Facebook chooses the Wells Fargo crisis management model over Tylenol

(Palo Alto, CA) The Cheeky Post Five days after news broke of a massive Facebook data breach resembling a Coen Brothers' movie...

in which 50 million people had their personal information taken without their knowledge and used by assorted villains to create psychological sausage for politicians, CEO Mark Zuckerberg issued a tepid statement without an apology. Citing actions from 2014 as if they were eons ago--which they are in Silicon Valley time where 2014 is, like, before Apple Watch!--Zuckerberg said Facebook had already taken the most important steps to protect users from abusive apps.

Back in 2013, a Cambridge University researcher named Aleksandr Kogan created a personality quiz app that 300,000 people installed, unknowingly giving Kogan access to the personalities of all their friends. It was like a psychological venereal disease that became much more virulent when Kogan passed the data belonging to 50 million people to his shady friends at Cambridge Analytica. Cambridge Analytica sounds ivory tower, but it's more like Trump University mixed with the Spy Store and Hooters.

Facebook accuses Kogan of being a data slut for cavorting with Cambridge Analytica, but Kogan insists that he did nothing wrong and is being targeted by Facebook as a scapegoat.

Using users' data for profit is their business model. ~ Aleksandr Kogan

Mark Zuckerberg said Facebook's intentions for letting apps into Facebook in the first place were honourable: it was just trying to be social. It said that back in 2015 when it first learned of the leakage it demanded that Cambridge Analytica certify that it had deleted all data. Cambridge ticked the box indicating it certified the files were deleted, and now Facebook is shocked that it has discovered, thanks to The Guardian and The New York Times, that the data wasn't actually deleted. Last night Mark Zuckerberg told CNN's Laurie Segall, words tumbling out of his mouth like coins in a slot machine, that Facebook was "really sorry" for the major breach of trust and it will do a full forensic audit of every app, notifying everyone who may have had their personal data fondled, adding he would be happy to testify before Congress, IF he were the most qualified person to answer Congress's questions. And so it goes.

In the end Facebook is following the Wells Fargo playbook: play it safe, take a retrospective perspective blaming bad apples/actors, and wait for the hearing along with the inevitable drip, drip, drip of exposure of more data leakage. But what if they had chosen a Tylenol model instead? What if they had apologized immediately, rather than spend the weekend disputing the meaning of the word breach? What if, like a massive recall, they gave everyone a Delete Facebook button along with the option to rejoin, if they chose to do so, under new and improved privacy rules spelled out simply in plain English? What if, like Tylenol's tamper-proof lid, they gave everyone an ALLOW and DON'T ALLOW option every time an app wanted to touch their personal data?

Sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? Because Facebook isn't a pill, yet it is far more powerful than any drug in its ability to draw us together and rip us apart. It can be used to fuel causes for the betterment of humanity and feed inner demons. It drains our phone batteries, fuels social comparison and depletes our personal energy. In the end, it's really up to Facebook users to crisis manage, to decide if Facebook is worth the risk of privacy loss, to decide if Facebook makes our lives better or worse, to decide if we want to continue to use Facebook for free so that we can become revenue-generating products sold as advertising targets, and to decide if we can resist Facebook's relentless efforts to encourage us to spend as much as our lives as possible in their ecosystem.

Now, more than ever, Mark Zuckerberg's words about privacy from 2004 haunt Facebook...

It's far better to believe that Mark Zuckerberg has evolved since 2004 when he belittled the people who trusted him, rather than believe he has simply been coached into acting like a better person. It means there's hope for all of us who'd like to think we've matured since we were teenagers and are still capable of further improvement. But is Facebook worthy of our trust may not be the right question.

Is Facebook worthy of our time?

About the Author: She deleted her Facebook account in 2011, not because of any wisdom or prescience, but because Facebook did not bring her joy, (plus she got a bit freaked out after posting about canoes then having an ad for canoes appear in a side panel). After nearly seven years off the platform, Facebook recently began a campaign to lure her back with a FOMO campaign in which they regularly email her snippets of her friends' Facebook activities. ?? Facebook.