My Open Message to Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook

To: Mark Zuckerberg, Top boss of Facebook

From: Rakesh Raman, a Facebook friend

Hi Mark,

Hope you’re enjoying the company of Facebook. I’m an old connection on your site – a “Friend” in your parlance.

And before I proceed with my stuff for you, lemme tell you somethin’ about my love for your property – I mean Web property. These days, I spend more time in your cyber shop than on planet Earth – I feel so.

This love for Facebook gives me some liberty to open out with you and let you know my true feelings about the things you do. Here I go:

Lemme begin with your numbers that have created a whole lot of confusion for me. You’ve been blatantly throwing out this one billion thing about the number of monthly active users on Facebook. Strangely, it’s almost equal to the population of my country India.

What’s all this, Mark? What’s active in your lexicon? Are they active who never come back on Facebook after opening their account because it’s free? Are they active (or even users) who appear with their fake profiles? Are they active who come to Facebook just to waste time on games without even knowing that they’re sitting on Facebook? Are they active who keep throwing useless pictures on Facebook as if they’re throwing junk in a junkyard? Or are they active who are actually dead but still get added in your one billion?

In simple words, how do you count the number of users? If you’re so sure about this one billion number, can you get it audited by an independent jury that understands the subject? It can be supervised by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) or something. Why not?

Believe me Mark, this is extremely important because many feel you’re trying to hoodwink the advertisers and investors by floating these false and inflated Facebook user numbers.

As being a public company now it’s not possible for you to hide your financial figures that you had been doing before going public, you’ve now found a new trick to woo your stakeholders with unaudited non-financial data – like the number of users on Facebook.

You’d agree cheating is cheating – whether you do it by telling lies about your financial performance or by showing any false picture about your business.

If you really understand the meaning of ‘active’ and want to apply it truly for Facebook, you and I know that Facebook doesn’t have even a fraction of the number you quote.

More for Mark Zuckerberg

That’s not all Mark. I feel extremely disturbed when you allow brands and others to buy fake Likes for their Facebook pages. Both of us know that these fake Likes are freely available on the Web at the rate of peanuts. I never expected this kinda thing from you, as you’re providing a space to those who want to cheat others.

This is not only a corporate wrong but also a sin, you know. After buying these fake Likes, small and big companies cheat the innocent consumers by falsely showing it as their brand popularity.

Why can’t you take a lesson from your friends at Yelp who are taking many steps to protect consumers from biased reviews similar to your bogus Likes?

And what am I hearing? You take money from advertisers when someone clicks on their ads displayed on Facebook – pay per click (PPC) pricing in your language. But cold-blooded cheating is happening right under your nose. And you know that.

While there are hardly any genuine consumers interested in these ads, the rivals of such advertisers and cheating ad agencies use various tricks to get false clicks (click frauds in your language) on these ads and poor advertisers end up paying money to you.

This is wrong, Mark. Why can’t you put the record straight and use a transparent method of charging for ads on Facebook? You and I know that it’s possible now and there’s no point in cheating the buyers who – some say – are like Gods for a businessman like you. Are you listening, Mark?

I think I’m going too far. Now, I must stop, though I want to tell you more about my feelings on the utter chaos happening on Facebook. But you know this is not a complete book on our friendship.

Rather, this is a single message that has opened a new chapter in the story of our friendship. I will keep writing such messages with the hope that things will improve at your end.

But before I close, I must tell you Mark that you shouldn’t try to make a fast buck. People who chase easy money by committing all such sins go straight to hell. I hope you’re not one of them.

You know, we can’t take all this ill-gotten money with us. All of us come empty-handed in this world and go back empty-handed. Life is short, Mark. Try to follow the path of honesty, the path of purity, and the path of truth. That will be your real achievement, not with the billions that you’re trying to stash away in your banks and boxes.

And remember; only a true friend like me can give you such an advice. Don’t ignore me as the so-called “Friends” ignore each other on your Facebook.

You can hope to hear soon again from me.

Your virtually real friend.

Rakesh Raman