Bleak year looms for Facebook

The social media giant is facing a reckoning in 2018 as authorities close in on several fronts, writes

100,000 people, it would have trouble policing the sea of effectively anonymous content produced by two billion users, an unknown number of which are bots and paid trolls.

The obvious solution is to enforce Facebook’s user policy (which says people can only post under their real names) and hold them responsible for what they publish. But that would cause Facebook’s user base to shrink, which would alarm investors.

A third line of attack is likely to become important soon.

Former Facebook executive Antonio Garcia-Martinez argued last year that Facebook’s ad targeting based on data collected from users is essentially unethical (and also that Facebook oversells its targeting ability).

This resonates with politicians – who worry about the social network’s voter manipulation potential – and privacy advocates.

Even if new curbs on data gathering and ad targeting don’t arrive soon, standards may start shifting thanks to the efforts of people such as Brendan Eich, the creator of Javascript and the Firefox browser.

Eich’s latest start-up produces a browser that effectively blocks all ads – and that will offer a new advertising model built on revenue sharing with consenting users.

The social network’s carefree years of unregulated, untaxed growth are coming to an end.

Facebook will probably remain a major force in the attention market, especially given its foothold in the messenger app market and the popularity of Instagram with young people.

It may keep rowing against the tide and offering meaningless concessions, but that’s not an endless path.

Eventually it’ll have to submit to rules and popular attitude changes that will cut its ambition down to size and perhaps force it to rethink its business model.