Newsweek - USA (2019-08-09)

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16 NEWSWEEK.COM

Does It Matter if

We Hate Facebook?

The company has become one of the most disliked

businesses anywhere. Here’s how it will hurt them.

CALL FOR ACTION One hundred cutouts of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg

appeared on the southeast lawn of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. last year. The source:

Avaaz, a global civic movement, that was demanding Facebook quickly ban

bots and other forms of disinformation before the 2018 November midterm elections.

BY

SAM HILL

for their chance to take a swing.

Recently, it was executive David Mar-

cus’ turn. The company has climbed

to the top of the “most-hated corpora-

tion” list over some pretty stiff compe-

tition, including Purdue

and Wells Fargo, not to

mention perennial con-

tenders Walmart, Dow

Chemical, Microsoft

congratulations are in order.

Facebook has managed to do

something that climate change, the

national deficit, the opioid crisis, stu-

dent debt and income inequality could

not: unite Democrats and Republicans.

Last year, CEO Mark Zuckerberg

spent 10 hours as a Congressional

piñata, with legislators from both

sides of the aisle pushing and shoving

and Phillip Morris.

Which raises the question: So

what? Does being hated, or at least

mistrusted, really matter? The answer

is yes, but probably not in the way

most of us think.

The Facebook marketing depart-

ment is surely rattled. To marketers,

trust is sacred and once lost can never

be regained. But consumers are likely

the least of Facebook’s worries. For

some Facebook users, trust was never

part of the brand promise in the first

place, or if it was, it was a small part

relative to convenience and connec-

tivity. Consumers make trade-offs. A

lot of people who don’t love McDon-

ald’s still take their kids there after

soccer practice. Anyway, consumers

tend to be pretty forgiving. J&J has

been accused of killing its customers

at least four times—the Tylenol con-

tamination, toxic shock syndrome,

talc and now opioids, and yet con-

sumers still buy their baby shampoo.

Nor will it probably matter to inves- FR

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SILICON VALLEY

AUGUST 09, 2019