Facebook’s Hubris

Becoming a huge corporation made Facebook forget its roots. The recent damage to its image could be a turning point.

Last weekend something traumatic happened to me. My Facebook account disappeared and I received a message stating that Facebook had decided to close my account due to impersonation. I was obviously deeply insulted, especially as a frequent user. Only two hours later, I learned that it was nothing personal. Hackers with the group Anonymous had managed to cancel many accounts as a part of an anarchistic sabotage. They released hate messages against the company and mentioned the public offering that took place about three weeks ago. Ever since then, Facebook stock has kept dropping. In principle, a failing capital market fundraiser should not influence the image of the product in the public’s eyes. Facebook’s stock market launch is an embarrassing failure, but how many users actually follow the events of the market and are influenced by the launch’s result? Not many.

However, Facebook’s luck has recently taken a turn for the worse, and Anonymous’ sabotage is another symptom. Up until a year ago, all that was said about Facebook was that the network was growing phenomenally, stirring the world and causing revolutions. Nowadays emerging research shows a usage drop among youngsters. Add this to the lukewarm reactions to Facebook’s new Timeline, and to reports appearing before the IPO about Zuckerberg’s arrogance. He did not attend some of the meetings, and also hastily married the day after the IPO. Perhaps something did happen here which will influence Facebook as a brand.

If Zuckerberg had indeed gone into the IPO with a low price, the stock’s value would have risen and reached the present price after going up, not down. This of course would have looked completely different, and the company would still have a high value. One may assume that it would have had a lot of sympathy not only from the audience, but also from the financial community.

It is thus possible that the failing public offer is only another sign of a new phase for the company. Facebook’s chiefs haven’t yet understood that they’ve crossed an imaginary line and arrived at this phase. Facebook has suddenly gone from being the public’s favorite to being identified with greediness and arrogance. Perhaps it has simply gone through the transformation from successful company to corporate monster. Google, and other companies that began small, smart and sly, learned to behave differently soon after taking over the world. These huge companies are no longer loved, but they are threatening individuals’ freedoms just as they contribute to them.

The moment a company turns into a corporation it loses part of its ability to understand the soul of the masses. If this is indeed what has happened to Facebook, then there is definitely a problem here. After all, Facebook has been completely built upon understanding the masses. Facebook understood, consciously or intuitively, that many people in the world wish to create nonbinding contacts. Facebook allowed people to be friends with many others without much effort beyond nonchalantly clicking the “like” button, and to feel that they are not alone in the world. The company had also been wise to go on developing because it has understood what the masses had wanted: to feel they are not alone in their wish to make the world a better place. But did Facebook take a wrong turn at some point?

If the extent of its success has really changed the company’s way of thought, it is possible that it has lost its greatest ability.

Maybe this is Zuckerberg’s lesson, similar to the lesson Steve Jobs got when he was fired from Apple at the end of the 1980s. The only question is what Zuckerberg will decide to do with it. Will he learn and change his ways, or choose to remain arrogant and to be conceived as a corporation, with all of the connotations that brings?