“Facebook has been caught allowing the personal data of fifty million users — 50,000,000 — get siphoned off by political data company Cambrige Analytica and hiding it until it new the story would come out in the press,” Rene Ritchie writes for iMore.
“It is, in a word, horrific. The only thing more horrifying is that this isn’t unusual when it comes to big internet companies. It’s becoming desensitizingly normal,” Ritchie writes. “It’s the reason why I try, as much as is possible, to never post or share anything personal on any social network or search company. Any company that’s business model is predicated on harvesting and hoarding my data. Because you can’t trust them.”
“You can’t trust the company — who knows who will own or run them, at the executive or government level, at any given time? — and you absolutely can’t trust every single employee that can gain access to your personal data that they’ve harvested and hoarded. We’ve seen those types of abuses with everything from the NSA to Uber,” Ritchie writes. “The only thing we can do to protect ourselves — the only thing we can do to hurt them — is to stop giving them our data… The only thing we can do is delete Facebook. And Messenger, and Whatsapp, and Instagram, and every app like them. We can send a message — that we won’t go quietly into the dying of our rights.”
Facebook makes their money by exploiting and selling intimate details about the private lives of millions, far beyond the scant details you voluntarily post. They are not victims. They are accomplices. https://t.co/mRkRKxsBcw
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) March 17, 2018
Businesses that make money by collecting and selling detailed records of private lives were once plainly described as "surveillance companies." Their rebranding as "social media" is the most successful deception since the Department of War became the Department of Defense.
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) March 17, 2018
https://twitter.com/MalteEngeler/status/975020932262694913
https://twitter.com/aral/status/975109441694654465
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: As we’ve been saying for years.
Someday, hopefully sooner than later, people will look back on things like Facebook and wonder, “What the hell were those people thinking?”
We haven’t had personal FaceBook accounts for many years now. And happily so. — MacDailyNews, May 11, 2017
Beyond the privacy aspect, Facebook is Creepster Central. It’s a Narcissists’ Paradise. In general, yuck. — MacDailyNews, March 27, 2015
SEE ALSO:
How you access the super creepy data that Facebook has on you – March 12, 2018
Facebook asks users: Should we allow men to ask children for sexual images? – March 6, 2018
Study: Facebook is for old people – February 12, 2018
Mark Zuckerberg is fighting to save Facebook; announces major change to News Feed – January 12, 2018
Facebook developing ‘Portal’ gadget which will let it put microphones and cameras in people’s homes – January 11, 2018
Facebook is giving the US government more and more data – December 21, 2017
Former Facebook exec: Facebook is ‘destroying how society works’ – December 11, 2017
In bid to curtail ‘revenge porn,’ Facebook wants you to send your own nude images via Messenger – November 8, 2017
Apple CEO Tim Cook: Russian Facebook ads didn’t elect President Trump – November 2, 2017
Young people are leaving Facebook – August 22, 2017
If you haven’t already, it’s time to remove Facebook from your life – May 11, 2017
How to delete your online existence, while saving your data – March 1, 2017
Free ‘Data Selfie’ tool reveals how creepy Facebook tracks and studies your activity – February 17, 2017
Facebook begins tracking non-users around the internet – May 27, 2016
Former Facebook workers: We routinely suppressed conservative news – May 9, 2016
FCC won’t force Google and Facebook to stop tracking you – November 6, 2015
European Commission: Don’t use Facebook if you don’t want to be spied on – March 27, 2015
Edward Snowden’s privacy tips: ‘Get rid of Dropbox,” avoid Facebook and Google – October 13, 2014
Tim Berners-Lee: You should own your personal data, not Google, Facebook, Amazon, and advertisers – October 8, 2014
Facebook conducts massive psychology experiment on 700,000 unaware users, and you may have been a guinea pig – June 28, 2014
Why Apple really values your privacy – unlike Google, Facebook, or Amazon – June 25, 2014
U.S. NSA used Facebook to hack into computers – March 12, 2014
How to permanently delete your Facebook account – December 16, 2013
Study finds link between number of Facebook friends and ‘socially disruptive’ narcissism – April 10, 2012
Do not believe anything called news on facebook or any other social media platform. All these are festering pools for right-wing politics and Russian operatives not to mention corporations.
Yeah, Zuckerberg is real big Right-Winger isn’t he? Dems would never exploit social media at all.
Insanely huge eye-roll.
Or he might be Jewish and work for Mossad?
Hows that Pizza Gate story going for ya?
The Russians are working for Trump and the republican party by extension. Facebook is their choice of venue.
No, the culprits are not just Rightwingers; The culprits fall all across the political spectrum all the way to Leftwingers. Unfettered, extreme Capitalism unites them into allies where people, things, and ideas are mere products having potential monetary value first and foremost in the US’s free market capitalism. As an aside, however, there is no such thing as pure Capitalism in the US because many corporations would fold without gov. contracts/Socialist assistance and benefits.
And still tech writers still recommends products from Google, Amazon and Facebook.
Mindless SHEEP trust anything.
is capable of a never-ending list of misdeeds.
bjr: just right wingers? Ahh, no. Bias has caused your constipation.
BS
Never joined. It seemed like a huge time suck and a place for the narcissists to overstate their pathetically “wonderful lives. Also, it reminded me of the CB radio craze of the 70s. Lots of noise with little lasting value and a fad that will surely fade.
Social media for any politically or racially charged issues is simply like pouring gasoline on an already raging fire. They’re all “killing” the American dream and sense of decent dialog and encouraging anarchic thinking.
It just goes to show: TANSTAAFL.
Running Facebook isn’t free. But users use it for “free”. Somehow the piper needs to be paid. This is how FB chooses to pay the piper. Whether you like it or not is up to the individual.
I’ve got a limited FB account (if such a thing can be said to exist) where I use it when I have no choice but to access FB. Other than that ….
Everyone says that they only use their Facebook accounts for limited stuff, and they never post anything, etc. So either 50 million people are deluding themselves or Cambridge Analytica has useless rubbish data.
To me, the value of Big Data is vastly oversold. Companies like Cambridge Assalytics have nothing of value to offer. You don’t need analytics to know that repeating big lies endlessly will convince the populace that it must be true. This is the key tactic of the most prolific liars: just keep saying it. Observe who tweets endlessly, constantly complaining about how the FBI is out to get him, and how his vast foreign dealings and shell companies have all been honest, wink wink. Just keep repeating it. Never data, just repetition. Goebbels would be proud.