A moment several days after the November 2016 U.S. presidential elections encapsulates a critical issue for PR pros: What’s the best way to walk back a statement that, with time, becomes a misstatement? There are a number of options:
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- Do you swallow your pride and issue an apology?
- If so, how quickly?
- Or, is it best to avoid mentioning the miscue, hope nobody notices and move forward?
- Perhaps tacitly acknowledge the misstatement and offer a related plan, but without mentioning the misstatement.
- What if the misstatement occurs during a crisis? Does that change how you handle walking it back?
As noted above, the well-known example occurred shortly after what many pollsters and pundits considered a surprising win for Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton.
As they quickly canceled celebrations of America’s first female president, Clinton supporters sought an explanation. One rattling around for weeks involved Russian-sponsored interference. Vladimir Putin preferred a Trump victory, this argument went, prompting Moscow to meddle in the U.S. election.
Of course, election-meddling wasn’t new. The U.S., Russia and several others countries practiced it for years.
Meddling in the Open
Yet this alleged meddling seemed different. For one, it was in the open, a headline story. In early Oct. 2016, the outgoing Obama administration accused Russia of hacking and exposing Democrat party email. But that was just the start.
In addition to hacking, other bits of alleged mischief were executed openly, using social media, including Facebook. It was alleged that Russian agents spread disinformation via Facebook ads they purchased.
Moreover, Russians, critics say, did something organic. They circulated false articles. For example, one story had Pope Francis endorsing Trump (it received 1 million shares). Another said president Obama admitted he was Kenyan-born.
Then there was the BuzzFeed News report in late Oct. that found partisan political groups on both sides used Facebook to relay false or misleading information. As such, Facebook received criticism for its role as a carrier, knowingly or not, of untrue election content.
‘Pretty Crazy Idea’
And then came the moment PR students likely will study for years. During the Techonomy conference Nov. 10 in Half Moon Bay, CA, Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg was asked about his platform’s role in the election. His response was an example of what CEOs should avoid.
“Personally, I think the idea that fake news on Facebook, which is a very small amount of the content, influenced the election in any way—I think is a pretty crazy idea (our emphases).”
Voters, he added, “make decisions based on their lived experience.” True. And a lot of American voters’ ‘lived experience’ included getting news on Facebook. At the time, 67 percent of U.S. adults used Facebook and 44 percent of them got news from the platform, a May 2016 PEW Research Center poll showed.
Death by a Thousand Cuts
You likely remember the rest of the story. The pressure on Facebook grew, yet Zuckerberg and the company remained silent on Russian use of its platform. That is until evidence was overwhelming and Congress came knocking.
In late April 2017, four months after the election, the company’s security unit issued a report admitting “malicious actors” spread false content on Facebook. It failed to mention Russia or Clinton by name. And the report repeated Zuckerberg’s contention that fake content on Facebook was a “marginal” influence.
In late September 2017, the company admitted Russian agents purchased 3,000 ads leading to the election cycle. In addition, it conceded it was cooperating with a congressional investigation of Russian interference in the election.
On Sept. 21, 2017, some 10 months after his “pretty crazy idea” comment, Zuckerberg, via video, admitted there was evidence false content on Facebook influenced the election. Moreover, he outlined a plan to protect democracy on Facebook. There was no mention of the “pretty crazy idea” remark.
An Apology Below the Fold
Six days later, Zuckerberg finally ate his words, sort of. He issued a Sept. 27, 2017, Facebook post responding to then-president Trump’s tweet that the platform always was against him. Some 235 words down in that 378-word post, Zuckerberg tucked in his late and tepid apology .
“After the election, I made a comment that I thought the idea misinformation on Facebook changed the outcome of the election was a crazy idea. Calling that crazy was dismissive and I regret it.”
About one month later, Facebook admitted 126 million Americans, or about half the electorate, may have seen some of the 80,000 political posts Russian-backed agents placed on its platform. Again, the company said the posts were marginal compared to the amount of messaging Americans saw during the election cycle.
Clearly, Facebook decided initially to shelve mention of the “pretty crazy idea” comment. Instead, it went silent on the election interference narrative altogether, until forced to reckon with bad facts.
After conceding that its platform influenced the election, Facebook stayed away from Zuckerberg’s “crazy idea” remark for as long as it could. Indeed, Zuckerberg was summoned only at the tail end of things. Prior to that, a series of VP-issued statements and anonymous posts confirmed evidence that Facebook’s platform was used for election meddling.
