> I’m sure, internally, it’s looked at as the “mainstream media trying to get clicks...<p>I interviewed with FB shortly after the Cambridge Analytica stuff came out (but long enough after that it was clear to <i>everyone</i> that FB had screwed up big time).<p>When it was my turn to ask questions in one particular interview, I gave a standard fallback when I have nothing else: "[despite all the blahblah positives], having worked at other technology companies, what's your least favorite thing about working at FB?"<p>This guy was a FB vet (maybe 5 or 10 years? Very long in FB time, I think). He gives me this spiel about how hard the teams work to maintain user privacy and how unfairly they're being treated by the public and the media, and how hard it is to work in an environment where everyone treats you so unfairly.<p>I was floored. Not even a hint of apology, remorse, or "we could have done X better". "Unfair. Fake news. We're doing great things, and no one thanks us enough." And from someone that had probably made a <i>mint</i> having been around at FB near-IPO time. It was my first or second of the day, and while no one else was so blatant, the sentiment persisted throughout the rest of the day.<p>I bombed the interviews hard, they didn't want me back, but I had basically decided I'd never work there by the time lunch rolled around.
I feel pretty contrarian about this piece. In the same piece that talks about how dangerous it is and how regulation is needed because facebook has the <i>ability</i> to influence public opinion, they talk about how "totally normal" it is for the media to act as mouthpieces for whomever wants to pay. No mention of how Fox News can swing public opinion, and really needs to be unbiased and in fact needs regulation to that end. Or any number of other media. And then it includes a gif making fun of zuckerberg for being robotic while complaining about him writing a post that was human instead of corporate.
This part really struck me:<p>> It feels like finance in 2009.<p>> One one side, you had smart, ambitious people who ended up there simply because you were told to go. On the other, you had the classic Gordon Gekko-ish types reciting Liar’s Poker anecdotes ad nauseam.<p>> Enter the crisis and everyone was equally tarred as the bad guys. The former have slowly made their way out (mostly over to tech), while the latter remain[...]<p>It does feel like the tide of public opinion might be turning from "too uncritical" to "too critical".<p>At least, as somebody who spends too much time on both Hacker News and Twitter, this seems believable to me.
One thing this piece really brings home to me is how unethical it is for media to sell sponsored content intermixed and indistinguishable from their own content. How do you trust a media outlet when their content is for sale? I know this practice pre-dates the internet, but it's hugely damaging to people's faith in the media.<p>I think Facebooks' failure in PR is more a symptom of how far Facebook has slid down the ethical slope into outright corruption. As you do more and more heinous things, it becomes more difficult to defend those actions.
It still amazes me that the line of reasoning they publicly went with, around their decision not to fact check political advertisements, is that no one company should have that amount of power. The logical conclusion of their own argument is that Facebook should be broken up.
LOL "Before 2019, it felt like the Facebook communications machine was a well-oiled, unstoppable juggernaut." Umm how about Cambridge Analytica?<p>Facebook's PR has been troubled for a very long time. To suggest that they has a stellar image before 2019 is a joke. I can list many other slip ups where Facebook could have come out and said something (or even better, did something) and then weeks later they come up with a weak statement. If that's great PR, I'd like to offer my services to anybody who needs it.<p>While I'd agree that "No one ever broke rank. The messaging was crystal clear.", the message was always an awful one and now they have a relatively negative reputation despite being a remarkable success.
>Boz posted an explanation on Facebook, where he advertises the post as an organizational, internal call-to-debate. But while it's great to have a safe space for internal, organizational debates, it's still hugely concerning when that internal debate is whether we should all have a free and fair election in the U.S.<p>Was Facebook having an internal debate over whether we should all have a free and fair election in the U.S.?
I've worked in media, and I can confirm the "packages" that sponsors buy as described are totally normal in media.<p>There's a reason editorial departments are totally separate from ad sales.<p>FTC disclosure of paid content is extremely important and taken very seriously (at least where I worked and by the FTC).<p>IMHO Facebook doesn't have any reputation left to tarnish, but Teen Vogue screwed themselves here, badly.
