… insert appropriate tune above …
A friend posted this to Facebook:
STOP HATE FOR PROFIT
Advertisers are taking a break from advertising on Facebook, I’m going to do my part by being on Facebook less. A lot less. That’s fewer ads that Facebook can put in front of me and charge companies for.
WHAT CAN YOU DO?
- Spend less time on Facebook and Instagram
- DON’T click on any ads you see on Facebook or Instagram
- Don’t purchase from companies that still advertise on Facebook or Instagram
Just as I was considering this piece by WaPo’s Jennifer Rubin concerning how the behavior of the companies behind the various social media patterns should, and is beginning, to change:
Tech companies might finally see the handwriting on the wall. Reddit, one of the least-moderated platforms, has already had a change of heart. Banning a group with nearly 800,000 subscribers that became a haven for “racism, violent threats and targeted harassment,” Reddit’s chief executive, Steve Huffman, is now committed to eliminating hate speech. Other tech companies should follow his lead. Before the government or advertisers impose rules upon them that would undermine their business model or affect their content, it would behoove them to end the hostility toward outside criticism. Unless they adopt a collaborative approach that results in more self-regulation, they risk losing their biggest advertisers, becoming social pariahs and seeing the government begin to regulate micro-targeting and use of personal data. In other words, if they don’t clean up their act, they might see their business model collapse.
Given Rubin’s rational[1] conservative credentials, it’s a little surprising that she doesn’t place greater emphasis on the power of the consumer in this situation. If half the users of Facebook simply refused to click on ads – a practice that I personally denigrate and refuse to do – the change in habit would be swiftly reflected in marketing analytics, followed by the dropping of advertising rates by Facebook, or the abandonment of the platform by the advertisers.
Connecting this with Facebook’s refusal to fact-check all forms of political advertising should bring to the fore their anti-social qualities, and that they should be corrected at once. If we’re to be faced with company CEOs who worship the dollar like Zuckerberg and many of these others do, as testimony to the design of these platforms seems to indicate, then it’s necessary to hit them right in those pocketbooks.
But this may be a defining characteristic of non-specific social media companies: a vulnerability to both consumer and advertiser pressure. They must have consumers to attract advertisers and thus revenue; they must keep advertisers convinced that they are an honorable platform, especially as at least some corporate citizens are beginning to shift from the model of Let’s make money! to being actually good citizens.
They may perceive that if they make this or that change in response to complaints, they may lose some group such as, for instance, white supremacists. The trick is to realize that these small groups will not critically damage their profitability by their absence, and indeed may advance it – and improve society by reinforcing societal disapproval.
1 It’s sad that the corruption of the word conservative has become so universal that I feel it necessary to prefix conservative with a modifier to indicate my judgment of someone who, in a more sane world, would simply qualify as a conservative — temperamentally skeptical of change, but open to being convinced on persuasive argument. I have several of those sorts of friends.
