill use of its technology (like most brands in the sector). All of this starts to sound both morally ambiguous and dangerous as it continues to allow comment and images that flout social norms. The fact is that Facebook, in enabling this kind of misusage of its technology, has by its very nature become a publisher and thus an arbiter of morality (and that is just another truth), whether it likes it or not. Its 28 pages of “Community Standards” not only proves its acceptance of this role but it also continues to sustain the continued precariousness of such an argument.
Even as last year’s Facebook rebrand seemed to resolve some structural issues around the role of the parent company, it failed to address the dissonance in its brand values and now it finds its revenue base wanting, as Verizon does, it to act more judiciously. On Friday 26 June Facebook reportedly acknowledged what it describes as “trust deficit” in a call to advertisers, its basic inaction might soon translate to action once some significant threats are made to its $70b annual ad revenues by larger corporates around the world. In the end its not something Zuckerberg can tough out forever.
On Friday 26 June Zuckerberg announced several steps Facebook would take to eliminate hateful content in ads, stamp out false claims leading to the 2020 US elections, and make progress on racial justice. This was after Facebook CocaCola and Starbucks joined Unilever in the social media boycott and Facebook's share price fell 7%. He added Facebook would hide or block content considered hateful or that could harm voting, with no exception for politicians, as Twitter has done.
On Friday 26 June Zuckerberg announced several steps Facebook would take to eliminate hateful content in ads, stamp out false claims leading to the 2020 US elections, and make progress on racial justice. This was after Facebook CocaCola and Starbucks joined Unilever in the social media boycott and Facebook's share price fell 7%. He added Facebook would hide or block content considered hateful or that could harm voting, with no exception for politicians, as Twitter has done.
