[biznickman]

LOL "Before 2019, it felt like the Facebook communications machine was a well-oiled, unstoppable juggernaut." Umm how about Cambridge Analytica?

Facebook's PR has been troubled for a very long time. To suggest that they has a stellar image before 2019 is a joke. I can list many other slip ups where Facebook could have come out and said something (or even better, did something) and then weeks later they come up with a weak statement. If that's great PR, I'd like to offer my services to anybody who needs it.

While I'd agree that "No one ever broke rank. The messaging was crystal clear.", the message was always an awful one and now they have a relatively negative reputation despite being a remarkable success.

[danso]

Cambridge Analytica is one of FB’s most known debacles but how did the PR team specifically fail?

[reaperducer]

How about by using "We can do better" over and over after every single gaffe that it's become a joke to people outside the SV bubble?

[danso]

FB stock hit a low at ~$157 right before Zuckerberg's April 10, 2018 testimony to Congress, and bounced back into a steady increase, hitting a then-all-time high in late July before going into a dive after the earnings report. The July 2018 dive was attributed to missing revenue expectations, but AFAIK, the general opinion [0] was that when it came to public fallout specifically related to Cambridge Analytica, FB weathered it quite well – hence the stock's steady climb from Zuckerberg's testimony until the July earnings report.

That confidence in the stock is obviously not just from good PR, but I don't see the evidence that the PR folks fucked things up either, given how much potential damage the CA scandal was predicted to cause.

[0] https://www.marketwatch.com/story/facebook-stock-crushed-aft...

[jyrkesh]

If one of the goals of a PR department is to prevent debacles like CA from negatively impacting shareholder value, I'd say they were massively successful.

[enraged_camel]

Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica PR was very successful, evidenced by the fact that you have people in this very thread arguing that the blame for the debacle overwhelmingly lies with Cambridge Analytica because they broke the TOS and then lied about having deleted the data, and that the media completely misrepresented the whole thing because it’s biased.