How many times have you threatened to delete your Facebook page as a promise to become more in tune with the world and less attached to your mobile device? How serious are you now that the #DeleteFacebook movement has started as a result of the Cambridge Analytica controversy? Social Spice Media is going to take a closer look at the power behind the social movement and if it really means Facebook is headed toward its demise.
A Powerful Reminder
We’ve blogged about social media’s power time and time again. We cannot reiterate how strong a community’s voice is. Social media amplifies this voice and all the carefully constructed opinions associated with it. People can easily share information, articles, and opinions on these platforms and reach hundreds of thousands of people within a matter of minutes.
Because we have easy access to news and information, it didn’t take long to learn about the Cambridge Analytica incident when it happened last month. Facebook released advertisements in newspapers to apologize, but this didn’t put a halt to the strength of the social media wave that was created. #DeleteFacebook has been trending on Twitter to demonstrate users’ disapproval of the platform. There have been several discussions of its value and stock diminishing along with Elon Musk demonstrating his support by deleting the SpaceX and Tesla Facebook pages for his companies.
Privacy on Public Platforms
We highly doubt the platform will disappear overnight, but it appears the company is fighting to stay in the ring despite popular demand to delete Facebook pages and get off the platform completely. Though people are upset, we don’t think they will stop using Facebook entirely. The moment you put your information online, it immediately becomes accessible by the public. Regardless of privacy settings, nothing is every truly private if it is online. It is quite easy to find, access, and distribute information.
To try to get a better understanding of the situation, we want to think about this situation from a data-sharing perspective. Our cell phones are capable of sharing data much easier than most may think. We allow our social media apps to access all kinds of information on our phones, tablets, and computers. They collect more data about us every time we open almost any app on our mobile devices or a web browser on a computer. Facebook and other platforms also use our information to deliver relevant ads to their target audience. Not to say that the situation that occurred was justified or ethical, but the facts about data sharing are that it happens every day with the vast amount of technology present in our world.
Other Voices Weigh In
Barron’s reports on the authenticity of the #DeleteFacebook movement and gives us some food for thought. They call attention to the #DeleteUber trend that gained attention during their immigration controversy last year. Barron’s shared insight from Sentieo’s CEO, who states, “You delete Uber and your move to Lyft the next day. There’s nothing like that with Facebook.” If Facebook disappears, then the social media ecosystem may feel incomplete. They also offer some statistics, which reveal the #DeleteFacebook mentions peaking to 126,000 at the end of March and falling to 74,000 a day after that number was reported. Are people already starting to get over the movement and resume interaction on Facebook?
What about Insta?
Facebook owns Instagram. What would happen to our favorite photo-sharing social platform if its new parent company fell into the social abyss? Though we cannot underestimate the power of this social movement, we can try to better understand how the company will react based on profits and pleasing members of the Facebook community. Consider the #BringBackSnap movement where users demanded Snap, Inc. revert their newest update to an older layout. Snapchat’s response was not favorable to users, but they continued to release other updates in hope of satisfying their social community. The company is still standing today, which gives us reason to believe a similar outcome may appear for Facebook.
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