"I'm Sorry, So Sorry, Please Accept My Apology." —Facebook

In Spring 2018, Facebook joined Uber, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America on the Mea Culpa Trail. The social media giant is running a :60 TV spot titled "Here Together." Welcome to the Royal-We Nostalgia and Apology Tour.

Let's recap Facebook's recent self-inflicted problems: Rampant data monetization, often without user approval. An entirely inappropriate role in the outcome of the 2016 election. A troll population worthy of a swords and sorcerers epic. Fake news and junk-website clickbait. Account cancellations and calls for regulation.

I'm not the only skeptic when it comes to evaluating where Facebook's current PR campaign falls on the continuum between covering its backside and and showing sincere contrition.

Advertising Age points out that Facebook's apology is more of a pseudo sorry than a real admission of guilt. Business Insider isn't certain whether the combination of ad campaign and in-house changes will reanimate users' trust. Fast Company calls the spot "pretty damn good"—except for the way it paints Facebook as the victim of its own transgressions.

Great. But I don't see anyone commenting on the way the language of this script contributes to making it sound more insincere and mawkish than committed to change.

First, a transcript:

We came here for the friends. We got to know the friends of our friends. Then our old friends from middle school, our mom, our ex, and our boss joined forces to wish us happy birthday. And we discovered our uncle used to play in a band and realized he was young once, too. And we found others just like us. And just like that, we felt a little less alone. But then something happened. We had to deal with spam, clickbait, fake news, and data misuse. That's going to change. From now on, Facebook will do more to keep you safe and protect your privacy. So we can all get back to what made Facebook good in the first place. Friends. 'Cause when this place does what it was built for, then we all get a little closer.

That royal we ("We came here/We got to know/We discovered") enrolls the viewer with Facebook in some good-guy alliance. I'm always dubious when a big company tries to paint itself as my friend—and that "we" reminds me of "How are we feeling today?" Ew.

The footage in this spot is Web 1.25 at best, made up of user images and video. The early-days look clashes with the statement that "we discovered our uncle used to play in a band and realized he was young once, too." Who's the audience here? Generation Y, whose 40-something uncle is "old," or the more-nearly Boomerish folks you see in the cutesy nostalgic footage? Audience confusion doesn't enhance impact.

As the script progresses, "something happened" to introduce spam and its fellow annoyances, but Facebook vows to "do more to keep you safe and protect your privacy." First, way to make big problems sound like you bought the wrong brand of baloney at the store. Second, here's where the language of this spot trips and falls flat on its face, immediately before the promise to do better: "That's going to change." When? Next year? If you're serious about change, you say, "That has changed," not "We're going to do better." Better yet, say, "We've changed"—except the script already uses "we" to refer to its weird little viewer/Facebook alliance.

The entire spot makes my flesh crawl, from its tuneless upright piano music to its just-folks footage. Facebook itself never has enticed me to sign up. Studies show that Facebook users often perceive what they see of their friends' lives as better than theirs could be, and that prompts depression (and worse). Any site that's free to join makes the joiner the product. That means you're paying with your likes and behaviors and connections, all of which land in Facebook's big pot of saleable data. And all that "liking" makes me cringe. Didn't enough popular kids sign your high school yearbook to make you feel like you were in with the in crowd?

Bottom line: Add me to the list of the unconvinced.