In what was a financially successful year for Big Tech, companies like Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Google failed epically in the real of public opinion in 2017. In an end of the year analysis, Business Insider points out what has led to a backlash against these companies and calls from industry watchers like esteemed NYU marketing professor Scott Galloway to call for the government to intervene with an AT&T-like breakup of tech conglomerates. Not surprisingly, among the major failings cited are social media titans’ inability to properly police “fake news” and abuse of their services. A ProPublica investigation, for example, revealed Facebook’s automated advertising service allowed advertisers to target anti-Semites or exclude audiences based on race. And in the midst of a seemingly never-ending string of scandals, “when Congress called on Facebook, Google, and Twitter to testify about their role in allowing Russian-linked actors to influence last year’s presidential election, the results were embarrassing.” Those companies’ CEOs were MIA, and offered no major fixes or support legislation to expand transparency requirement for online political ads to a similar standard for television and print ads.
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