When is it not “thumbs up” to give a customer what they want Facebook? When the algorithms aren’t altruistic perhaps?

Facebook has made it clear that their main objective, and indeed the success of their social media site, is customer engagement, including providing the customer with well-matched advertisements and news stories tailored to their specific interests.  It is in fact an amazing business success story and a marketer’s dream so is there really anything not to like? Well possibly, as there are questions about the undue influence it might have had in the political arena and who knows where else?

In the 2016 election, many of the stories on the internet were misleading, poorly reported and sometimes made up for example Facebook users falsely learned that the pope endorsed Donald Trump when he didn’t. These kinds of stories are contributing to the so called “post-truth” world where friends and emotional responses are being believed, are indeed more engaging, than facts, logic and truth itself which represent a more difficult and challenging side of life. Google has tried to address the problem by no longer giving fake news sites access to its advertising network thereby depriving them of a key revenue source and Facebook has followed suit. 

These internet companies have grown rapidly and are now a terrifyingly powerful force within our social fabric and culture.  Surely with their size and power must also come true accountability and responsibility? It is disingenuous or naïve of CEO Mark Zuckerberg to make money out of data manipulation (masquerading as customer engagement) without full recognition of his company’s power and potentially dangerous capability. Surely the obsessive drive for more accurate algorithms must now be tempered with a clear corporate responsibility strategy and a heavy dose of altruism and ethical purpose. That would help to give Facebook the real thumbs up by engaging all its stakeholders.