If you read the news regularly, you’ll know that Facebook aren’t exactly the social media darling it used to be now.
It has been under fire on many occasions now, from algorithm changes to the Cambridge Analytica data scandal and its fight against campaigns which influenced elections globally.
What was seemingly the last straw for many like AirAsia’s CEO Tony Fernandes is the fact that a 17 minute long live stream of the New Zealand mosque attacks on 15 March 2019 was successfully uploaded to Facebook by a suspected terrorist.
New Zealand mass shooting on 15 March 2019
In case you haven’t heard, there was a recent case of mass shooting in New Zealand, Christchurch on 15 March 2019. This was known to be one of the most fatal mass shooting in New Zealand’s modern history with the last massacre killing 13 people in 1990. The man suspected to be behind the death of 50 people is 28 year old, Brenton Harris Tarrant from Australia who is also a white supremacist; one who believes that white people are superior to those from other races.
According to The Washington Post, he was also responsible for live streaming the attacks on Facebook.
And if you’ve not missed it, here’s the thing: the guy live-streamed what he did on Facebook, and let’s just say that while Facebook did delete the video, it didn’t do so immediately.
Which leads to this.
AirAsia CEO to boycott Facebook
On 17 March 2019, 2 days after the New Zealand mosque shootings, AirAsia’s CEO Tony Fernandes suddenly announced on his Twitter account that he had deleted his Facebook account which had garnered 670K followers. He attributed the reason to the immense hatred present online, even more so for social media giant, Facebook.
In a separate tweet, he mentioned that Facebook “could have done more to stop some of this… 17 mins of a live stream of killing and hate!!!!” ending off with the platform’s need to “clean up and not just think of financials.”
This supports his rationale for bidding farewell to Facebook until they deal with the root of the cause, at least.
Sure Facebook has its pros and is especially beneficial to businesses but for Fernandes, the bad outweighed the good significantly.
Mixed reactions to Fernandes’ exit
In response to this news, there were many who supported Fernandes’ exit from Facebook.
Others, on the other hand, didn’t quite agree with his way of thinking and stated that deleting his Facebook account doesn’t change anything in the world.
It was as good as closing his eyes to what was happening in the world, instead of trying to make a difference regardless of how small it is.
Facebook speaks up
On 14 March 2019, Facebook took to Twitter to announce that they’ve deleted the suspected shooter’s Facebook and Instagram accounts, including “any praise or support for the crime and shooter” as soon as they learn of it.
Two days later on 16 March 2019, Facebook has removed a total of 1.5 million videos related to the mosque attacks. In addition, they’ve posted that they’re “working around the clock to remove violating content” with the help of employees and technology.
Despite all these corrective measures taken by Facebook, the damage has already been done.
In fact, over in New Zealand, advertisers are thinking of boycotting Facebook ads, with the Association of New Zealand Advertisers (ANZA) and the Commercial Communications Council asking advertisers to think of how “their advertising dollars are spent, and carefully consider, with their agency partners, where their ads appear.”
In case you’re not aware, in the advertising world, big companies usually outsource their advertising purchases to agencies, and therefore if a few big agencies decide to not to buy from Facebook, the effects could be massive.
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