The Trials and Tribulations of Facebook

    As the number one social media platform, advertising with Facebook seems like a no-brainer. The app reaches an audience of 1.98 billion people with a worldwide advertising revenue that has continuously grown year after year. However, with recent controversies and changes in algorithms, will Facebook be able to keep its top dog status for much longer?

    For the most part, everyone knows the story of Facebook's humble beginnings in the Harvard dorm room of student Mark Zuckerberg back in 2004. And if you don’t, you need to watch “The Social Network” starring the gorgeous Andrew Garfield, Jesse Eisenberg and Justin Timberlake. While the film is loosely based on true events, it’s good enough for a quick run down.  Anyway, for years now Facebook has been growing like wildfire, becoming more and more popular by the day and making key investments along the way. In 2012 the company bought another highly used platform, Instagram and in 2019 they acquired WhatsApp as well. All of this has led to Facebook's dominance of the social media world but everyone has dirty laundry and Facebook’s was airing out in the open for everyone to see. 

    Facebook quickly became the top platform for companies to place advertisements, whether you were a small business or a large corporation Facebook was a perfect place to sell your product. That all changed, however, in 2018 when the platform announced that it would be changing its algorithm so that people's feeds would be filled more with the user's friend's and family’s posts over branded ones. Companies began seeing significant drops in revenue and popularity ultimately hurting their advertising strategies and dropping Facebook’s customer engagement down to .07%. With this new algorithm, companies have been advised to follow recommendations such as not posting as often and targeting specific audiences with posts. It is still possible to succeed on Facebook and many companies have but the algorithm switch hurt many businesses, some never recovering. 

    The blows kept coming in 2018 when it was revealed that the data information of roughly 87 million Facebook users had been accessed during the 2016 presidential election. This was the biggest leak in the company's history and would lead to many users deleting their accounts altogether. In April of that year, owner Mark Zuckerberg would testify in front of Congress and face questions so difficult and interrogating you could visibly see him sweating. Today, this is still one of the biggest controversies Facebook has found itself in and is a big part of the growing distrust in the platform.  

    Along with data-stealing controversies, Facebook also lost trust with its users when the pandemic broke out in 2020. Misinformation about the pandemic was being spread on the platform which was a serious concern for the public’s well-being. Facebook was quick to react and did all it could to help stop the spread of misinformation by creating a COVID-19 Information Center, investing millions of dollars in fact-checkers and prohibiting dishonest content in advertisements. Even though it was facing criticism, Facebook had a massive impact on the pandemic, this one positive, however. While everyone was stuck at home unable to see each other, Facebook allowed them to stay connected and interact with each other in ways they never had before. They made it easier for people to reach out to their communities, shed light on mental health and even helped people access support when they were struggling. Facebook may have lost users with the stolen data controversy but they gained many back during the struggle of the pandemic. 

    All and all Facebook has been and continues to be a dominating force in the social media world. Even though they continue to face issues, nothing has been able to slow them down. It has now been 20 years since its launch, but I don’t see Facebook dying down anytime soon.