I made mention before that while I decided to invest in Facebook, that I was not necessarily a major user of their service (I even temporarily deactivated back in 2014). Disclaimer; I still own FB.
All of this recent issue and fallout with the Cambridge Analytica scandal (data breach) does not come as a surprise to me though since bottomline, users of the service (and the information which they provide) are the product. It’s not called “social engineering” for nothing (which the platform did a relatively decent job with getting members to input their private information; something which I never did including the correct birthdates, places lived, my interests, etc.)
And Facebook isn’t the only one; I’ve long since mentioned that Google has as much or even more skeletons in its closet (wouldn’t be surprised that there are some executives there breathing a sigh of relief that Plus failed as a social networking service) and I doubt they will escape scrutiny because think about it; Google Search is a ubiquitous service where search results can and have been gamed when it comes to relevancy.
The biggest reason why Facebook is being rightfully raked over the coals though is the scale of the data breach and how much the Russian troll factory had their hands in Facebook propagating a false narrative leading into the 2016 elections. The companies original arrogance when it came to how huge an impact their platform has (where it can be considered a publisher and broadcast medium) is indicative of their executive mindset of the company at that time.
Zuckerberg will be testifying in front of congress and it likely won’t be pretty. I also believe that COO Sheryl Sandberg should also be forced to testify because a lot of this falls under her responsibility as being the point of contact for the day-to-day operations where they know users data is key to how the company sustains itself (via advertising revenue). There needs to be acccountability and much of it falls squarely in her lap as opposed to stating the obvious that they should have done things differently with handling this data breach.
I also believe the free reign of these social media platforms will be coming to an end because none of them have been able to properly self-regulate themselves when they had the chance. Simply updating privacy agreements (which are way too wordy and legalese to begin with) isn’t going to cut it anymore. Facebook offering a single “opt out” button for everything is likely not going to happen because they would then lose their keys to the kingdom (and offering it as a paid product would likely cause more people to just simply get off of Facebook). And they are going to have an uphill battle with winning back many peoples trust.
As for my shares of Facebook, it makes little sense for me to sell now (I’m still way up from where I purchased most of those shares). At the same time, I don’t see the same long term growth potential now once the company is weighed down with regulations (doesn’t matter if external or internal) as well as continued scrutiny.
