Has any company in living memory faced as many high-profile controversies and setbacks as Facebook? The company confronted hot-button issues – from the Cambridge Analytica scandal, to data breaches, to anti-trust actions – with a tone deafness unique among major corporations.

​And yet, there are signs that Facebook is beginning to get smart.

Could Do Better

It could do better, according to Richard Torrenzano, chief executive of The Torrenzano Group, which counsels corporations and executives on reputational strategy.

“The Federal Reserve does have a large megaphone and bully-pulpit platforms they have chosen not to use,’’ Torrenzano said. “They need to explain why and what they are doing in an active and thoughtful way,” including on social media, he said. “Until they do, they will continually get beat up.’’
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One example is the current Fed dependence on incoming data, which officials could do a better job of explaining. It’s not the first time they’ve had this problem. In 2006, the Fed’s then-Vice Chairman Donald Kohn urged his colleagues to spell out what that meant. “We have all said in our speeches, we are becoming more data-dependent,” he said. “It behooves us to explain to the public what data we’re looking at.”