After I graduate, I hope to go to law school and eventually combine my knowledge in public relations and law to help businesses make decisions that will be beneficial to all stakeholders. In order to this, I need to have a strong understanding of audience consumption habits and how social media platforms are monitoring and reaching these consumers.
This week, Twitter and Facebook CEO’s, Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg, appeared in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee to answer questions regarding their content moderation techniques. This hearing is a result of numerous incidents including their recent regulation of the reach of an article posted by the New York Post about Hunter Biden. They defended their company’s actions by saying that the information in the article was misleading but this just brought up more questions from the Democratic and Republican parties. At the hearing, senators from both sides were allowed to ask questions. The Republican senators dominated the question portion and asked 72 questions in total, mostly in regards to content moderation. The Democratic senators primarily focused on asking questions about content moderation and its effectiveness in preventing the spread of hate speech and violence.
If I worked for Twitter and Facebook, I would be most concerned with maintaining a trusting relationship with all publics. After the recent release of the documentary “The Social Dilemma”, which looked at the negative aspects of social media platforms, many consumers are feeling misled by these brands. People are even deleting their social media’s or switching to new ones to show their disapproval of the recent revelations discussed in the film.
So what does this mean for their brands? A loss of consumers ultimately means less money for them, without an abundance of users, advertising companies will be less willing to buy spots on their website. However, knowing how reliant people are on social media these days, this is extremely unlikely, but it does not mean it won’t happen. This is important for the company to consider as they move forward.
My first move as the PR person after this news was released would be to ensure consumers that their moderation efforts are not meant to hurt them, but to protect them and that in the future they will be more transparent. I would also want to comfort the public by saying that they are complying with officials to answer any questions. My next step would be to work on rebuilding relationships lost by establishing a team that’s sole job is to correctly monitor social media platforms, as well as a team of people whose primary job is to answer questions regarding content regulation.
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/11/17/technology/twitter-facebook-hearings