Lessons From the Facebook Fiasco
By Stephen H. Yu http://www.targetmarketingmag.com
The funniest and the most ironic part of this Facebook fiasco is that target marketing based on data actually worked. If it didn’t, no one would care about some data geeks hoarding data somewhere in the cloud. And any reader of a magazine called “Target Marketing” shouldn’t be surprised by any of this.
Why should it be surprising that, with all of those behavioral and demographic data that Facebook collected, some analytics company could actually figure out who is more likely to vote for Trump? A mediocre-level analyst can do that with data far less immediate and complete than what were used in actuality.
In fact, the whole basis of the Facebook business model is that:
- It is the largest billboard in the world; and
- It can effectively deliver customized messages to each individual.
Facebook has been doing this kind of targeting with or without any third-party analytics vendor such as Cambridge Analytica. The fact that Facebook is expert in grabbing people’s attention (or their eyeballs) for elongated time makes it ever more powerful and effective than third parties; hence, all of the hoopla in the media.
The scarier part (to me, at least) is that a senator actually had to ask Mr. Zuckerberg about his company’s business model, to which he simply answered it shows targeted ads to its users. Seriously, how these fine gentlemen on Capital Hill will regulate any information business is beyond me. Maybe these senators should delegate that work to their grandchildren.
Because I — like readers of this fine publication — do target marketing for living, I wouldn’t blame Facebook for doing things that I would have done myself. And yet, this recent revelation of Facebook’s business with Cambridge Analytica doesn’t sit right with even the most avid practitioners of target marketing. It is not just the fact that it actually affected the presidential election, which is a personal matter for many. Even without any political ramification — which certainly is acting as a magnifying glass in this instance — something certainly went wrong here. Basically, sensitive data were mishandled, and there is no sign of data governance when it comes to sharing data with third-party companies. Considering the influential power of Facebook, no wonder everyone is talking about it as a scandal.
Amigos do Comendador Marcio B Fasano 
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