Is it just me, or is this completely bonkers?
Let's say that teen Vogue were transparent about the article being sponsored. Meaning it would have had a tiny print somewhere saying that the article is part of a partnership with Facebook. How would that matter? Most people reading it would hardly notice it, even if they do notice it , it will hardly change the way they process the information in the piece. Our mind have a hard time knowing where certain facts it recalls came from.
The bad thing is not the non cohesion of the Facebook PR it's the total lack of regard for truth and ethics that these corporate MBA and media types have. If it gets the job done then it becomes good, as in: morally good. Even if you manipulate the truth, bend the mind of the masses towards misconceptions, but do it well, then you are being ethical and good.
Only if you fail then something is not good. That's a pretty messed up moral system.<p>Corporate shouldn't be able to buy anything from media outlets other than Ads that look.like ads and completely visually separate from actual journalistic pieces. Anything else is just unethical.
I feel like the actual change is not really Facebook PR but the reporting about it?
The TeenVogue affair seems to have caused a dam-break which shifted "reporting facebook as disfunctional" right into the middle of the Overton window all across the board regarding online media.<p>Facebooks strategy was always running away from a trail of PR bodies via sheer sized based on "customers" (which should be called products, to be honest) which did and do not care. I mean sure, this PR debacle is not a bath in glory by any means. But I can not think of any PR campaign in response to the countless past scandals which made me think "Wow, nice catch". At least in Germany, their response to the accusation of manipulating elections was a billboard campaign advertising that in Facebook you have a settings page where you can click switches and thus be in full control of your privacy (:D).<p>Was there ever any effective response to Zuckerberg abusing his company data to crack journalists accounts? I can even remember an age old thing where Facebook made all your posts visible forever on your board or something which was just drowned in the ongoing unchallenged growth of Facebook after some time...<p>To clarify, I am glad that media is finally elevating from lizard memes but I reject the notion that this current affair is the first visible crack of rotten foundations one could have observed.
I was wholly unsurprised to see that last tweet coming from someone on the Hillary 2008 campaign. It reads just like the kind of defensive use women as human shields to deflect criticism attitude that came from the campaign when faced with a real primary challenge both in 2008 and 2016.
Facebook is just transitioning to becoming the digital equivalent of an oil company. They make a product that billions consume, but that many people think is doing damage to the environment (even though many of those critics still consume the product).<p>That's why their PR machine is now switching to these slightly astroturfy campaigns. The next step is an advert along the lines of "They call it pollution. We call it life".
i don't think FB ever had great PR.<p>The Social Network was largely a negative portrayal of Zuck and FB.<p>I remember when FB bought Instagram there was a lot of initial backlash.<p>Most of the positive stuff around Facebook was mainly due to the huge upward movements in it's stock price post IPO that solidified Zuckerberg and Sandberg as business geniuses. Would argue that their individual profiles became much more positive as the stock price increased, but would not really ever say Facebook the company was really perceived in a positive light outside of business community.
In my opinion, the problem with Facebook isn't really the PR. Yes, Facebook's PR is broken as the article describes, but the real problem started years ago, back when it was a "well-oiled machine".<p>The problem is that there is a huge distance between what Facebook PR says and what Facebook does. The constant apologies for misbehaviors that never are never corrected, the apparently deliberate misinterpretations of much of the criticism leveled at Facebook, the continual discovery of new misbehaviors that should have been stopped, and so forth.<p>That Facebook has now taken an official public stance of being antagonistic, dismissive, and condescending is bad, but it's just bad icing on an already bad cake.
The beginning of this article really plays out like the author is just against Zuckerberg simply talking to people with conservative viewpoints.<p>Being willing (and encouraging) others to listen to other viewpoints should not be considered a PR issue.
