The digital marketing industry has had to witness the last quarter of Facebook with amazement and also with a lot of dissatisfaction. We were just reading the news that Facebook gave us in January about the change in its algorithm, and now and for those who were not aware, Facebook is in the eye of the hurricane for giving the data of 50 million people to Cambridge Analytics, company that, with Channel 4 News, in collaboration with the NY Times and The Observer, published an investigation (in which we will not delve much we will leave the original sources) that exposes them by their own confession about the use of bribes, ex-spies, sex workers and as makers of false news that influenced the electoral process in several countries including the United States, and also using as target these 50 million people after obtaining their data illegally through Facebook applications.
Is Facebook responsible? How is this affecting Facebook?
Mark Zuckerberg, in his public apology, said it as a big break in the relationship of trust between Facebook and its users and mentioned the company as responsible for the protection of people’s data.
A campaign that encourages people to delete their Facebook account is gaining strength and even personalities such as the creator of WhatsApp and Elon Musk have reacted. Brian Acton encouraged the hashtag #DeleteFacebook and Elon Musk deleted the Facebook pages of their companies, Tesla and SpaceX.
How could this change affect the world of marketing?
All of us who work in the marketing industry have also noticed the radical attitude of Mark Zuckerberg when making changes he considers necessary. Being one of the strongest scandals Facebook faces throughout its history, it will make Mark Zuckerberg make changes motivated by media pressure and perhaps also by their shares fall (which is already a fact). These changes will have to do with the availability of access to the data and may not affect the availability of them, but probably the price that you’ll have to pay to use them. Maybe we’re not right, but we want to wait to see during the following days the reaction of Facebook who has been already very active lately and our recommendation for those involved in the marketing industry is that to be prepare for scenarios that may be adverse.
