Facebook rebrands amid its worst PR nightmare

For well over three weeks, Facebook has been in the eye of the storm – and there has been no respite or hiding place for the popular social networking platform. Who doesn’t know about Facebook or who doesn’t use Facebook?

Whistleblower Frances Haugen, 37, a former employee of Facebook, it would appear, is on a mission to “save Facebook from itself”. Well, as a data scientist, her last job role at Facebook, Haugen may not just be an ordinary whistleblower – she’s seen it all. Haugen has been a pain in the neck of Facebook and she’s hugging the spotlight and her new found celebrity status in the process.

After testifying before Congress in Washington, Haugen flew to London to also meet with UK lawmakers and her story was the same: Facebook is prioritising profit over people. That was and still is a damning allegation that has damaged the reputation of Facebook in the eyes of the world, leading to trust deficit.

A brand’s biggest asset is trust and whenever that trust is violated, it means big trouble for the brand. It should be noted that no brand is too big to fail but in the case of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg — its founder /CEO — and his team have been re-inventing their products and services over the years. They have always been a step ahead others including Zuckerberg’s deliberate “ambitious and expansionist” strategy.

Regulation is in order and Zuckerberg says he’s ready for it, but attempts to crack down on social media and how they amplify global communication will surely back fire. I don’t know how many people have deleted the Facebook app since the leaked documents by Haugen started making headlines.

Facebook helps people around the world to build great connections for free. What could be better than that? There has been so much attention on Facebook as if other social networking sites do not exist, yet they do. There are so many of them and they all push content for profit.

In fact, Facebook has continued to receive tons of free publicity across major news networks, thanks to whistleblower Haugen. Facebook is still trending because it is a mega brand and it wasn’t going to go down without a fight.

A brand that has close to three billion users by the time you add WhatsApp and Instagram users is significant – more than one-third of the world’s population — and it will continue to be so. This is because our lives of comfort and convenience are built around technology.

Are our tech companies creating monsters that they cannot tame? I don’t think so. We are in the age of the knowledge economy and as they continuously re-invent themselves, we must understand that today’s tech ecosystem is very seductive with its charming products and services. Ask Netflix, Apple, AirBnB and Uber. What of Google, YouTube, Twitter, Snapchat, Tik Tok and Telegram?

Even if technology brings about media convergence, the reality is that many more “Facebooks” will be created as technology evolves. It is happening already as we learn more about Internet of Things, Augmented Reality, Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain and 5G Technology.

Our new and highly interactive world would be dominated by a bouquet of new apps as we produce new computer programmers and data scientists. Make no mistake about it, we now live in a virtual world and you can work from anywhere in the world. We never used to be able to make video calls but new things are happening every day.

When Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp experienced a major outage the other day in much the same way broadcast stations go off air, the initial suspicion was that the apps suffered a cyber-attack. For about six hours, no one could use any of the apps, and because of their popularity and flexibility, it was like oxygen supply was cut off from three billion people.

The outage was clearly an internal problem but it was remarkable. Although Facebook later explained that “configuration change to their router” caused the six hours down time, it is still unclear whether Facebook deliberately shut down the apps to prove a point.

It was a rather strange co-incidence that all the three apps went down about the same time Haugen was giving her testimony inside the hallowed chambers of Capitol Hill.

Facebook is expanding fast and the company is ready to buy any app, not just for the sake of it but to show it can compete strongly with the big tech brands. Facebook bought Instagram for $1 billion 18 months after it was launched in October 2010 and subsequently acquired WhatsApp when it was five years old for $19 billion.

WhatsApp is arguably the most popular medium of communication in the world today – it is versatile and robust. With WhatsApp, you can make long distance calls for free as long you have internet access. That is a major gift and the users will not forget the benefit and service provider in a hurry.

Mind you, Facebook once hinted that it would launch its digital currency, Libra. When that happens, every Facebook user is expected to have a digital wallet that would open up a world of endless possibilities in financial transactions and e-commerce.

It is understandable why Zuckerberg is doubling down over Haugen’s allegations. She alleged that Facebook is “spreading hatred, violence and misinformation”. These are serious allegations but what does Haugen really want from Facebook? Is this all about regulation or there’s more to it?

