MySpace syndrome, which is also peculiar to Facebook

Can the appearance of fake news and violent videos in Facebook news lead to a replay of the MySpace script? In search of an answer to this question, the author of the material comes to the conclusion that such an assumption in fact seems not so unbelievable. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg should take a closer look at this situation more closely, and he, like no one else, understands this, because it was his company who took the crown of the championship from MySpace when the latter passed its positions in 2009.

The social media giant Facebook has a problem and it is much more serious than the simple “ need to adapt to the world, which she herself created” in the form of lies and mental unbalanced individuals who flooded the platform, who used Facebook Live to demonstrate horrific acts of violence online.

The essence of the problem is whether Facebook can protect its reputation as an effective advertising platform in the eyes of advertisers who want to pay for placing their content on it.

In order to send Facebook in a spiral of slow, but sure care to non-existence, it is enough that advertisers decide that they are risking their brand, associating it with poor content. The same will happen if a critical mass of valuable consumers decides to leave the platform, not wanting to unwittingly contemplate such content every day.
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This scenario actually doesn’t sound that incredible, even for such a large and powerful machine as Facebook. Brands have many other platforms on which they can sell their products or convert views into buyers.

For example, Google and Amazon are two platforms, competing on equal terms with Facebook for the audience and the wallets of its representatives.

As impression turns into reality

The fragility of the platforms and, in particular, those of them that began their existence in the form of social networks - a story that MySpace knows, perhaps even too well. She is well known to Mark Zuckerberg, because he played both the role of a witness and a person who contributed to the fall of the virtual world of MySpace.

Founded in 2003, MySpace was the most popular social network in history from 2005 to 2008. In 2006, she even surpassed Google in terms of traffic volume, becoming number one on this indicator. The platform helped bring Zynga and Farmville into the world, while at the same time firmly securing the niche reputation of a resource designed to explore the world of modern music and the artists who actively participated in its life. Even Kim Kardashian had (and still has ) a MySpace profile.

The beginning of the social media pioneer success began in 2006, when Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal began an investigation into the availability of pornographic material on the social network and its accessibility to minors. Soon began to appear reports of maniacs who use the network to induce teenagers to have sex. This caused an avalanche of investigations, with the result that over the next 2 years, more than 40 prosecutors general opened similar cases. In 2008, MySpace launched a decisive offensive against sexual maniacs and announced the closure of 90,000 such profiles on the site.

But it was too late.

By this time, MySpace has already gained a reputation for perverts site. Parents were advised to ensure that their children stay away from the social network. Advertisers began to refuse to post their materials. All the attention of the management was directed to overcoming the crisis and solving the related legal and legal problems. MySpace’s apparent inability to curb the activities of such users and remove inappropriate content from its platform only increased its attitude to it as a marginal resource unsafe for people seeking normal communication.

As soon as the resource had a reputation as an attractive place for such individuals, advertisers working with similar content immediately began to reach out to it. This fact was the last straw for brands that have invested millions in building a more trustworthy image.

This idea is especially important to note. Subsequently, we will return to it.

According to comScore, as of December 2008, Myspace had about 76 million monthly visitors, and net advertising revenue was $ 800 million. A year later in 2009, advertising revenue fell to 470 million, and the monthly outflow of users from the platform was 1 million users. Two and a half years later, in 2011, the number of unique users fell more than twice (34.8 million), and advertising profit was less than 184 million dollars. Most of these funds were provided with content that resource founder Chris DeWulf described as disgusting ads designed for a wide variety of marginal publics, whose clicks, however, allowed the platform to at least continue to make money at the time when it needed them most.

These ads and the overall reputation of the platform also made out of reach many valuable groups of the target audience, which advertisers had previously hoped to attract. The demographic composition of MySpace has changed significantly and for the worse: now the bulk of users were men with an annual income of less than 25 thousand dollars.

The chief director of one of the country's largest advertising agencies of the time very accurately summarized the situation:

"Advertisers, for the most part, have some difficulty working with content and media that they consider ambiguous, especially if the target audiences they need are available in simpler and more reliable environments."

Like Facebook.

