Viber breaks up with Facebook, even if it hurts

Rakuten Viber CEO Djamel Agaoua

When leadership policies just aren’t “vibing,” sometimes, a company is left with no recourse other than to “leave the conversation” with a business partner—even if it comes with a few setbacks.

Such is the case with messaging platform Rakuten Viber, which recently decided to cut ties with social media giant Facebook, much like other companies such as The North Face, Ben & Jerry’s and Pfizer, under the #StopHateforProfit movement.

In a statement last month, Rakuten Viber CEO Djamel Agaoua said “Facebook continues to demonstrate poor judgment in understanding its role in today’s world,” and that the social media site “mishandles user’s data, lacks privacy in its apps, and has taken an outrageous stand avoiding the nece­ssary steps to protect the public from violent and dangerous rhetoric.”

This move means three things for Viber and its users: the removal of the Facebook SDK (software development kit) and Connect features, which allow users to link their Viber and Facebook accounts; an advertising boycott on the platform, which is set to last indefinitely; and goodbye to your favorite GIF images on Giphy (there’s still Tenor, though).

In a separate interview, Agaoua said Facebook’s policies had simply been hurting Viber’s, to the point where the latter saw it fit to just stop working with the social media company.

“Here at Viber, we have something like 30, 35 nationa­lities represented—and I’m just talking about the employees. We are a very diverse company, and we care about that. We connect people, and Facebook’s policies are basically just hur­ting ours,” Agaoua said.

For Viber’s users, Agaoua said the severance of Viber’s ties with Facebook won’t change the platform’s customer experience offering. The Facebook Connect feature, for example, only affected around 7 percent of Viber’s users, and even then, Agaoua said they took the time to carefully craft the necessary communication materials so that users wouldn’t mind the change.

What he reassures Viber users of is their messaging service’s security.

“We don’t read chats. We don’t store videos. We don’t listen to calls. We have a completely different policy from Facebook,” said Agaoua, emphasizing that private exchanges in Viber are all encrypted. One difference he notes is how Facebook relies 100 percent on advertising revenue; hence, the need for the company to “listen in” even on private conversations on their messaging platform, and to store data.

“When your revenue is based only on advertising, you need to improve all the time your ability to target users. To do this, you need to store everything that users put on the platform, and everything is scanned, stored and analyzed for advertising purposes,” Agaoua said.

Viber, on the other hand, only relies on advertising for 20 percent of its revenue (“and we intend to stay in that area,” Agaoua emphasized). The rest comes from telecommunication services (40 percent) and brand collaborations (40 percent).

And then there is the matter of misinformation, as well as hate speech. On Viber, this is something that they are willing to get rid of, says Agaoua, at least for public chat groups or communities, because the company, again, doesn’t read private correspondence.

“Facebook is the leader of our industry. They have tools that are so powerful, they could solve the problem in the snap of a finger. The very same tools they are using to scan chats, pictures, videos for the purpose of advertising, should be used to moderate violent speeches, and eradicate them from the platform. So we’re not talking about is this something doable; it perfectly is. It’s more about the willingness to make it happen,” Agaoua said.

So for now, it’s a polite “no” from Viber to any business proposition from Facebook; something which Agaoua said they’ve had to do recently. But, having said all that, the Viber CEO was quick to note that it is mainly Facebook’s policies that need changing.

“I have no problem at all with the people at Facebook; it’s just that their leadership policy is not compatible with ours,” Agaoua said.

So, what’s next in for Viber, minus Facebook? Agaoua said they see “fantastic growth” in the usage of Viber Community chat groups, and that this is something they will continue to invest in.

Payments and fintech (financial technology) features are also being explored, and, in the Philippines, Viber is already in touch with two local payment providers. The goal, ultimately, is to be able to foster cross-border payment transactions through the app.

Agoua added that they want to reach more Filipinos in the countryside, something he is optimistic about, given the country’s “long love relationship” with Viber.

And just looking at their forecast for the next two years—the farthest Agaoua can do, for now—automatic language translation integrated in voice calls and messages may very well be on the horizon for the platform, he said.

“But security will always be our top concern. The more we digitalize, the more we have that responsibility to protect the data privacy of people,” Agaoua said. INQ