I won’t be surprised if Facebook is attracting sympathisers as a show of solidarity. Facebook investors were worried and the company’s shares dropped by about 15% – an expected consequence of the events — but Facebook is actually making more money, earning $29 billion as the third quarter report shows amid the crisis triggered by the leaked documents.

Facebook’s revenue is growing year on year through higher priced adverts. The company earned about $70 billion in 2019 and $86 billion in 2020. Facebook revenue may jump to about $100 billion or more by the end of this year.

The Facebook crisis was also an opportunity for bi-partisan consensus to be achieved by US Congress men and women, a gesture not extended to President Biden’s domestic agenda; he’s been experiencing one road block after another. This is not the first time Zuckerberg or any of Facebook senior executives would appear before Congress to explain issues relating to hateful content and privacy policy.

Too often, the spotlight is on Facebook because of its widespread digital footprints. The company keeps moving from one crisis into another through automatic revolving doors. At one point last year, Facebook suffered advertising boycott after civil rights groups in the United States boxed the social media giant into a tight corner over what they called the network’s “unsatisfactory hate speech policy”.

Then Facebook also faced serious public scrutiny over the Cambridge Analytica scandal. In early 2018, a data analytics firm, Cambridge Analytica and Facebook, were implicated in a massive data breach where personal data from over 87 million Facebook users had been improperly obtained.

Like a cat with nine lives, Facebook managed to come out of the scandal. But Zuckerberg cannot deny the fact that Facebook has been used to promote culture wars, especially in the United States. Hateful contents that should be taken down quickly are ignored until it is too late.

Zuckerberg must pay attention to the allegation that Instagram endangers the lives of teenagers. Since Haugen proved that the Instagram algorithm has the capability of pushing harmful contents that can cause mental breakdown, of what use is the app? Even CNN confirmed that a content that promoted eating disorder among teenagers on Instagram was only taken down after the news network brought it to their attention.

What has become obvious is that Facebook cannot police itself. The same thing applies to all other social networking sites. Parliaments around the world are keen to come up with regulatory frameworks for social media activities.

In Nigeria, Twitter is still not active after the ban announced by the federal government some months ago. Lai Mohammed, the information and culture minister, says social media platforms will be regulated.

Let us be clear: regulation is not a problem but cracking down on the media for reporting news that are “unfavourable” will always be counterproductive.

No doubt, Zuckerberg’s legacy is seriously threatened as Facebook tries to push back and deny Haugen’s allegations in what can easily pass as the biggest crisis facing the company since it was launched as a social networking service in 2004.

Facebook still has to contend with another problem: scaling up its diversity and inclusion policy. Blacks constitute less than four percent of the entire workforce. The re-branding effort embarked upon recently will be more meaningful if Zuckerberg opens up the space for a more diverse workforce.

Unfortunately, the phrases that have been associated with Facebook lately are, “toxic influence”, “hate speech”, “misinformation”, lack of fact checking,” “mental and eating disorders”, “putting money before safety and its users,” and so on. But misinformation – which is not acceptable — stretches beyond Facebook and it should be a strong PR argument for Zuckerberg and his information managers.

Going forward, attention will shift from Facebook — amid its current crisis — to Meta, its new corporate brand identity. All the other company’s products and services will retain their names and remain the way they have been known.

Will the rebranding make Facebook safer? Zuckerberg should come clean and tell us. However, what he is doing with Meta is to look beyond the moment – move away from the backlash and confusion created by whistleblower Haugen – and embrace the future.

The future is “Metaverse” which Zuckerberg believes will be a successor to the mobile internet, where people will be “working and playing in an immersive, three dimensional world.”

Whereas other billionaires such as Elon Musk, Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos are spending their fortunes on space exploration, Zuckerberg is spending billions of dollars on his new pet project – Metaverse — that blends augmented reality and virtual reality together; it is a fully immersive online experience that looks similar to the real world but is computer generated.

To experience Metaverse, people may need to wear virtual reality headsets as they immerse themselves in a virtual world. If you are able to imagine the excitement and thrills our kids derive from their Play Station games, or when we watch movies with 3-D glasses, it should give you an indication of what Zuckerberg is up to with his Metaverse.

Braimah is the Publisher/Editor-in-Chief of Naija Times (https://naijatimes.ng)