The ‘Real’ Question: What’s Facebook’s True Valuation Without "Fake"?
By Tyler Durden
There are two hot topics post the U.S. presidential election. One is “fake news”, the other is Facebook™ (FB), and its involvement in it.
The accusations and the defenses against have been all over the board. Both figuratively, as well as literally.
Management from Mark Zuckerberg on down have been professing when it came to anything “fake” it wasn’t of their doing. And gee-whiz-by-golly they’re going to do whatever it takes to make sure anything “fake” never sees the “like” of day again.
Sounds great, in theory. But there’s a very real fact that must now be considered…
If “fake” news was so wide-spread, and so devoured on FB that it had the ability to not only influence, but rather, to overturn political norms and ruin the election of what everyone in media on down believed; that this election was merely a formality on paper because, it was clear to all of them, Mrs. Clinton would win not just walking away, but running?
That would mean FB now has to alienate (i.e., by now not delivering “news” these people wanted to see) millions, upon millions, upon millions of now current users. What does that imply to their now “real” (ooopsy, again!) metrics going forward?
If the above hypothetical has the ability to be true (and from a business perspective it sure has) the very fact that FB will now openly censor, mark, tag, possibly defame (whether intentionally or not), and more articles of news, or anything else shared on its platform. Two questions have to be asked:
First: How many FB customers decide they don’t need or want a “mommy” deciding what they can, or can not, read or share? Second: How fast does that process begin, and by how many?
No matter what side of the political fence you’re on matters. The only thing that matters is what all this means from a business perspective to FB’s bottom line. For as much as everyone likes “free”, without Wall Street (or the Swiss Central Bank) buying? FB moves to AOL™ status quicker than you can say “You’ve got mail?.”
As of this writing some hand writing is all ready appearing on the wall as FB announced not only will it begin to find ways to forbid fact-check. But it has now joined forces with a third-party to do just that. Again, all sounds good on the surface until you’re made aware by one’s own fact-checking just whom that third-party is. e.g., Poynter™.
Who are they? Personally, I’ve never heard of them prior, but it only took seeing one man’s name on the roster of backers to understand the impact it will have on a great many current FB users, as well as content generators to imagine a most assured backlash. e.g. George Soros.
Again, it doesn’t matter what side of the political fence you sit. And it doesn’t matter whether you like or dislike Mr. Soros, or anything he’s involved with. What does matter is this: How many users, along with legitimate purveyors …read more
Source: The ‘Real’ Question: What’s Facebook’s True Valuation Without "Fake"?
