Playboy has announced that it is pulling its accounts from Facebook, saying that it doesn’t want to be complicit in Facebook’s mismanagement of user data. The company has 25 million fans who follow and engage with its pages. The decision follows revelations that Facebook"s users" data was misused by Cambridge Analytica. Elon Musk took similar steps to remove SpaceX and Tesla from Facebook last week.
For Playboy, the data misuse revelations were the last straw. In its statement it said:
“For years, it has been difficult for Playboy to express our values on Facebook due to its strict content and policy guidelines. We have been faced with the only alternative being to alter Playboy"s voice in order to meet Facebook"s views of what is and is not appropriate on its platform.
While that has challenged our business objectives and the ability to reach our audience in an authentic way, the recent news about Facebook"s alleged mismanagement of users" data has solidified our decision to suspend our activity on the platform at this time.”
With Playboy, Tesla and SpaceX all quitting Facebook, and the WhatsApp co-founder, Brian Acton, encouraging people to delete their Facebook accounts this misstep seems different from all the other times Facebook has garnered criticism.
The wider media has been running continual coverage on the topic which has made sure everyone is aware of the issue – it has even reportedly caused Facebook to delay the launch of its smart speaker devices. Whether Facebook is done for is still up for debate, but companies leaving the platform certainly isn’t reassuring.
Source: PRNewsWire via Bloomberg