Facebookgate
Trust in Facebook is plummeting after the Cambridge Analytica data breach. It’s come out that the company knew about it years ago, didn’t disclose it, and now users are angry. Facebook recently announced they’ve revised privacy settings to be more accessible and Mark Zuckerberg agreed to testify in front of Congress, but it doesn’t seem like it’s enough.
Among rising frustrations with the social media platform and its leaders, #DeleteFacebook is now trending. Several users even reported that Facebook was logging their calls and texts and mining information from personal emails. That data was later used to serve them ads. For whatever privacy settings we allow (that can enable Facebook to better target ads), monitoring phone activity and emails was never part of the deal.
For now, the big question is: are we moving towards a future without Facebook? On the one hand, video killed the radio star and Facebook killed Myspace, so isn’t there the possibility that something could kill Facebook? And if so, what is that next something? We’ve seen many new apps come along touting they’d be the David to take down this Goliath, but none did. Perhaps shifting consumer sentiments towards social media and information transparency could.
On the other hand, maybe the backlash will die down. If we think about Facebook on a global business scale, it’s true that there are many positive and long-established functions. It provides instant, free, international communication to many who might not have access to it otherwise. It also provides free "websites" for small businesses working with little to no advertising budget, makes e-commerce a reality for artists and makers around the world, and does, at the end of the day, host billions of people’s photos and content for free.
Regardless of which way the penny falls, the response to this scandal likely signals a larger, systemic social shift. Amidst the #metoo movement, anti-gun violence marches and the rise of cryptocurrencies, it’s clear society at large is taking back the power. Perhaps that’s exactly what this Facebook controversy was meant to teach us, that we should be more aware of the personal data we release and how it’s being used.
In the end, we’re all collectively deciding its fate in the decisions we do or don’t make: be prudent about sharing and hypervigilant about privacy settings...or delete?