Imagine discovering that hackers have stolen $6.3 billion from your company. Within minutes, your security teams are scrambling to stop the theft, customers are worried about their savings, and you have to explain what has happened before you have all the answers.
That was the extraordinary situation facing Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, last week. Hackers moved approximately $6.3 billion in digital assets from Binance’s wallets during a sophisticated attack, triggering one of the largest security crises the cryptocurrency industry has faced.
This week on When It Hits the Fan, David Yelland and I discussed Binance’s response, revelations about Meta’s efforts to challenge a prominent critic, and Norway’s rather amusing answer to an insult from Donald Trump.
Binance’s $6.3 Billion Crisis
When billions of dollars disappear from a financial platform, the immediate concern for customers is whether their money is safe. For Binance, that question became particularly urgent as news of the hack spread across social media.
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The company’s leadership moved quickly. Co-chief executive Richard Teng used X to reassure customers that Binance would cover the losses from its own resources. He followed up with a video, written statements and more detailed explanations of the steps being taken to secure the platform.
The video itself was hardly a polished corporate production. Teng appeared in a T-shirt, looking as though he had been awake all night, and some viewers mocked him for reading from a script.
I thought the criticism missed the point. If you’re worried about losing your savings, the last thing on your mind is whether the chief executive has memorized his lines. You want to know if your money is safe and what the company is doing about it.
Binance understood that reassurance needed to be backed by something substantial. Binance said it had allocated more than $6.3 billion in company funds and reserves to cover the losses, while its technical teams worked to contain the breach and recover funds.
None of this changes the scale of the security failure. Responding quickly may reassure customers, but it cannot, on its own, demonstrate that a platform is secure or explain how such a breach was possible. The speed of the response was impressive, particularly for an organization with thousands of employees spread across different countries. In my experience, the ability to respond under such pressure depends heavily on how people work together before a crisis happens. Decisions that might ordinarily take days have to be made in minutes, often with incomplete information.
There is also something distinctive about communicating with the cryptocurrency community. Much of the conversation happens on X, where users expect frequent updates and technical detail. Binance’s leadership responded in that environment, sharing information in formats that people could read, watch or examine more closely.
A traditional financial institution might have approached the situation quite differently. But a carefully prepared statement issued several hours later would have offered little comfort to customers watching the story unfold in real time.
None of this diminishes the seriousness of the security failure. Binance temporarily suspended withdrawals, and customers subsequently moved billions of dollars off the platform. Its leadership still faces difficult questions about how such a substantial theft was possible.
Binance’s leaders gave customers clear assurances and backed them with a substantial financial commitment. But the security failure remains, and the company still has questions to answer. Its longer-term reputation will depend as much on those answers as on how quickly it responded.
When Companies Discuss Targeting Their Critics
Court documents released in the United States have revealed discussions within Meta about ways to undermine Jonathan Haidt, the American social psychologist whose work has helped drive international debate about children’s use of social media.
Haidt’s bestselling book The Anxious Generation argues that smartphones and social media have contributed to deteriorating mental health among young people. His arguments have influenced calls for tighter regulation, including restrictions on children’s access to social platforms.
For Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, his influence presents a significant challenge.
Notes from internal meetings in 2023 refer to a proposed ‘whisper strategy’ and discussions about encouraging other academics to question Haidt’s credibility. It remains unclear whether those ideas were ever put into practice, and The Verge reported that Meta did not immediately respond to its request for comment.
I wasn’t particularly surprised to read about those discussions. In political communications, researching opponents and challenging their arguments have long been part of campaigning. Over the years, I’ve watched some of those tactics find their way into corporate communications, particularly when businesses face threats to their commercial interests.
Meta is entitled to challenge Haidt’s conclusions, which have attracted legitimate disagreement from other researchers. But questioning the evidence is very different from trying to discredit the person presenting it.
Haidt has considerable influence of his own, although the resources available to an individual academic are hardly comparable to those of one of the world’s largest technology companies.
Communications advisers sometimes find themselves in uncomfortable conversations with senior executives who want to respond aggressively to criticism. Part of our responsibility is to question whether the proposed response is proportionate and whether it might ultimately attract more scrutiny than the original criticism.
In Meta’s case, the discussions themselves have now become a news story. We do not know whether the proposed approach was pursued, but the documents have invited fresh questions about how the company deals with those who challenge it.
Norway’s Cheeky Response to Trump
After Donald Trump described Norway as a ‘shithouse country’ during a rally in Michigan, the country’s tourism board decided to take the remark literally.
Visit Norway responded by showcasing some of the country’s most spectacular public toilets, many designed by architects and overlooking breathtaking scenery. Its campaign carried the slogan ‘Norway makes shithouses great again’, a playful adaptation of Trump’s familiar political catchphrase.
Some of these facilities are genuinely remarkable. Imagine stopping at a public toilet and finding yourself looking out across a Norwegian fjord. It’s certainly a more appealing prospect than the average motorway service station.
Norway could have issued an indignant statement or become drawn into an argument with the American president. Instead, its tourism team responded with humor and gave people something entertaining to share.
The team also had a useful advantage. It had already created material about Norway’s unusual public toilets for World Toilet Day and was able to adapt that content quickly. The resulting campaign attracted international attention without requiring an elaborate production.
Humor can be difficult to get right in public communications, particularly when responding to criticism from someone as powerful as the US president. A joke that feels forced or unnecessarily hostile can easily make matters worse.
Visit Norway managed to keep the tone playful, allowing the photographs to do much of the work. It turned an unflattering remark into an opportunity to show off the country’s scenery, architecture and sense of humor.
I suspect a few more people now have Norway’s public toilets on their sightseeing lists.
Disclaimer: The opinions and views expressed in this article/column are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of South Asian Herald.
