WHY ARE YOU ALL STILL ON FACEBOOK?

Does it seem that almost every week or two there is a new revelation about Facebook doing something that is not what it's users think it is doing? Well, the reason it seems like that is because it is. Today the NY Times published an article about Facebook giving big tech companies a lot of access to Facebook users' account information, including their friends.  In other words, yet another major violation of Facebook users' privacy without their permission. Worse, Facebook claims that these big tech companies are users' "friends" and therefore the permissions given to the big tech firms fit into the permissions the users gave for access by "friends." Really?

For years, Facebook gave some of the world’s largest technology companies more intrusive access to users’ personal data than it has disclosed, effectively exempting those business partners from its usual privacy rules, according to internal records and interviews.

It seems that a large number of people I know who are on Facebook often say to me "I wish I could leave Facebook, but I can't." Well, yes you can; I did it months ago and have really not missed it a bit. Yes, yes, I know that for many people Facebook is how you stay in touch with friends and family who you might otherwise not stay in touch with. I get it, and it's a good thing. I don't think Facebook is just evil; I do know that Facebook only makes money by selling every bit of data it can squeeze from users (and even non-users - more about that in a bit), and, it seems, by giving access to user information to other tech companies who use it to make money. If this is OK with you, then end of discussion. If it's not OK with you, well..

Facebook allowed Microsoft's Bing search engine to see the names of virtually all Facebook users' friends without consent, the records show, and gave Netflix and Spotify the ability to read Facebook users' private messages. 

And by the way, Facebook tracks you even if you don't have a Facebook account. According to my Duck-Duck-Go web browser, the three top tracking offenders on the web are Google (80%), Facebook (37%) and Twitter (19%). these companies, and a huge number of others, track web traffic from everyone. 

Facebook will crash and burn one of these days. What will you do then? I don't really have the answer, but there is one out there. I signed up on MeWe, a privacy-centric, no data collection social networking site. Yesterday the second person I know signed up on it - certainly not a flood of people leaving Facebook! I don't use MeWe because none of my friends or family are on it. The point is that there are alternatives out there waiting for us all.

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