Let's take on Facebook!
Yet it has become our digital security blanket. Our ADWISE study carried out with Norstat and Nexize for ADETEM[i] reveals that 81% of French people are registered on a social network, including 93% on Facebook, the number one social network.
79% of social network subscribers log on every day: they feed us, distract us, flatter us, connect us and solve our little everyday problems. Young people can't do without them. And for all of them, the notion of something in return for the free service is absent from their thinking.
It's true that 79% of social network subscribers know that their data is being used, but where, how, why and for whom? Opacity reigns. And then there's the question of what constitutes exploitable "personal data"! The French have a clear idea of the use of advertising and retargeting, and consider it to be a very effective means of marketing. "not very mean. Because in the end, the illusion of control remains "if I don't want to buy, I don't buy". And it's a very different story that we've been telling them over the last few days with Facebook and Cambridge Analytica. Because Facebook's data did not feed the database of a sock salesman.
The real problem lies in the almost total ignorance of how personal data is combined and compiled to create value; to whom it is sold; and what financial value each of us represents. Companies that make their living from unlimited digital gold may well have to ask themselves this question for the future: 73% of social network subscribers in France consider the exploitation of data to be abnormal.
69% of them reject the idea of being able to deduce their convictions from it, and 82% reject the possibility of a political party using it. And it's not just the business model that could be called into question: the stakes in terms of image are high. The lack of transparency in practices and honesty in the recognition of their responsibilities have a major impact on the relationship of trust.
Today, everything is done to ensure that the notion of value is absent from the relationship with the brand. And the form of dependency created by these social networks inhibits reflection. But for how long? Expectations of transparency, of choice in the use or non-use of their data, and even of individual remuneration are emerging. A case in point is the dazzling success of the VERO social network, a blend of Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter and Instagram, which claims to respect the data of the .... users who subscribe to it. With its 'True Social' tagline, it is clearly demonstrating the need to position the brand's message in terms of ethics and transparency. After all, dear inhabitants of Silicon Valley, we're not robots yet!
Florence HUSSENOT
[i] Study carried out in July 2017 among a sample of 1,000 people aged 18 and over, via the internet on the Norstat panel; and supplemented by 15 individual one-hour face-to-face interviews with French people of different ages, places of residence and genders.
