By Jennifer Henderson
When Carole and I met up for coffee last week, our conversation turned to Facebook’s data-sharing scandal involving Cambridge Analytica. Because data was improperly obtained from Facebook, we’re curious to see what safeguards the social media giant puts in place to improve data security and how the changes will affect small business, in particular. It will be interesting to see how this story develops over time. Here are a few things we currently know.
Trust in Facebook Has Declined
Facebook announced on April 5 that 87 million users may have had their Facebook data improperly shared, which is millions more than initially thought. Trust in Facebook was already down after the initial reports that the data was used improperly by Cambridge Analytica. According to a March 2018 poll conducted by Reuters and Ipsos, Facebook ranks lowest in trust on privacy issues among the major tech companies serving small businesses.
Marketers such as Mozilla and Pep Boys have said they’re pulling spending on Facebook ads and celebrities such as Will Ferrell have deleted their pages. The #DeleteFacebook hashtag trended on Twitter for some time after the Cambridge Analytica story broke.
Facebook contends that there hasn’t been a major impact on usage or ad sales in the wake of a data privacy scandal. However, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg himself acknowledges that work needs to be done to rebuild Facebook’s reputation. “I don’t want anyone to be unhappy with our services or what we do as a company. So even if we can’t really measure a change and the usage of a product or the business or anything like that, it still speaks to people feeling like this is a massive breach of trust and that we have a lot of work to do to repair that.”
What’s Next?
Zuckerberg is currently testifying in front of U.S. Congress about the scandal, and the company is already putting changes in place to make sure this doesn’t happen again.
The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) says it appreciates Facebook’s steps since the Cambridge Analytica news broke but that the industry as a whole needs to examine its direction.
Already we’ve seen evidence of the changes affecting other social media platforms. Hootsuite, for instance, sent out a message on April 5 to its users about security. Part of the statement read:
“To keep user information safe and secure, both Facebook and Instagram are changing the way partners like Hootsuite access data, and we are in full support of these changes. We believe they’re in the best interest of our customers and their customers. Some of these changes will impact Hootsuite functionality. We are committed to the privacy and security of your data while ensuring you remain empowered to support your customers through social media.”
For small businesses, there is some good news. As a recent NBC News article indicates, there is the prospect of lower advertising costs, at least in the short term as Facebook works to rebuild its image. Facebook also recently announced that it plans to invest $1 billion in programs for small businesses in 2018.
What are your thoughts on the data scandal? How do you protect your own information online?
