Facebook’s response to the Cambridge Analytica data harvesting scandal is proving remarkably inept. The dynamite revelation by a whistleblower, that the data of 50 million users was mined without their consent and used by a political consultancy, threatens the very future of the social network. Yet it has taken five days for Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg to issue a statement. The story broke on Saturday, by Wednesday Facebook shares fell by more than 2 per cent and were down more than 11 per cent on Thursday. At the time of writing, $57 billion has been wiped off the market value of Facebook in less than a week (whilst Twitter’s share price has risen 3%). Only after all this fallout has Zuckerberg belatedly admitted that the company has “made mistakes” and that there has been “a breach of trust”.
Sport is in the headlines for all the wrong reasons as professional cycling gets its head around the conclusion by MPs that Sir Bradley Wiggins abused drugs to enhance his performance. Clearly it’s a distressing and frustrating moment for all clean athletes and their representatives. So much more than individual reputations is at stake: trust in whole sports, sporting associations and federations, agents and competitions is vulnerable, not to mention commercial interests such as sponsorship deals.
As the shockwaves of Oxfam’s sexual misconduct scandal continue to reverberate painfully throughout the NGO sector and beyond, the charity’s very survival is in doubt. This horrifying story is a brutal wake-up call. Even an organisation built on more than seven decades of inspiring, selfless work by employees, volunteers and supporters can see its reputation quickly trashed when its response to a crisis is botched.
