A lot has been happening at the Facebook Inc. (FB – Free Report) headquarters over the last week. The social media giant is leaving no stone unturned to salvage its fast-eroding image, the latest being a public apology issued by the company’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg via a full-page newspaper ad in major U.S. and U.K. papers on Sunday.
The apology comes four days after Zuckerberg, on Mar 21, for the first time spoke after the alleged data misuse scandal that rocked the social media platform and compromised the personal data of more than 50 million users. However, by that time, the company had already lost $60 billion, with its shares witnessing its sharpest fall in four years.
Undoubtedly, the latest apology, where Zuckerberg talks about “breach of trust” and “promises to meet,” is a last-ditch effort to save his company from further losing its already-tainted image. But will that be enough for Zuckerberg and his company, with tech stocks from the S&P 500 declining 2.7% on Friday and the markets taking a hit?
Zuckerberg’s Apology a Bit Too Late
On Sunday, Zuckerberg decided to go the most traditional way to apologize for the Cambridge Analytica fiasco. Facebook took out full-page ads in three U.S. newspapers — The New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal— and seven newspapers in the U.K., signed by Zuckerberg himself.
The apology read, “We have a responsibility to protect your information. If we can’t, we don’t deserve it.” It then explained how the entire event was a “breach of trust” with “promises to do better” and thanking users “for believing in this community.”
Facebook has struggled to cope with this crisis and the apology comes almost a week after the data breach scandal came to light. Although Zuckerberg published his first official response through a post last week, acknowledging the company’s shortcomings and its plan of action to prevent any such repetition, he certainly did not sound apologetic. Moreover, the post came four days after the fiasco and by then Facebook had already lost enough followers and a staggering $60 billion.
