Facebook Inc, the social media giant with more than 500 billion dollars stock market valuation has been in the controversy for the past few months. The company is facing probe, settled cases with Securities and Exchange Commission and Federal Trade Commission, and is being investigated by Department of Justice. Federal Trade Commission imposed 5 billion dollars on the company on 25th July.
The governments across the world have become more suspicious of big tech firms in the last few years. Many technology companies are facing probe over privacy issues, tax theft in the European Union, the United Kingdom and many Asian countries. “The online technology industry and our company have received increased regulatory scrutiny in the past quarter,” said Facebook in its press release. Facebook is at the center of the people’s and government’s distrust over technology companies.
People are increasingly becoming more vocal against the technology giant. #AndThatsWhyIHateFacebook is among the top trends on Twitter for last two days. Many important problems with the platform were pointed out by many users.
The first and foremost problem of users is data security. The issue is with the revenue model of Facebook, selling user’s private data is a major source of revenue for the company except for advertisement. The social media giant accepted that it sold user data to four Chinese companies including Honour and Huawei.
Recently, Facebook released a statement that personal data of more than 14 million (1.4 crore) people have become public between the period of 18th May to 27th May. Before that, the company found itself in Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal. The scandal was the first major case where the public came to know that their private data on Facebook is being used by companies without their consent.
Facebook CEO, Zuckerberg had to testify before the US Congress in data breach scandal. Many public fund shareholders of Facebook backed the proposal to remove CEO Mark Zuckerberg from chairman position over the issue of ‘multiple cases of data breach’
https://twitter.com/ineffably_why/status/1154882185826115585
“It’s basically a massive government data gathering operation where people unknowingly but freely and willingly reveal information about themselves,” said a Twitter user.
Another problem with Facebook is that the social media giant is highly intolerant towards the people having ‘illiberal’ opinions. The company which aims to bring the people across the world together and make human interactions easier have a very discriminatory attitude towards people from diverging opinion. In India, the social media giant targets users who post updates and tweets in support of Hindus, the Trump supporters in the United States, Brexiteers in the United Kingdom and conservatives across the world are being targeted by Facebook.
The issue of data breach became more important due to politicization of social media platforms. The conservative pages have accused Facebook for ‘shadow banning’ of non-liberal content.
“I’m in Facebook jail for 30 days for hate speech for using the word “cracker”. In a comment. *Years* ago. Referring to the baked grain snack,” tweeted a user.
The third problem with the platform is flagging. A set of people with similar ideology form a group and flag things they don’t like and Facebook will delete the post, page or profile. This gives trolls way too much power and make the people with different opinion to the will of the majority. “F*** you and your flagging system,” tweeted a user.
Fuck you and your flagging system. #AndThatsWhyIHateFacebook pic.twitter.com/7g2hs47Dil
— ⚔️ | 🤺 | 🗡 (@LycanVisuals) July 26, 2019
Poking which is considered weird in today’s culture is still part of the Facebook feature. Pokers also have the weirdest habit of poking at the worst times. The unemployed and free people could irritate anyone using this feature.
#AndThatsWhyIHateFacebook All the damn poking pic.twitter.com/mGEnhPU5Yw
— 🍁Canadian Fletchy☘️ 🌻🇺🇦 (@Darth_Pingu) July 26, 2019
The primitive social media company is losing to Twitter in hashtag game. It is easy for the users to unite for a cause or could know the opinion of other people on the subject and the people.
There Are No Hashtag Games #AndThatsWhyIHateFacebook pic.twitter.com/KG2qLyxLWu
— Micah (@chasingdinner) July 26, 2019
Facebook has put its commercial and stakeholder’s interest above the user’s choice. The largest chunk of the company’s revenue comes from advertising and it has become very difficult to differentiate between organic posts and sponsored posts.
Every other post is advertising. #AndThatsWhyIHateFacebook
— Jenny Lucas (@Wordy_Birdy) July 27, 2019
The company has many other problems lying ahead. The number of users has saturated. The company lost more than 1 crore users in the United States in the last few years, the markets from Asia and Africa have little potential in terms of revenue. So, even if the users from these companies add up, the overall revenue will decline if the users from rich countries leave the platform. The privacy issues and increasing number of advertised post have forced the people to delete their account.
Facebook is not alone is the game of inflating user preference for videos, Snapchat and Twitter did the same. However, social media users still prioritize text over videos. “Overall, our study shows that online news video consumption is growing in many countries, but more slowly than some in the industry had hoped or predicted,” wrote Antonis Kalogeropoulos of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University in 2017 in a research paper.
The company has also started prioritizing video content as it could generate more revenue through advertisement but the people prefer text content on the platform.
