We Have Met The Best Facebook Regulator, And It Is Us

From the vantage point of a marketing researcher, watching Facebook’s travails without a fair amount of hubris is difficult. The company’s enormous reach (2.1 billion monthly active users as of the fourth quarter of 2017, having more than doubled within five years) guarantees that companies can use the social network to reach any target population they wish. We know that we can use Facebook to share information about our companies (and political consultants can use it to share information about their candidates), and that likewise, by harnessing digital analytics, we can learn a great deal about our audiences by examining how they interact on Facebook.

Marketing researchers, for our part, know that our professional success depends on our ability to gather insights from the people our companies serve. (This is a deliberate statement: Thomas Brailsford, in discussing how his team at Hallmark used social media to learn, noted that he seeks insights from people, not “consumers.”) Our professional codes of conduct require us to be transparent in our dealings with people who lend us their insights. Our ethics, embodied in our codes of conduct (for example, for the Insights Association, the association for professional researchers in the United States) require us to only use their information for the research purpose designated, and with the participant’s permission. When we collect data through passive means (like point of sale scanners), we must remove all identifying information.

Facebook has now reached a moment of reckoning, one that has been in process since the 2016 election. It is steadily realizing that while it is not a newspaper, millions of people view it as a credible source of information not only about products, but about news and candidates. While it is not a political consulting or marketing firm, political consultants and marketing researchers use it as a source of electoral and market insight. One can assume that most of these actors are benevolent, but not all of them are. Hence the deep concern about the theft and exploitation of Facebook data by Cambridge Analytica, and the inadequacy of Facebook’s response which calls into question its ability to control who has access to its data, and information about people who use their site.

This Wednesday night, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg gave an interview to CNN in which he expressed contrition and indicated an expectation that Facebook would be regulated. Placing the company under certain rules that govern how sells or otherwise shares data with third parties may be necessary, but the best regulator of Facebook may be us, as educated consumers.

What is an educated consumer? Many years ago, Sy Syms, a discount clothing retailer, made the idea the hallmark of his advertising. His family’s store was a great source for well-made, designer clothing at heavily discounted prices. The idea was that someone who knew what they were seeking and did not fall for gimmicks was their best customer.

No matter what regulatory legislation is passed, and no matter what policies Facebook and other social media platforms choose to adopt, the best regulator is an educated populace. Our society needs to re-learn some basic tools of civic discourse, such as:

·        Distinguishing facts from opinions;

·        Identifying credible sources of information;

·        Having difficult, but objective, conversations about divisive topics.

As a marketing researcher, I value the opinions that people hold about products and services, and I respect the attitudes that they have about them based on their experience. As a consumer myself, I also know that a pair of Nikes will not enable me to fly, drinking an energy drink will not make me look like an underwear model, and not to trust everything that I read on Facebook or elsewhere on the Internet. We need to learn as a society how to think critically, and in doing so we will be Facebook’s best regulator and best customer.