Facebook is facing bad headlines and difficulty navigating Washington amid whistleblower complaints. Quarterly revenue grew despite the bad headlines.
Summary
During Facebook’s earnings call, the social media giant says it is “refocusing” the company, turning its attention to “serving young adults.”
- Facebook said its ad-revenue dropped because of Apple’s new privacy settings in iOS, and announcing investments in its own “metaverse”, a Facebook-created digital landscape, to counter Apple’s restrictions.
- Facebook’s overall revenue grew despite a steady stream of troubling insider reports alleging the company “amplifies online hate” via its algorithms “that prioritize engagement” and “push [users] to the extremes.”
- Those reports have led to Congress and regulators regularly roasting Facebook, creating a crisis which experts suggest the company is doing “a terrible job” of navigating.
- Facebook’s struggles to contain the damage from the insider reports come as Congress continues its grilling of tech companies, with the Senate set for a hearing today on the harmful impact of social media on children.
- Vox commented on Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg spending so much time addressing the allegations of the company’s failures despite Facebook’s financial health.
- CNN highlighted the trouble Facebook has in “properly policing its massive platform” when “hate speech and misinformation in languages other than English” are used.
- The Washington Post was frank in its assessment: Facebook’s drive for billions of dollars in profits every quarter foster “misinformation, polarization, and hate speech.” (The Post also attempts to paint a series of reports from leaks as original reporting, but the Wall Street Journal was the first outlet to publish documents and research critical of Facebook.)
- The New York Post frames Zuckerberg as lashing out against “whistleblowers and reporters” who “selectively use leaked documents” to disparage Facebook.
- Breitbart blasted the social media company after a leaked document showed Facebook employees considering Breitbart a less-than-trustworthy news source despite “generating more engagement” than several legacy and leftwing media outlets combined.
- The Wall Street Journal reported on Facebook’s difficulty in breaking through the lobbying world with “big-name Democrat” hires as the Biden administration and Congress “threaten tougher regulations.”
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© Dallas Gerber, 2021
