One of the reasons Trump seems to get away with his countless infractions, any one of which would have meant the head of previous presidents, is that it’s simply expected.
Through his actions, he has set the bar so low that most of his lies, awful policy decisions and ill-considered utterances fall into the realm of “normal” behaviour. What would be considered fatal missteps for anyone else also come at such a high cadence that there simply isn’t the time to be outraged over one before something else enters the news cycle.
By comparison, hold up pretty much any tweet Trump has put out in the last 24 hours to the “scandal” that unfolded when President Obama chose to wear a tan coloured suit shortly after taking office.
His behaviour seems to be ‘in his nature’, he’s the product of his life up until this point. And some people seem to be willing to forgive, accept and even embrace that.
This isn’t a political post, I’m merely using Trump to help draw a parallel with another force in the world. Facebook.
While a vocal minority talk loudly about leaving the platform, the company continues to grow. Thriving in the face of repeated breaches of privacy, questionable executive behaviour, miss-use of data and user-hostile design. The response to each new scandal seems to be a numb shrug of the shoulders.
The company has not done this by design, but by lack of it. I’m sure Mark Zuckerberg didn’t set out with malevolent intent in his dorm room not so long ago.
The business model itself is the starting point. Perverse incentives to capture and exploit as much ‘user’ (and I use that phrase intentionally here) attention and data as possible, drives behaviour and design. It’s when these incentives are not purposefully kept in check that serious problems arise. Combine a lack of appropriate governance to reinforce a culture of ethical customer-centric action, with a Laissez-faire attitude to partner relations and you have an ecosystem almost guaranteed to exhibit value extracting behaviour. It’s just in the companies nature.
But just because something is acting ‘in its nature’, does not mean we should accept or excuse it.