Infamous Memo Comes Back To Haunt Facebook

Infamous Facebook Memo Resurfaces

Facebook is not doing very well recently. Struggling with the content it hosted and facing fresh allegations regarding its involvement in the Cambridge Analytica scandal the last thing it needed at the moment was another reminder as to the PR disasters the company has produced.

With all matters currently ruining the company’s image and stock value, the infamous “ugly truth” memory of 2016 has reemerged as a stark reminder to how some at the company believed it should be run.

The “Ugly Truth”

In 2016 a memo was issued from an unnamed but high-level member of the Facebook staff. I will post the main points of it below, but put simply, it outlined that Facebook’s business model was to attract new members by any means necessary.

“So we connect more people. That can be bad if they make it negative. Maybe it costs a life by exposing someone to bullies. Maybe someone dies in a terrorist attack co-ordinated on our tools. And still, we connect people. The ugly truth is that we believe in connecting people so deeply that anything that allows us to connect more people more often is *de facto* good. It is perhaps the only area where the metrics to tell the true story as far as we are concerned. That’s why all the work we do in growth is justified. The questionable contact importing practices. All the subtle language that helps people stay searchable by friends. All of the work we do to bring more communication in. The work we will likely have to do in China someday. All of it.

An inconvenient reminder

With many high-profile companies such as Tesla abandoning the social media site and with the stock value of the company plummeting by nearly $100bn, the future of Facebook is not looking good. The memo, as comes via a report from the BBC, simply acts as a reminder that Facebook may never have had your best interests at heart.

Should we really be that surprised though?