Superhero or villain? Time will tell
OPINION: If you watch those cartoons where a character wants to take over the world, you’ll see there is always a day of reckoning.
And that day was last week for one of our modern-day megalomaniacs – Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg facing the United States Congress after admitting his company had a massive impact on the elections of one of the world’s most powerful nations.
OK, so he’s hardly a classic villain. But his dream to connect the entire world is the closest thing we have to Batman‘s Joker or Megatron from Transformers.
Already he has captured more than 2 billion of the world’s population and by doing so he’s considered one of the most powerful people in the world.
Facebook’s method of achieving world dominance was alluring if not insidious.
Zuckerberg created a place to keep in touch with family, find old friends and create new ones. All you had to do was hand over some personal data.
Now 1.4 billion people log on to Facebook every single day.
It wasn’t long before businesses realised the networking mammoth was too big an opportunity to ignore – some building whole new business models around it to profile, promote and connect with customers. It was a simple, inexpensive tool. Done well, it was a godsend. For marketing to millennials it was a must.
But the dream of connecting people had a dark side. Facebook was also a channel to harass and bully and was cited as a key tool for Isis to recruit its followers, incite violence, and plot attacks.
Most Facebook users were enamoured by its charms even when it started to become obvious that the information we were feeding this hungry machine was being used by all sorts of strangers.
Zuckerberg pushed back at the criticism over the years, saying Facebook would regulate itself and respond to any signs of abuse or incitement on a case-by-case basis.
He said no-one was being forced to give their data away and they could remove themselves at any time.
That was until it impacted on the very core of democracy and he was forced to admit that Cambridge Analytica, a data consultancy connected to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, misappropriated the personal information of up to 87 million people and helped to spread misinformation.
The company’s stock price tumbled 14 per cent and a #DeleteFacebook campaign reflected consumer outrage.
Last week was the day of reckoning. Time for Zuckerberg to admit he had grown a mammoth without any real admission of the massive powerhouse it had become.
It was also a massive public relations exercise.
Critics claimed Zuckerberg was awkward, shifty and, at times, comically evasive. He was ridiculed online for everything from his ill-fitting suit to a booster seat said to make him look more imposing.
On the other hand, he was very clear in his message that Facebook was wrong to not have considered the wider implications of what he had created.
It was obvious he was carefully trying to restore public trust and prevent wholesale regulations being forced upon Facebook.
So, what’s next? A Zuckerberg Part II has got to be a must see.
He’ll need to feature as the superhero who engages his loyal followers with talk of how together we are making a beautiful world where ‘‘protecting our community is more important than maximising profits’’.
But it also needs to come up with some serious information on just what is happening to my data.
In the meantime, the reviewers who have slayed him for his performance need to think again.
While Zuckerberg was under the gun, Facebook’s shares steadily rose and closed 4.5 per cent higher on the day.
Maybe the villain is really a superhero after all. ❚ Cas Carter is a marketing and communications specialist.
Critics claimed Zuckerberg was awkward, shifty and, at times, comically evasive. On the other hand, he was very clear in his message that Facebook was wrong to not have considered the wider implications of what he had created.