Are Americans Over Facebook?

When social media sites, such as MySpace, Facebook and Twitter were originally introduced, they were simply meant to be used as a simpler form of communication between friends.  But as people realized the capabilities of social media, the advancements and fallout since their inception have been far beyond anyone's imagination.  Will social media continue to be a tool we can use to communicate with our friends and family and platform we can use to convey our ideas and products to the public or will it be the breaking point for all of us and what finally tears us apart?

Based on a recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, fifty-seven percent of Americans say social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook do more to divide the country than unite it (Murray, 2019).  That's a pretty staggering number if you think about it.  What was once considered an innocent form of communication, used to look up pictures of friends and family, communicate with people

The ship from our Disney Cruise vacation, 2015

from your past, and post photos from your vacations (so all your "friends" could either be jealous of your life or for our family and friends to see the fun you just returned from) has turned into something completely opposite of its original intended use.  Its now a way for us to spew hate, "unfriend" people based on their views, discriminate against certain age groups; religions; genders; etc., and even how multiple companies track user's personal information for advertising and research purposes.
Lately, Facebook has been on somewhat of a damage control roller coaster.  For the last few years, their user numbers have been declining and it seems as if their CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, has been doing all he can to keep the people's trust in his company.  But what went wrong with social media sites such as Facebook?  Why is the public's trust in them declining so much?

Mark Zuckerberg testifying before the Senate on April 10, 2018 

Last March, Reuters posted results from a poll that showed only 41% of Americans trusted that Facebook would actually obey they laws when collecting personal information about them online (Kahn & Ingram, 2018).  "Facebook, the world's largest social media firm, has been offering apologies as it tries to repair its reputation among users, advertisers, lawmakers and investors for mistakes that let 50 million users' data get into the hands of political consultancy Cambridge Analytica (Kahn & Ingram, 2018).  Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook's Chief Operating Officer, Sheryl Sandberg, have both ended up having to testify before the Senate regarding their actions, or lack there of.

Whatever your political affiliation, social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter have been right in the thick of our elections since 2016.  For the few who are unaware of what the Cambridge Analytica scandal involved, they are a political data firm who violated the privacy of over 50 million Facebook users.  Their sole purpose was to identify certain behaviors of the American people on Facebook and use social media to manipulate their thoughts and ideals (Granville & Amendola, 2018).  By doing this, people were fighting online based on comments made or about memes posted, conversations at the dinner table were becoming more hostile by the day and friends who went to church together were no longer on speaking terms.  It was insanity!  But this actually started a couple years before the election.  How did they gain access or get the people to cooperate with their data collection?  Simple.

Researchers made fun, interactive surveys for users to take, which then collected their information based on their results.  But it also collected the data from their friends and their friends' friends, etc. (Granville & Amendola, 2018).  When caught, Facebook lied about this, thus making their problems even worse.  How can we trust a company where we post our most intimate secrets, have multiple pictures of our families and friends as well as advertise our companies and products to potential customers, when they can't keep our information private?  Trying to reassure the American people, Mark Zuckerberg said the following in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on January 24, 2019, regarding privacy and disruptive content:  

I want to explain the principles of how we operate, ultimately, I believe the most important principles around data are transparency, choice and control.  [Facebook] does not sell its user data, since doing so would be counter to our business interests, because it would reduce the unique value of our service to advertisers (Murphy, 2019).

What makes this even more disturbing is what happened next.  Only four days later, they were doing damage control again.  TechCrunch broke the story that Apple had shut down Facebooks' Research app on iOS overnight because they had found out they were paying users, including teens as young as 13, to "install a Research VPN with Root network access to spy on all their mobile app activity, web browsing, and even encrypted communications" (Constine, 2019).  They claimed they weren't using anyone under the age of 18, and that participants had to confirm their age.  But when pressed about this, they admitted that many of the users under 18 had probably lied about their age, since they didn't require proof of age.  Again, when asked about it, Facebook lied.  They originally claimed after the incident happened in January 2019, the numbers of teens in the program to be much less than actually true.  When members of the Senate pressed them on this issue in February 2019, they had to back-peddle and try to "clarify" their original answers.  Its almost like every time they get into hot water, they lie in order to cover themselves.  Then, when faced with the truth, they have to spend more time digging out of a hole than if they had just been honest with the American public in the first place.

Josh Constine with TechCruch put it best:        

Facebook’s attempt to minimize the issue in the wake of backlash exemplifies the trend of the social network’s “reactionary” PR strategy that employees described to BuzzFeed’s Ryan Mac. The company often views its scandals as communications errors rather than actual product screwups or as signals of deep-seeded problems with Facebook’s respect for privacy. Facebook needs to learn to take its lumps, change course, and do better rather than constantly trying to challenge details of negative press about it, especially before it has all the necessary information. Until then, the never-ending news cycle of Facebook’s self-made disasters will continue (Constine, 2019).       

So basically, its always someone else's fault, and then they are having to apologize instead of getting ahead of their problems.  For a 15 year old tech company the size of Facebook, there is no reason they should be having this many errors anymore.  Its no wonder the American people are losing faith in them.  And with tech companies developing new applications every day, its only a matter of time before Facebook either needs to gets it together or gets left in the dust.  
    

References

Constine, J. (2019, March 1). Facebook admits 18% of Research Spyware Users Were Teens, Not <5%. Retrieved from https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/28/facebook-research-teens/

Granville, K., & Amendola, E. (2018, May 14). Facebook and Cambridge Analytica: What You Need to Know as Fallout Widens. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/19/

technology/facebook-cambridge-analytica-explained.html

Kahn, C., & Ingram, D. (2018, March 25). Americans Less Likely to Trust Facebook than Rivals on Personal Data: Reuters/Ipsos poll. Retrieved from https://www.reuters.com/
article/us-usa-facebook-poll/americans-less-likely-to-trust-facebook-than-rivals-on-personal-data-reuters-ipsos-poll-idUSKBN1H10K3

Murphy, M. (2019, January 24). Mark Zuckerberg Defends Facebook's Business as 'Still Evolving and Improving'. Retrieved from https://www.marketwatch.com/story/mark-zuckerberg-defends-facebooks-business-as-still-evolving-and-improving-2019-01-24

Murray, M. (2019, April 5). Poll: Americans Give Social Media a Clear Thumbs-Down. Retrieved from https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/meet-the-press/poll-americans-give-social-media-clear-thumbs-down-n991086