A week ago last Friday, I began writing a blog post about the pressure on Facebook from politicians, employees, advertisers and some users to change their algorithms to do a better job of limiting hate speech, racist language and violence-inducing posts. I stopped writing because I said to myself, “Self, you’d better wait and see how the story develops and if more advertisers join the boycott and if the boycott forces Mark Zuckerberg to change his hands-off policy of not factchecking Trump or other politicians or censoring hate speech, racist language or violence-inducing posts.”
The New York Times, in both news and opinion, the Washington Post, and publications and online newsletters such as Media Post, Digital News, The Information, Stratechery and POLITICO among many others have reported on the Facebook censorship and boycott issues. I have followed the controversy and tried to keep up in order to make sense of it. And over the 4th of July weekend, I finally realized, to quote Macbeth, “It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”
So, who’s the idiot?
Not Mark Zuckerberg, whose stock in Facebook on Tuesday, July 7, made him worth $85.4 billion, which put him #3 on the list of wealthiest Americans, behind Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates, just ahead of Warren Buffet.
Zuckerberg has resisted changing Facebook’s no-censorship policy using a freedom-of-speech argument, and has said that Facebook does not want to be arbiters of the truth. He has made some cosmetic changes after being pressured by #StopHateforProfit, a group formed by the Anti-Defamation League, the NAACP, Sleeping Giants, Color of Change, Free Press and Common Sense. The #StopHatyeForProfit group asked corporations to suspend their advertising on Facebook (and its Instagram subsidiary) for the month of July, and about 500 large national advertisers have announced they have pulled their advertising for July.
Zuckerberg’s response has been, “they’ll be back,” which is probably correct, although it was announced on Tuesday, June 7, that Zuckerberg and Facebook COO, Sheryl Sandberg, would hold a virtual meeting with major advertisers to hear their concerns.
What is all this sound and fury about?
For the last half of this past spring semester, I taught my two graduate courses on Zoom. All of my 38 students were isolated at home in America or India or Brazil or Russia. In order to keep my students occupied and engaged in learning, when The New School semester ended, I offered a free, no-credit, six-week course, not associated with The New School, to my current and several former students.
I had 21 students sign up for the course titled Competitive Strategies and Game Theory. The required text was Brandenburger and Nalebuff’s classic book, Co-opetition. Chapter 7: Tactics discusses the use of tactics in competitive strategy. The authors write that the goal of tactics in the game of business is to change perceptions – perceptions of competitors, customers, suppliers and complementors. The idea is that you don’t have to change your business model, change your overall business strategy or change your pricing, you just have to change perceptions.
In the Facebook boycott controversy, the #StopHateForProfit pressure group is trying to change the public’s perception of Facebook. National advertisers such as Unilever, Coca-Cola, Verizon and Starbucks are pulling their adverting for July, and are trying to make themselves look good by making statements, according to The New York Times, such as, “Facebook has not done enough to address” hate speech and disinformation (Denny’s). Or “Facebook’s failure to stop the spread of misinformation and hate speech on its platform” and saying that “this inaction fuels racism and violence and also has the potential to threaten our democracy and the integrity of our elections.” (Levi Strauss & Company). Or “At Pfizer, our Equity Value is core to who we are as a company, and all forms of hate speech go against that value.”
Zuckerberg’s reaction?
BBC News reported that Zuckerberg’s response to the boycott was, “My guess is that all these advertisers will be back on the platform soon enough.” He added, “We’re not going to change our policies or approach on anything because of a threat to a small percent of our revenue.” The comments were made to Facebook staff at a private meeting. Zuckerberg’s tactic was to create the perception among employees and investors that Facebook is just fine, and not affected by the boycott, which is undoubtedly the case.
Investors must agree with Zuckerberg, because since he made that statement on July 1, Facebook’s stock has risen from $237.55 to $240.86 on July 7.
So, does the sound and fury of all of these dueling perception-fixing tactics really signify nothing? And if so, who is the idiot? It’s not Zuckerberg or Facebook. The situation is a win-win for Facebook, #StopHateForProfit, large national advertisers and investors. Facebook looks good to free-speech advocates and doesn’t take down hate speech or violence inducing posts. #StopHateForProfit looks good because they can claim they led an advertising boycott movement. Large national advertisers get to sound oh, so self-righteous and goodie two shoes in addition to saving money. Investors make money as the stock go up. None of them are idiots; they are all winners.
So, who is the idiot? I think it is the news media that dutifully report on all of the perception-distorting tactics without context and as though the sound and fury signified reality. The news media rarely covers the biggest loser in these perception wars.
The biggest loser is decency. Facebook users will continue to be engaged by dopamine-producing posts that contain lies, hate speech, racist slurs and that encourage violence, and national advertisers’ ads will appear next to this trash. The advertisers can shout their highfaluting values, but they want to sell toilet paper and cell phone data plans to everyone, no matter their political leanings, so they will be back.
Hello hate speech. Goodbye decency.
