• by Richard Whitman , Columnist, December 23, 2018

Initiative CEO Mat Baxter is just the latest agency executive to call out the social network for its greedy misdeeds.

As you may have read a few days ago Baxter wrote on LinkedIn that he’s had enough of the social network’s shenanigans and will be urging advertiser clients to boycott the network until it cleans up its act.

Baxter spoke out in response to reports earlier in the week that the social network allowed Netflix and Spotify access to users’ private messages.

And he was just the latest senior ad executive to speak out about Facebook’s inappropriate behavior.

In November, Publicis Groupe Chief Growth Officer Rishad Tobaccowala told the New York Times “Now we know Facebook will do whatever it takes to make money. They have absolutely no morals.”

That was in response to a Times expose on how Facebook senior leaders were allegedly covering up warning signs about how its data was being used to manipulate U.S. elections and attempting to deflect blame on others via orchestrated PR campaigns.

That’s pretty deplorable behavior.

Earlier this month Pivotal Research Group issued a list of predictions for 2019. Atop the list: “Material Facebook management changes.”  Last week’s allegations certainly added credence to their call.

“Whether that means one of Mark Zuckerberg or Sheryl Sandberg alters their roles within the company or something more extreme occurs, it seems difficult to imagine that the company’s board will allow a status quo for the chairman, CEO and COO roles, especially as regulatory scrutiny around the world escalates over the course of 2019,” Pivotal analysts Jeffrey Wlodarczak and Brian Wieser wrote in their year-end predictions report.

Such seemingly smart people led astray by greed. Exactly what the holidays are not about.