Facebook’s latest scandal: Will this time be different?

I think it’s safe to assume that, if you’re reading this, you’ve read plenty about Facebook’s latest PR nightmare, the unauthorized access to 50 million Facebook profiles by Cambridge Analytica.

Now, this is hardly the first time Facebook has found itself in an angry web of its own making. And maybe it will blow over like the others have, chipping away at the company’s public image, but leaving most people where they started: begrudgingly logging into Facebook to keep track of peoples’ birthdays, communicate with friends and family overseas, store photos, and to be assaulted by endless pictures of children and engagement announcements.

But, maybe this time is different — Facebook’s stock dropped more in the wake of this incident than after any of the revelations around Russian interference or fake news event.

It’s too early to tell whether this is just the proverbial straw, or where the damage will net out, but I’d very unscientifically like to posit that, beyond cumulative effects, there are two key factors at play.

1. Mark Zuckerberg’s silence (which has been attributed to a prioritization on identifying and rectifying the factors that allowed this to happen in the first place) allowed others, be it members of the media, members of congress, or members of Facebook’s network, to set the tone. Their narrative was far less forgiving than Facebook’s would have been.
2. This one felt personal. Sure, the idea that one may have unknowingly encountered Russian propaganda, bots, or impostors leading up to the election is unsettling, and has huge implications for how we conduct ourselves as a democracy, but many people are of the opinion that they wouldn’t have fallen for it. Regardless of Cambridge Analytica’s success or failure to fulfill its promise of “data-driven behavior change,” the fact that they were able to gain access at all is the real issue. It represents a blatant disregard for the protection of Facebook’s most valuable asset: our data. (The question of whether Facebook should own “our” information at all is a whole other conversation.) Further, many of the profiles harvested and reviewed had not consented to making their information available. There was nothing you could have done to avoid this other than opt out of the service — hence the trending #deletefacebook.

So, will this be the nail in Facebook’s coffin…or is Facebook another Uber, a company we all agree does things we wish they wouldn’t, or that we take moral offense to, but we just can’t quit? Only time will tell.