Facebook took out adverts in major newspapers on Wednesday attacking Apple. Placed in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post, it criticized new data collection rules for apps, saying they will harm small firms.
Facebook Says it is ‘Standing up to Apple for Small Businesses’
The advert is headlined “we’re standing up to Apple for small businesses everywhere,” and insists that small businesses are “at the core” of what Facebook does. “While limiting how personalized ads can be used does impact larger companies like us, these changes will be devastating to small businesses,” it reads. “Without personalized ads, Facebook data shows that the average small business advertiser stands to see a cut of over 60% in their sales for every dollar they spend.”
As Bloomberg News noted, this is the latest outbreak of tensions between the two tech giants. Facebook has been amongst the firms that have complained about Apple taking a 30 percent cut of App Store revenue (something that is changing for smaller businesses). Apple, meanwhile, accused Facebook of showing a “disregard for user privacy” in November.
Charlotte:
Let’s pause for a moment, and consider what Zuckerberg’s actions are saying. The gist of his advert diatribe is that Apple are bad guys because they are not simply putting privacy above profit for supposedly small businesses that depend on ad revenue (ie the real FB customers), but Apple are putting the control over that privacy and data access into the hands of (there’s no sugar-coating this) the individual user! How reprehensible! Shame on Apple! What’s next? Informed user consent as the standard? Oversight and regulation to ensure that big tech play by the rules? Good Lord! Tyranny! The end of innovation and civilisation as we know it!
Put another way, and using a metaphor from an earlier era as an illustration; if Zuckerberg were an oil barron, he would be that guy who shows up on your land, and in exchange for some ‘fire water’, metal hatchets and some glass beads, he has you sign over his rights to put some ‘equipment’ on your land – in order to better serve you with more baubles, of course. Not only does he take the position that the less you know what his equipment is doing (extracting oil from your property), the better, he also downplays how massively he is enriching himself from your resources that render his giveaways to you – rage juice to impair your judgement and the tools to inflict harm on your neighbour, oh and some gaudy jewellery (an apt description of FB’s societal effects) – cheap and pathetic. Far from being implements of progress, social scientists might (and do) argue that his ‘free stuff’ has made your social climate worse. This is the very definition of predatory exploitation, disempowerment and impoverishment; as true then as it is now.
Not only should FB have to get your consent to extract your oil, ie your data, why should not you, the individual who owns that data, share in the benefits and the profits of its barter and sale? Why should FB and their real clients and customers have keep all of the profits, which, let’s be clear, are in the billions per quarter? Think of what that would mean during this period of global economic downturn to the billions of FB users, and how that model could become a win-win for all.
If ever anyone wanted to grant Zuckerberg the benefit of the doubt, this campaign, its message and on whose behalf he is intervening should dispel all illusions that he is the FB users’ friend. You, dear FB user, are no more FB’s customer than is a chicken the customer of a chicken farmer. Simply making chickens happy is not the chicken farmer’s goal; just ask KFC.
In related the Guild of Thieves is running ads protesting the new generation of high security locks