Cambridge Analytica, Haugen et al
Fast forward four years, add several more poorly handled scandals and the company’s reputation, according to The Economist, is at “a point of no return.” Prior to Cambridge Analytica headlines, in March 2018, 18 percent of US adults had a negative view of Facebook. Today it’s 35 percent.
The latest scandal, from Oct. 2021, has former Facebook employee/whistleblower Frances Haugen offering thousands of pages of internal documents. They seemingly corroborate her charge that Facebook puts profits over people. In response, Facebook returned to the crisis playbook it used during the first months of the Russia scandal.
First, it denied Haugen’s charges and attempted to tarnish her reputation. ‘Her documents were taken out of context,’ Zuckerberg and other executives added. Still, the damage to reputation from years of incidents seems undeniable.
Not All Bad, Still...
On the other hand, the company’s enormity shields it a bit. Its reputation in huge markets outside the US (130 million active users), such as India (280 million users), Brazil and Mexico, remains strong. Global usage hasn’t suffered nor has ad revenue, which jumped 56 percent in 3Q21 ($29 billion). Facebook is a financial juggernaut. Its relative silence on the “pretty crazy idea” and mishandling of crises is something other companies should avoid.
Still, as Joanna Piacenza, intelligence lead at Morning Consult, concludes, Facebook’s reputation rot may hurt eventually. Its US net favorability (favorability minus unfavorability) dropped from 40 percent in Oct. 2016 to 20 percent today.
“If these trends continue,” she wrote in October, “Facebook will soon be looking at a net negative favorability rating among US consumers. At that point, brands will need to rethink their advertising strategy on the platform.”
Was Silence Golden?
Was Facebook’s nearly year-long quiet period on Zuckerberg’s comment successful? It’s an open question.
Yet, if you consider Facebook’s nearly year-long refusal to walk it back as a sign of the company’s disregard or arrogance, you could argue a lack of attention to the comment informed the company’s overall non-responsive response to that challenging situation and other full-blown crises.
What Should You Do?
So, back to our opening question: What’s the best way for companies to walk back a statement? A caveat: We didn’t mention the Facebook example during our interviews with PR pros or that the Omicron variant could make walking back statements a regular occurrence.
As with so many PR questions, the bottom line is ‘It depends.’ That’s how Caroline James, principal, Aircover Communications of West Hollywood, CA, sees it. How, or if, you walk back a statement depends on context, the situation, your values and stakeholders and how significant or newsworthy the issue is, she says.
Internal: Let It Go?
With internal communication, PR pros must determine if employees are the only people concerned with an issue. If so, it’s safe and advisable “just to let [a misstatement] go,” as opposed to explaining it to the public or media, James says.
She admits it’s a calculated risk, though, particularly when examples abound of internal communication leaking into the public square.
For Debi Hammond founder, president and CEO of Merlot Marketing, Inc. of Sacramento, CA, the best offense is a good defense.
“You don’t have to walk back an awkward statement if you don’t make one in the first place,” she says. That’s why Hammond advocates executives prepare for media interviews and public appearances.
A key step, she says, is taking time to anticipate questions an executive might face during a public event and strategizing responses with a PR pro, she says. In addition, Hammond says, consider the worst, most embarassing questions possible and practice responding to them.
Prepare for a Strong Statement
Her thinking stems from standard crisis preparation. It’s easy to misspeak in the moment, during a live event or crisis, especially if you’ve not prepared a response, she says.
Looked at another way, a speaker is less likely “to craft a thoughtful response on the fly, without practice and preparation,” Hammond says. As such, she recommends delaying an interview, even during a crisis, until the interviewee has had time to prepare. She’ll amend that advice in some cases, depending on how much media training an executive has had.
Speaking of external walkbacks, James says companies again must decide whether the situation warants saying anything publicly. Consult the legal team, she says, to see if regulations require a statement or if there are legal ramifications to speaking or remaining silent. Still, “it’s situation-dependent and saying nothing may be the way to go.”
Another factor in determining whether to walk back in public or not, is that “generally you want to avoid repeating a negative statement.”
On the other hand, James believes when a company determines it should walk back a bad statement in public, “leading with a mea culpa is the way to go.”n