From 2017:<p>Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg Is Hiring a Team Worthy of a 2020 Presidential Campaign - Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's latest hire is further fueling speculation that he could be planning a 2020 presidential bid
<a href="https://people.com/politics/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-team-2020-presidential-campaign/" rel="nofollow">https://people.com/politics/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-team-20...</a><p>>Zuckerberg and wife Priscilla Chan have hired Democratic pollster Joel Benenson, a former top adviser and longtime pollster to President Barack Obama and the chief strategist of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, as a consultant,<p>>In January , Zuckerberg, 33, and Chan, 32, hired David Plouffe, campaign manager for Obama’s 2008 presidential run, as president of policy and advocacy. They also brought on Amy Dudley, a former communications adviser to Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine. Ken Mehlman, who ran President George W. Bush’s 2004 reelection campaign, is also on the charity’s board.<p>>And Zuckerberg’s personal photographer, Charles Ommanney, was the photographer for Bush and Obama’s presidential campaigns, Business Insider reported.<p>Joel Benenson and David Plouffe are working elsewhere now. Amy Dudley is still the spokesperson for Zuckerberg iniative.<p>Zuckerberg has had incredible PR army working just for him, not for Facebook. I think there has been switch in his personal ambitions and change in PR people.
Read this thread. I have been noticing a lot of reporting on tech by NYT etc, is wrong, not complete. In this case, a lot of arguments are there. But, an example from the past, they spread misinfo about Google's revenue figure from news industry(<a href="https://www.niemanlab.org/2019/06/that-4-7-billion-number-for-how-much-money-google-makes-off-the-news-industry-its-imaginary/" rel="nofollow">https://www.niemanlab.org/2019/06/that-4-7-billion-number-fo...</a>)<p><a href="https://twitter.com/antoniogm/status/1214685876095045632?s=19" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/antoniogm/status/1214685876095045632?s=1...</a>
> One of their most longtime, loyal leaders is directly saying they have the power to sway national elections. It is their decision, and their decision alone, to resist the temptation to "change the outcome"!<p>Oh, he better be careful. That’s pretty close to pushing a right-wing talking point /s<p>Facebook, etc.. Is no different in its power to influence elections than traditional news papers ever have been. The only difference is a matter of scale and homogeny. Today, instead of thousands of media publications, each pushing their own biases and perspectives (which they always have), you have a very small group of tech giants that get to decide what you see (and even more frighteningly), what you’re allowed to say about it. Sure there’s more media outlets today than there’s ever been, but a small handful of companies get to control their reach, and (again more frighteningly) their ability to collect revenue.<p>Then you have the issue that traditional media has always represented a diverse set of opinions and world views. You have conservative and liberal outlets, outlets the promote free market ideas and those that promote socialist ideas, outlets that promote regulation and those that promote small government. The small number of organisations that control access to ideas and speech today all represent an incredibly homogeneous political world view.<p>The problem isn’t that those organisations have done a poor job of controlling the flow of information, it’s that they have the ability to do it in the first place. Those companies should not have the ability to act as gatekeepers who determine the credibility of information, or the moral implications of speech. In a free society, that responsibility falls of on the shoulders of every individual, and to have an authority doing that on their behalf denies them the opportunity to do so themselves.<p>This is also a matter of values, not constitutional law (as people often like to derail such conversations by claiming regulation would violate 1A). The law that empowers these companies to to moderate content is the Communications Decency Act, not the 1st amendment.
This is a place that famously had a motto "move fast and break things." In other words, fail early and fail often. For that culture to succeed you need people willing to admit (and tolerate) mistakes. Sounds like that's pretty well gone.