Mark Zuckerberg was glad to burst onto the stage and take a seat on it, which is losing popularity of MySpace was about to be released. Facebook polished its reputation as a “safe place”, designed to communicate with real friends, each of whom got into your social circle only after you confirm it. Zuckerberg's platform selected the title of the most popular social network in the world (the number of unique visitors) in April 2008, and in May 2009 - in the United States.

However, she also received most of MySpace's advertising and gaming profits.

When the "ducks" becomes too much

In June 2016, the Pew Research Center published a paper on sources from which American consumers receive news. And this work itself quickly became hot news.

Of the 3,000 respondents, 42% reported that they receive some of the news from Facebook, and 18% called the social network the only source of news.

The huge audience of the Facebook news feed and the confidence on which one of the world's largest social networks was built led to the fact that 75 percent of visitors did not even suspect that the “news ducks” they had read were misinformation. The headlines reported that President Obama, who was President at the time, signed a decree banning the oath of allegiance in schools or that Pope Francis expressed support for Donald Trump and his campaign were “stretched out” millions of times. Moreover, they managed to hang on the platform for a long time before they were removed, which, however, did not prevent the emergence of new misleading posts.

Fake news flourishes because it brings good dividends.

Publishing their professionals claim that they can earn for them up to 10 thousand dollars a month. According to them, this is a simple matter, including the falsification of public domain names in such a way that they look very similar to the names of legitimate organizations, such as CNN.com or ABCNEWS.com. Some of these pros, he said, even wanted to check how far you could go in this business. The ads he created using a real link, the text of which sounded like a rubbish child, were moderated in 13 minutes, after which our leader quickly edited a public link to CNN.com. He also added that he would never even try something similar in Google Adwords, which immediately blocks such accounts.

As soon as fake news is published and acquires fake links, the Facebook platform does all the hard work of turning content into yet another viral news as it roams from one news feed, slowly acquiring millions of likes and reposts.

More recently, however, the news ducks went into the shadows against the background of the scandal with Facebook Live, which was used by mentally unbalanced people to show their ugly and cruel acts of violence to the whole world. When presenting Facebook Live to the general public, Zuckerberg boasted that people can now “be themselves”, that they now have a new wonderful tool designed to share content directly from the scene, as it is, without any processing.

“Untreated as is” content shocked the whole world: it turned out that beheading, suicide, gang rape and violence, killing the old people right in their cars and their children by their fathers are quite “everyday” for Facebook Live users. I do not think, however, that watching this is normal for all other users.

Not surprisingly, Facebook was seriously criticized for allowing fake news to spread to millions of news feeds without any attempt at timely intervention. And of course, he was criticized for allowing the terrifying videos to “hang” on the site for many hours before they were removed. Modern Facebook very strongly relies on user complaints, which, according to representatives of the social network, are investigated within 24 hours and after the content is removed if a decision is made.

However, in conditions where 75% of people who see news ducks in front of them believe them, it is obvious that a lot of time will pass before someone who understands a problem reports disinformation and his complaint is considered. In the case of the video, there is evidence that the murder of a Thai girl by her father was “shared” 317 thousand times, after being removed more than a day after the appearance.

All these events coincided in time with the actions of Facebook to combat the overvaluation of metrics by advertisers, which resulted in the removal of fake social network accounts used to simulate a large subscriber base.

In addition, many questions arise about why Facebook, which so well manages to get rid of erotic content, weapons advertising and other things that do not fit into the subject of service, at the same time fails to defeat the fake news, which, according to the words people are very easy to recognize. And why she also fails to resolutely get rid of the content that is terrifying by its “naturalness”, which many visitors of the platform probably would like to bypass.

When trust means a lot

As I wrote two weeks ago, Facebook is a social network, no more than Macy's is a thriving department store network, although both companies, of course, fit these descriptions at certain stages of their history. In fact, modern Facebook is a huge advertising platform that has grown to its size due to the fact that it managed to create a trusted network of friends, who, in turn, brought into it all those whom they trust and communicate with.

