New scoops on novel tech company Facebook involve a series of issues dogging Zuckerberg’s empire, a veritable grab bag of allegations that could land this top tech stock in hot water.
First, there’s new reporting around Facebook’s seemingly haphazard system of regulating what celebrities say on the platform.
A system called “cross-check” was extensively built to deal with the outsized influence of famous people on Facebook. But reporters say there’s a lot to question about how that system is implemented.
“Facebook has admitted criticism of the way it implemented its cross-check system was ‘fair’ – but said it was designed to create ‘an additional step’ when posted content required more understanding,” reports the BBC..
A story by Naomi Nix for Bloomberg goes into more detail.
“The review by the Oversight Board follows a Wall Street Journal report revealing details about a system Facebook built to exempt high-profile users in politics, popular culture and journalism from enforcement action over posts that break their rules,” Nix writes. “The program, known as ‘cross check,’ was designed to avoid public relations backlash over famous people who mistaken have their posts taken down, the newspaper reported. While Facebook told the oversight board the program only affects a “small number of decisions” it actually included at least 5.8 million users in 2020, according to the newspaper.”
On the financial side, shareholders are reportedly putting together a lawsuit based on Facebook’s settlement with Cambridge Analytica, suggesting that part of it was done to shield Zuckerberg himself from liability.
“In February of 2019, the FTC named both Facebook and Zuckerberg personally as defendants in a draft complaint sent to company lawyers, according to the shareholders,” writes Steve Dent at Engadget. “Two Democrats voted against the settlement, saying that Zuckerberg should have been held personally responsible.”
Dent also provides this statement from a group of shareholders:
“The Board has never provided a serious check on Zuckerberg’s unfettered authority … Instead, it has enabled him, defended him, and paid billions of dollars from Facebook’s corporate coffers to make his problems go away.”
As if all of that weren’t enough, Facebook also has to deal with accusations that it facilitated human trafficking.
All of this would be enough to unsettle any company’s board. How Facebook deals with each of these issues individually will say a lot about how the company fares in the next decade, after dominating digital communications for nearly a quarter-century.
