“Fourteen years, two months, and eight days ago, I made a mistake. Like a lot of mistakes made at the age of 20 inside a college dorm room, it involved trusting a man I shouldn’t have, and it still affects me to this day,” Julia Carrie Wong writes for The Guardian. “No, Mark Zuckerberg didn’t give me herpes. But in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica revelations, I have been thinking back to my decision to sign up for thefacebook.com on the site’s fifth day in existence, and I am struck by the parallels between Zuckerberg’s creation and a pesky (if generally benign) virus. Facebook isn’t going to kill me, but it has wormed its way into all of my relationships, caused me to infect other people, and I will never, ever be fully rid of it.”
“Last week… over the course of two days of questioning before Congress, Zuckerberg sought to assure the public that we, not he, are in ‘complete control’ of our relationships with Facebook. He repeated this guarantee dozens of times, returning again and again to the idea that users can control their Facebook data,” Wong writes. “But the Zuckerberg of 2018 sounds suspiciously like the ‘Mark E Zuckerberg ’06’ who was interviewed by the Harvard Crimson on 9 February 2004 about his brand new website… ‘There are pretty intensive privacy options,’ he told the paper. ‘People have very good control over who can see their information.'”
“Zuckerberg was lying then and he’s lying now. We do not have ‘complete control’ and we never have, as evidenced by the fact that even people who never signed up for Facebook have ‘shadow profiles’ created without their consent. He has been getting away with this same spin for 14 years, two months, and eight days,” Wong writes. “During those first few weeks of Facebook’s existence, while he was assuring his fellow college students that we could trust him with their identities, he had a private conversation on instant messenger with a friend. That conversation was subsequently leaked, and published by Silicon Valley Insider.”
ZUCK: yea so if you ever need info about anyone at harvard
ZUCK: just ask
ZUCK: i have over 4000 emails, pictures, addresses, sns
FRIEND: what!? how’d you manage that one?
ZUCK: people just submitted it
ZUCK: i don’t know why
ZUCK: they “trust me”
ZUCK: dumb fucks
“I’ve learned that Zuckerberg values his own privacy so much that he has security guards watching his trash, that he bought four houses surrounding his own house to avoid having neighbors, that he sued hundreds of Hawaiians to sever their claim to tiny plots of land within his massive Kauai estate, and that he secretly built tools to prevent further private messages from coming back to haunt him,” Wong writes. “What I haven’t learned, or seen any sign of, is that he has changed his opinion of the intelligence of his users. It’s Zuckerberg’s world, and we’re all just a bunch of dumb fucks living in it.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: #deletefacebook
It is time. #deletefacebook
— Brian Acton (@brianacton) March 20, 2018
We use FaceBook as an RSS feed. Our CMS automatically reposts our article headlines and links them back to our website. That is our only interaction with Facebook and has been our only interaction with Facebook for years. We deleted our personal accounts [which we opened only so we could understand the Facebook phenomenon] many years ago.
If you want to share photos and videos with friends, text them using Apple’s end-to-end encrypted iMessage service. You need to control your social networking, not cede it to a gatekeeper like Facebook. – MacDailyNews, March 19, 2018
—
The problem is two-fold: Facebook – and companies like Facebook that thrive on user data (Google, for one, if not the, prime example) and gullible users who piss their privacy and the privacy of their “friends” away willy-nilly while naively sending their DNA off to be analyzed by other companies.
Stop the idiocy! — MacDailyNews, March 21, 2018
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
SEE ALSO:
Facebook AI predicts your future and sells this info to advertisers – April 16, 2018
Why there shouldn’t be a ‘next Facebook’ – April 13, 2018
How Facebook lets brands and politicians target users – April 11, 2018
Facebook’s Zuckerberg was ready to slam Apple if Congress asked him about Tim Cook’s privacy comments – April 11, 2018
Apple co-founder Woz quits Facebook – April 9, 2018
Mark Zuckerberg admits Facebook scans the contents of all private Messenger texts – April 4, 2018
Facebook to warn 87 million users that their data ‘may have been improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica’ – April 4, 2018
Mark Zuckerberg and the never-ending stench of Facebook – April 2, 2018
Apple may be the biggest winner from Facebook’s data scandal – April 2, 2018
Mark Zuckerberg blasts Apple CEO Cook’s criticism of Facebook as ‘extremely glib and not at all aligned with the truth’ – April 2, 2018
Apple CEO Cook: Facebook should have self-regulated, but it’s too late for that now – March 28, 2018
U.S. FTC will investigate Facebook over privacy or lack thereof – March 26, 2018
Apple CEO Cook calls for more data oversight, ‘well-crafted regulation’ after Facebook debacle – March 26, 2018
Facebook has been collecting call history and SMS data from Android devices for years; Apple iOS devices unaffected – March 25, 2018
Apple CEO Cook ramps up pressure on Facebook, calls for more regulations on data privacy – March 24, 2018
Steve Jobs tried to warn Mark Zuckerberg about privacy in 2010 – March 23, 2018
Facebook has gotten too big, too powerful, too influential for Mark Zuckerberg to handle – March 23, 2018
How to block Facebook completely from your Mac – March 22, 2018
How Facebook made it impossible to delete Facebook – March 22, 2018
What to expect from Facebook’s Zuckerberg if he testifies before Congress – March 21, 2018
Why Facebook’s blatant disregard for users’ privacy could be very good for Apple – March 21, 2018
Facebook’s surveillance machine – March 21, 2018
Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg AWOL from Facebook’s damage control session – March 20, 2018
U.S. FTC reportedly probing Facebook’s abuse of personal data as UK summons Zuckerberg for questioning – March 20, 2018
The problem isn’t Cambridge Analytica: It’s Facebook – March 19, 2018
Apple: Privacy is a fundamental right – September 27, 2017
Julia Carrie Wong certainly needs to see a shrink. What did she expect??
She states tha Zuckerberg didn’t giver her herpes. Being I would never be in such direct danger, am I supposed to wonder who did?
The full truth about FB is still untold, Suckerberg still hides behind self serving ideology in part because he has a monster which cannot be reined in, while he enriched himself at the expense of honor. Advertisers beware, you’re the next shoe to drop in this global con job.
I barely know what facemess is. Never used it. Zuckernuts need a hard kick in nuts.
Roger McNamee, managing partner at Elevation Partners, was one of the people who helped Zuckerberg launch Facebook. He has been deeply critical of how the company has evolved.
Here is a short segment from an interview on Bloomberg Technology from last week:
Once again, your data is never safe from Facebook themselves, and they are the ones you need protection from the most.
I have always assumed that nothing in Facebook was private. What is really shocking is that anyone assumes that private data exists in a public forum like Facebook.
No one expects their and friends intimate and presumed secrete information to be freely dispersed around the globe, including sophisticated algorithms to determine their whereabouts, habits, medicals, etc. Most assume name, address, ad clicks, etc but not deep personal tracking info.
FaceCrook is something that is used by many people, Younger (meaning under 70) tech-savvy folks (yes, people who invented a lot of this stuff are in their 70s+)
Many people of older generations and more rural areas may not be as savvy.
One should not have to be this well versed to know if our info is safe. I have always been careful, so nothing I really am trying to hold dear is posted. It’s sad, and this Zuck dude needs to pay.
Lie as much as possible on FB. If you use FB, this is the key power you have.
I never trusted Fuckerberg and when I saw FB is collecting data or it is being willfully given, I knew FB was just more than a social media site.
Cry me a river.