4 lessons from Zuckerberg’s cringeworthy livestream
Facebook’s CEO took viewers on a virtual tour of hurricane-stricken Puerto Rico, eliciting searing criticism for its tone-deaf content. Here’s how you can avoid similar gaffes.
Talking about a humanitarian crisis requires prudence and precision.
That’s what Mark Zuckerberg learned the hard way after a virtual reality “tour” landed the CEO in hot water. The tour featured Facebook’s VR app “Spaces,” and showed a laughing Zuckerberg avatar straddling flooded streets and exclaiming how real everything looked.
Zuck’s cartoon avatar directed attention towards various features of Puerto Rico’s destruction while another Facebook executive remarked “it’s crazy to feel like you’re in the middle of it.”
“Do you want to teleport somewhere else?” Zuckerberg’s VR avatar asked as he wrapped up his conversation about Puerto Rico. “Yeah maybe back to California?” another executive answered.
The video was panned on social media.
Mark Zuckerberg talks about the dire situation in Puerto Rico as an AR toon.
“Crazy to feel like we’re in the middle of it.”
End me. pic.twitter.com/a7mOoCIlHC
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