Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB), which was criticized last year for allegedly allowing “fake news” to sway the 2016 U.S. election, is tiptoeing into politics.
Politics will never be the same.
It is starting with Town Hall, a tab on its main service that lets users find and connect with their elected officials by just entering a street address. The tab will also notify users before elections, incorporate what officials do into Facebook news feeds and, the company hopes, promote civic engagement.
Facebook is not going to stop there. As it has copied the features of other competitors, like Snap Inc (NYSE:SNAP) it could now replace Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) as a forum for political discourse.
Are you noting that, Mr. President? More important, Mr. Investor, are you noting what this might mean for your Facebook investment?
Zuckerberg for President?
CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who has already drawn presidential mentions for 2020, has dramatically increased his personal involvement in the political space, personally introducing Town Hall and praising a livestream of two Congressmen — one from each party — driving to Washington together after their flights were cancelled.
Facebook had no choice in getting involved with politics. Facebook is being dragged into political issues, on a global basis, with New Zealand questioning the company’s tax bill to Germans questioning the mental health of its content moderators to English authorities demanding it decrypt Whatsapp messages on command, essentially rendering it useless.
A Vanity Fair story on the Town Hall feature had an eerie view of where we are heading, a photo of reporters crowded around a U.S. Senator, their phones held out like microphones, recording her every word for editing, and the Senator with a “deer in the headlights” look in her eyes, changing her view on an issue as a result of feedback on a level she had not gotten before.
The aim seems to be less to play “gotcha” with politicians than to change the way people think about political debate, from asking “what do you want” to the more practical “what should we do?” A deliberative approach, focused on practical solutions and including people with different points of view, could cool political temperatures, the thinking goes.
The Bottom Line for FB Stock
Since the election, Facebook is up 16%, despite a post-election swoon that twice sent it to $115 per share. If you bought those dips you’re in the money, because the company opened for trade Mar 27 at $140.42 per share, a record.
Investors have been impressed with the company’s new video strategy, with an ad sales strategy that challenges Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG, NASDAQ:GOOGL) for publisher loyalty, and with its aggressive moves into virtual reality, which recently included hiring away Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) veteran Michael Hillman for its Oculus roadmap. The company is also trying to immerse all its people in artificial intelligence.
But Facebook’s new role as an enabler of political debate carries substantial risks.
There are practical risks, like a Supreme Court case in which a registered sex offender claims a “right” to use social networking services. There are also risks of abuse, like a Virginia Republican changing a Facebook headline to question his opponent’s fealty to the Confederate cause.
For now, Zuckerberg seems to be struggling for solutions. Asked about fake news at a recent stop in North Carolina, part of an effort to visit all 50 states (it looks increasingly like a political campaign), he insisted “no one in our community wants fake information,” and that people should not be “banning things just because they hurt someone’s feelings.”
Facebook has just begun trying to draw that line, and it may be the hardest line it has ever tried to draw.
Dana Blankenhorn is a financial and technology journalist. He is the author of the sci-fi novella Into the Cloud, available at the Amazon Kindle store. Write him at danablankenhorn@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter at @danablankenhorn. As of this writing he owned shares in FB, AAPL and GOOGL.
