• by Sean Hargrave , Staff Writer, April 3, 2018

There was talk of a boycott, a meeting with ISBA and a #DeleteFacebook campaign that went viral on social platforms. Now we have the reality. Social media spending will overtake television within two years.

If that doesn't make you think the recent noise about Cambridge Analytica was just hollow chest-beating, check out the forecast from eMarketer for this year. Of the GBP3.3bn to be spend this year on social, more than four fifths will go straight to Facebook. According to The Guardian,that amounts to GBP2.76bn. By 2020, you can add another billion pounds to that figure.

That's not too shabby for a social platform that's supposedly on its knees begging forgiveness for not safeguarding data tightly enough.

I have to be honest -- and I don't know about you -- I'd kind of softened my stance from the initial outrage. Clearly data was allowed to leak from a Facebook app to Cambridge Analytica, but had it been used to put Hillary Clinton in power, I really don't think Zuckerberg would have faced so much pressure to revise its privacy policies. 

Clearly Facebook was given a promise by Cambridge Analytica that was not kept. At the very least it still stands guilty of not having systems in place to make data loss -- or unauthorised sharing -- like this impossible. It had been far too relaxed on the data that apps could take from us all, and so was forced to severely restrict this last month. It's also ceased working with data partners that could act as third parties selling on the data that many of us are duped in to handing over.

Zuckerberg has made the right noises and signalled the right intentions. He has done enough to convince brands they won't have their brand names dragged through the mud by continuing to use the platform.

For those who protest about privacy, there is an inconvenient truth. Brands have been throwing money at Facebook because the data it gathers is second to none, comparable only to Google. The granular details we tell Facebook about ourselves makes the platform purpose-built for targeting audiences and finding look-a-like prospects. 

No brand seriously wanted to end this over a data leak. 

So, you may then point to the headlines about billions being wiped off its value. That's true -- but let's not forget that many tech shares fell with it. They had all have an amazing past twelve months. Facebook was taken back to its May 2017 level after a series of spikes over the past twelve months. I'm no analyst, but I think I'd use the word correction rather than slump.

If you filter out the noise, you have a share price that has been "slashed" to where it already was and marketers are committed to spending more than four pounds for every five they spend to social to none other than, Facebook. 

Some privacy had to be tightened -- and  to be honest, this was necessary before GDPR becomes law next month anyway.

Techlash? No -- I'd say more of a storm in a teacup. And the leaves at the bottom of the cup spell out a very good few years that lie ahead of Facebook.