Don't Blame Facebook For Your Problems

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- In our sometimes sucky society, there's no better case study in the tendency to blame external forces for our mistakes and shortcomings than the dysfunctional relationship between large swaths of the public and Facebook (FB) .

We've got endless examples:

• You're a retail investor. You chased the IPO because you have a Facebook page. Even though you have nobody to blame but yourself, you (and the media) blamed everybody except the person who hit 'BUY' for your losses. Back in May 2012, while predicting long-term success for Facebook stock, I said Do not buy the IPO. That's almost always sound advice. Take it.
• You're Mark Cuban, a wildly successful and otherwise brilliant man, yet you dog Facebook for structuring its advertising like TV and radio. Pay more as the size of the audience you reach increases. Novel idea.
• You're General Motors (GM) . Unlike Ford (F) , you have no clue how to properly use social media to market your company, yet you blame Facebook, exonerating your own ineptness in the process.

You really can't assign blame to Facebook for your problems, no matter what they are. But that's what we tend to do.

My wacko ex-boyfriend is stalking me; it's because of a loosey-goosey privacy policy. Somebody bullied my kid; finger social media. Somebody shared my 'private' holiday picture; they have no "social etiquette."

In each of the above-mentioned scenarios, blaming Facebook is the easy answer. It allows us to ignore the larger, highly-complex bigger picture issues we need to address, re: IPOs, stalkers, bullying and privacy. Same goes for companies that complain about the "effectiveness" of Facebook advertising.