Today, all actions and decisions of Facebook are closely related to the size of the audience, which they will be able to attract to view advertising content and thus monetize. That is why I wrote that Facebook could hastily become a payment network and that Mark Zuckerberg’s company is more interested in playing the role of a channel that allows you to bring your audience to the brand’s websites and motivate them to buy. This approach allows her to put much more money in her pockets than she ever could make in the processing of payments, each of which occurs only when the consumer decides not only to follow the advertising link, but also to acquire one or another product.

However, the same model now makes Facebook incredibly vulnerable.

MySpace lost ground to Facebook when all its users and key partners lost faith in its platform and stopped treating it as a safe place that you can trust in your reputation and go elsewhere.

And Facebook has become this safe place.

Now, Facebook has yet to answer the question of whether its platform is still able to provide good content and maintain the image of brands that trust it. Is it possible that Facebook will overload its news feed, including the dominance of the misinformation still present in it? As for the horrific videos, only concerns about the possibility of running into a massive skirmish in the tape can make potential buyers, valuable to advertisers, refuse to visit such a social network. And of course, concerns about the growing amount of fake, dubious or brutal content provoke advertisers to search for alternative platforms.

Probably, the answers to these questions are about to be received, however, it is clear that the situation for Facebook is new. The company's management is still considering various options for response. We will probably get more information this week, during the announcement of financial indicators. Maybe Mark Zuckerberg even discussed this issue with a simple Ohio family, with whom he had dinner at a television show in late April.

What's next?

All these events coincided with the advent of new trends in the world of commercial and advertising platforms.

The information space is now increasingly filled with a cacophony of news about the addictive nature of technology and how our total obsession with them damages overall well-being. Writers, academics and even technical specialists have increasingly begun to call us for an “information detox”, that is, to minimize the time spent on the network, sitting behind games and clicking on mindless videos. In his new book Irresistible, Adam Elter even devoted 340 pages to this topic. And even despite the fact that, I think, most people agree that a complete rejection of technology is impossible, (and it is hardly interesting to them as such), the practice of deliberately rejecting unsafe or no longer providing valuable information channels is quite real and not requiring much effort.

Most people really do not need to watch yet another uncomplicated video about a little elephant trying to get out of the river mixed with fake news about the death of the Queen of England. And at the same time, most people still need to buy things, compare goods and find stores where they can buy certain necessary things.

This means that it is time to pay attention to Google and Amazon services.

Last week, Google beat all expectations , reporting a 20% increase in advertising profits as a result of the growing popularity of mobile search. Consumers use it on the go to visit establishments and shops, compare prices and search for necessary goods. And this is good news for Google, working hard to maintain its relevance in a world where people, more than ever - 60% percent of the time - begin their search for products on the Amazon home page.

By the way, about Amazon, which also boasts excellent results, and reported a 23% increase in its mainstream e-commerce business. According to some independent sources, the number of Amazon Prime subscribers has reached 80 million. In addition, Alexa, apparently, is becoming the most popular beauty at the ball of virtual assistants.

So brands that reflect on ways to make contact with the owners of mobile devices who want to make purchases with their help have at least two platforms that can help them in this matter.

MySpace took less than three years to turn from riches in the mud. In 2005, Rupert Murdoch acquired the company for $ 580 million. In 2011, she was sold to a consortium, which included Justin Timberlake for $ 35 million.

The possible loss of faith in Facebook as a kind of “safe” place for users and advertisers in the network is the most serious difficulty that the company has faced in the past 13 years of its existence. The situation is also closely monitored and regulators. Facebook as a platform is obviously significantly different from MySpace. We are talking about large scale and more assets, such as Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram, each of which attracts more and more users and advertisers. And all of them, of course, did a great job of filtering the very content that led to the collapse of MySpace.

But fake news and cruelty in real time is a very unfavorable turn, especially given the strong emphasis Facebook is putting on its news feed as an authoritative repository of content from a social network built on trust.

MySpace is an instructive story about what happens when users stop believing the service, and advertisers who want to work with them go along with them, taking their money to other platforms.

And of course, about how little time is required in order to roll down from the mountain, to which you have been taking so long, climbed step by step.