I’m always puzzled by the simplistic reductionism of “profits” as an explanation for bad behavior by big corporations. Any halfway decent history of just the US auto industry, for example, will show how off the mark that is. Corporations are endlessly putting ideology above profits, to the point of facing extermination, as the history of the Ford Motor Co. alone would make clear.
Should we ever get an honest history of Facebook, we’ll doubtlessly see Zuck’s ideology and psychology kneecapping his drive for profits over and over again, avoiding the evidence he has been shown. He’s not any better at this than Henry Ford.
Maybe it won’t be. But it’s worth noting that Facebook is treating it differently. They’ve gone on an usual PR defensive campaign and internal reports are that Zuckerberg is spending an inordinate amount of time dealing with this.
It’s possible it’s purely the result of some kind of shuffling of PR consultants and nothing more. But this article notes that there are things that are different about this incident than previous ones.
“While plenty of Facebook employees have spoken out against the company anonymously or internally, only a handful — particularly at a high-ranking level — have ever spoken out on the record against Facebook. And never before have they revealed such detailed evidence that the company seemingly understands but ignores systematic harms it causes. Nor has a Facebook defector had this kind of press rollout: first, a series of investigative reports with a major publication, then an unveiling on primetime television, and soon testimony before Congress — all within the span of just a few weeks.”
This doesn’t mean that the ultimate outcome will be different than before, of course. Facebook is a fantastically rich company and has a lot of resources to fight. But it’s a mistake to assume they’re different from other super wealthy corporations who have completely and utterly misjudged a challenge and shot itself in the foot with a combination of ideological blindness, narrow mindedness and ego.
