Facebook’s scandals could spell trouble for the entire Internet industry

Another month, another scandal around Facebook. It’s been a rough few weeks for Facebook. It all started with some new leaks which unveiled a lot of unfavorable details about the company’s internal actions, and while this may seem like just an issue for Facebook – it can reflect on the entire Internet industry.

You’d probably ask why Facebook is always being dragged into these scandals. The explanation is easy; it’s the biggest social network out there with almost 3 billion users and a massive global reach. The social media platform is used by people for all types of reasons: communications, work, play, social gatherings and a lot more. It’s also used for disputes, organizing protests and for tackling other social issues. As such, it’s constantly under the spotlight and is torn apart by a lot of groups, governments, organizations, experts and so on. Basically, everyone wants different things from the company, and it has to figure it out how to balance everything, and it’s no surprise that Facebook has a tough time with that.

What happened

It all started in September 2021. The Wall Street Journal ran a series of articles exposing and accusing Facebook of various practices. Even the short version of the story is a bit long.

It all began with an article stating that Facebook has run several internal surveys to examine the effect of both Facebook and Instagram on their users – mainly teenagers. The articles claimed the research showed Instagram has a bad influence on some teens, but worse still, the article accused Facebook and its bosses that they knew about these issues but decided not to take action.

Facebook denied these accusations. They said the articles misrepresented the internal research and gave the wrong impressions about the data. Facebook claimed the article missed out all the positives that its services bring to the majority of teens. The company also disputed the claims that its senior team neglected the issue.

Shortly after this, the Wall Street Journal and other media continued to publish internal Facebook documents. They claimed the information came from an ex-Facebook employee whistleblower. After WSJ published more of these reports, the whistleblower revealed themselves: it turned out to be Frances Haugen – a data engineer for Facebook. She fired back with another round of accusations and said Facebook has a “moral bankruptcy” and that it “failed democracy”. She also said the company chose profits over the wellbeing of its users and deliberately decided to not take adequate steps to fix the issues.

Facebook again responded in length; the company denied all accusations. Mark Zuckerberg said people try to “paint a false picture” of Facebook. Company representatives were called to the US Senate to give statements about the issue where they denied all wrong doing. They said there’s no point in carrying out internal research which would cost millions if the company doesn’t care about the results. Facebook also denied it chose profits over users’ wellbeing and if that was the case, it wouldn’t have introduced so many features and changes to its platforms which discourage people for spending too much time on them and help them better manage their time. The company also claimed it is constantly working on improving its algorithms, however these tasks require a lot of work and testing and they aren’t easy to quickly implement.

This is far from over

Haugen said she has taken a lot of documents and she will not let the issue be forgotten. She says companies like Facebook need to be held accountable. Facebook itself also once again called for better regulations and for the laws to be updated. US lawmakers returned to the topic, but they didn’t really announce any new changes.

Instead, Facebook announced a slew of new features and changes to its main platforms. Instagram for example will give teens advice to “take a break” if it detects they are spending too much time on the platform. Somehow Instagram will also know when a teen is looking at content which may be potentially harmful to their wellbeing and will advise them to look at something else.

Facebook also released a statement saying it will lower the amount of news posts people see in their feeds. Instead, it will focus more on the content from friends as that what users prefer. The changes are underway incrementally in about 80 countries so far.

And when it finally seemed that things were calming down, Haugen fired fresh accusations. New documents showed Facebook has a “blacklist” of profiles; people and organizations which are supposed to be under stricter control or even blocked entirely. After another wave of uproar of far-right bias, the company said the list is compiled by using official government classifications and it’s held by even tougher standards than that.

Next, Haugen claimed Facebook has “lied repeatedly” to its own Oversight Board. This is an independent body which Facebook created last year with the goal to hold the company accountable on various issues. It is supposed to ask Facebook questions, get data from the company and come out with special reports advising it ways to change and how the previous recommendations have been implemented – but of course, this can’t really be happening if Facebook is lying to the Oversight Board which Haugen claims.

What will happen next

Haugen will also speak to British and EU politicians and officials in the coming weeks. She seems determined to force a change in regulations this time. Her hopes are that the process will start first in the EU which has previously shown it’s looking to implement updated rules for companies. If that indeed happens, it will naturally lead to changes in the rules in other countries, too.

While Facebook vehemently denies the accusations by Haugen, they support her idea for the need of better regulations. Zuckerberg said no company can do this alone. Laws must be updated for the current times and to be reformed to be more flexible in the future as technology will continue to change at a rapid pace.

For now, politicians seem motivated to introduce changes, but there might not be enough support. During the hearings in the Senate, senators remarked that these issues are being debating yet again, and there are constant problems surrounding social media companies and Facebook in particular. They also called for updated laws but fell short of attaching exact time frames for this to happen.

It seems that while there is a wide agreement that changes are needed, no one knows where, when or how to introduce these changes. Companies claim they are ready to work with lawmakers and discuss the issues in order to find common ground for rules which will benefit users, customers, innovations and companies but it’s going to be a complex task and finding a balance won’t be easy. In fact, it may not be possible to ensure that everyone gets the best possible outcome, and someone will have to compromise – and it’s more than likely that it will be the companies.

How will this reflect on the Internet industry

You may think that these are issues for Facebook only and they don’t have anything to do with other Internet companies, or that it’s a problem for social media platforms and they’ll have to deal with it. What happens with them can, and most probably will, bring changes to all Internet entities.

At the very least, no one will introduce a law only for social media. It will be a law which covers “Internet platforms” in general – and this could be anything. This is an issue a lot like fixing an oil leak on an old engine: when you fix one issue, another weak spot will show, then the next, and so on.

This is what is going to happen when fixing the social media privacy woes. As this happens, everyone’s attention will turn to other platforms. There are already calls for holding all companies that provide any type of hosting, cloud or other services for what users upload or post there accountable. For example, an online forum or a cloud server will not only have to remove unlawful or other prohibited content, which was uploaded by a user, but they will also be held accountable for letting it on their services in the first place.

Companies are already firmly opposing such changes as they will have a profound effect on the Internet as a whole, and while it is unlikely that such drastic laws will be introduced, it’s certain that at least something similar will be implemented. So, yes, Zuckerberg is right – no one company can solve this issue on its own. At best it could self-regulate to a point, but to have a wide and lasting positive effect, changes should be implemented after a debate and in close collaboration between companies and governments.

All of this is a very tough and slow process. The bad thing is that we see that problems are piling up and they don’t paint a pretty picture. It may not be a completely truthful picture, as Zuckerberg says, but there is at least some truth to it. It is enough to shape the public perception in a way that will force more profound changes than what Internet companies are ready to accept.

Therefore, it’s important that companies not only announce the measures they take for their platforms, but to say they are ready to cooperate with talks for new regulations. They must be proactive and be the ones seeking the solution. Yes, it seems counterproductive to want to force stricter laws on yourself, but with so many issues and the rising importance of web services, any wasted time will simply reflect in tougher rules than expected. So, it’s better to start the changes now and implement the flexible law structure as soon as possible than to wait another few years and be forced into needlessly strict regulations.

If you want to check the previous article from the same author, you can do it here:

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