Why it Could Take Longer for Facebook Stock to Recover
Facebook stock may take longer to recover, but not because of any real bad news. Public opinion is blamed.
By. Jacob
Edited: 2018-03-26 02:16
I still believe in Facebook and I think much of heat they are taking in the media is not really justified, which I also talked about in my last article: Facebook Stock Outlook After Scandal. Peoples emotions about subjects, does not always align with reality, and I think this is also the case with Facebook.
Point. 1: For a long time, it seems that there has been a negative bias against large tech companies, mainly around how they collect users data and use it in ad targeting. People are afraid about how their personal information is used, and I think that is where the recent scandal with Cambridge Analytica has hit the hardest. I am afraid public opinion needs to either shift its focus or improve significantly before we will see a real recovery in the Facebook stock. This could take months or even years.
Point. 2: The scandal itself, I think, is largely based on nothing. Yes. Data may have been abused, but much of the same data can be scraped through other means. This does not mean I think Facebook should just leave the front door open for data collection, but it underlines my point that the media and politicians are blowing things our of proportion. This could be further fueled by an anti-trump bias. If fake news on Social Media sites really helped Trump to the presidency it is not hard to see why political opponents would overreact on negative news. Currently, I am not aware if this is the case, so this is just speculation.
Regardless, I think we should all give Facebook a break and give them the time necessary to create a more secure social network. Solutions do not just invent themselves overnight. After having blocked direct access to data for apps Facebook will still need to focus on other security aspects. My own guess would be stronger pattern matching and AI to detect content scraping. That is not an easy undertaking. Twitter and Google is also struggling in this area, but Google at least seems to have made some progress. Though I am sure there are still ways to mass-scrape Google which run largely undetected. Google Plus currently seem to be spammers heaven, much like Twitter. My impression is that Facebook is much faster at detecting and acting on spam.
To better understand the problems technology websites are dealing with, read the following sections.
Aggressive anti-bot technology
In fact, Google is so aggressive about blocking bots, that they sometimes even block real users from using their site. VPN users will know what I am talking about, more about this problem here: Unusual traffic from your computer network
If a user happens to be using a VPN (Service to hide their IP address and location), they might be greeted with a message like this:
The blocking might be related to your use of a VPN browser plugin or program. You might try uninstalling the VPN from your computer or network and see if that makes a difference.
This was just Google giving users a bad advice. Why would you want to uninstall a VPN if you paid money to use it?
A hypothetical reason as to why Google is sometimes blocking innocent VPN users, might be because too many users are using the VPN, and Google detects this as "impossibly large amount of traffic coming from a particular IP address". Based on this, they might decide that no apartment complex / company can generate that much traffic, so this "must be a bot".
This could also be a problem with the VPN companies allowing too many users to use the same VPN server.
Laws and regulation on data handling
Regardless, my point in explaining all this is, that having an anti-scraping that is too aggressive might also block real users. That is why we need more complex behavioral pattern matching and AI to detect the blackhatters. However, this could possibly only work to a certain extent. It likely can not prevent all data collection. But it would still make it more difficult!
What would be better, is really to have some regulation in place, which would prevent websites from sharing personal information. This is already the case in some countries, but such rules are very hard to enforce. Facebook has already stated that, what Cambridge Analytica did was against their terms. The way apps worked just made it easier to collect data from the site.
Scraping of content will usually not have any consequences, and often it is not even illegal. So, unless the affected website files a civil law suit against whoever violated their terms, usually nothing will happen. However, collecting the same data through an app creates a public outcry about data collection! Facebook would not be Facebook without data, and again, most data is likely of limited significance, as it basically amounts to users friends lists, page likes, and other public information.
Should it be illegal to collect personal information? Certainly not. That would make it impossible to even have social media!
I am sure Facebook is doing all they can to keep our data secure. We really have to show patience with these highly complex issues.
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