I am not sure I completely buy the thesis of this essay because...<p>1. Facebook has NEVER had positive PR. The tech-media has always used FB as the Silicon Valley punching bag. Name me one good article in the news about FB? At some point you're just numb to it all.<p>2. Facebook has had leakers for years, and especially when Boz makes posts!<p>To say that Facebook PR is broken implies it wasn't before. I'd argue that FB has long needed a comms team representative of the company it actually is. FB comms feel designed for the old college only network FB once was. When Google can do similar misdeeds and get only a tiny slap on the wrist, I do agree it's probably a comms problem in the end.<p>Also, to completely write off Sandberg because of one corporate misstep reeks of "Cancel Culture" hysteria, but that's just me.
The org chart shown in the article is old by 2 years and seems like an oddly selected on for that time. A current org chart would shown a different split between men and women.
Not everything is run by PR or fixed by PR or even measured by PR (except for PR personnel of course).<p>Sometimes things are just bad and it takes time to realize.<p>Regardless of the packaging.
The Facebook / Cambridge Analytica story is completely baffling to me.<p>Here we have a company whose business idea it is to lock up as much of the web as possible on their platform. Contacts, messageboards, photos, events, calendars, chat, dating, anything goes really. They then earn money from selling data.<p>Then the Cambridge Analytica scandal breaks where a company has used data from Facebook unethically. How was this not expected? Had it been better if this company used their data a little less unethically? Had it been better if Facebook sold PR-as-a-service directly instead of enabling an ecosystem of smaller companies offering this?<p>(Because the latter is what is going to happen over the long run should Facebook continue to be successful. When there is no room to grow anymore the ecosystem is going to be cannibalized.)<p>This is all inherent to business models dependent on data ownership. Upon observing the majority of the population migrating to closed platforms, the discourse among the people who care about open data must instead be framed in terms of how to shape the conditions of said business models. Codifying data ownership is one way to move forward, GDPR being the most known example. It may be blunt but it at least poses the question of who owns which data.
Stifling a glib, sarcastic response, who do we feel has good PR that's working, and not in some sinister meaning of 'working'?<p>What groups and activities do people who think this way hold up as positive role models?
> You have someone like Antonia Woodford, rightly called out[2] for the absurdity of saying to combat misinformation you should require “advertisers use their real identities”. She has Yale, McKinsey and a rapid rise at Facebook, on her resume. This is the profile of someone who I imagine isn’t wanting to bunker down in a Trumpian hole of calling everything critical: “fake news”.<p>I don't understand. How is it "absurdity"? And the linked Gizmodo article doesn't seem to call it absurd either.<p>[2] <a href="https://gizmodo.com/teen-vogue-yanks-puff-piece-on-facebooks-anti-disinform-1840889839" rel="nofollow">https://gizmodo.com/teen-vogue-yanks-puff-piece-on-facebooks...</a>
At this point it is arguably obvious that Zuckerberg is a textbook sociopathic CEO who will say whatever is expedient to business needs. After constant misleading and outright false statements, not a single word that comes out of Facebook can be trusted. It's self serving corporatespeak taken to an extreme and I simply cannot fathom how so many people, including news media especially, are uncritical and even trusting of FB public statements.<p>Zuckerberg's dumbfucks quote is consistent with the content of every public communication major steering decision FB has made to date. He is truly the embodiment of lawful evil.
When you have a guy who works at a company wondering if his company was responsible for an election result and making LOTR references...then you know something has gone wrong.<p>No, Facebook isn't powerful enough to sway an election (I get that some people are really angry about Trump...if you aren't thinking rationally, don't have an opinion rather than start up with the conspiracy theories). No, business/life is not like LOTR. There aren't goodies and baddies (irony, this is part of why Trump was elected).
> Those last two lines. We all know that style of communication. Sardonic. Snarky. Sneering. Derisive. Whatever you want to call it, that mocking tone captures a dangerous combination of insecurity and arrogance. It feels like when Trump ends a tweet with SAD!. You read that and just think, what a dick.<p>I get that's it's kind of sarcastic, but I don't really think "what a dick". It's not great for someone in his position to be sarcastic like that, but I think more "he must be hounded by people who are ready to burn him at the stake for having lunch with certain people so.."