This isn’t just an issue of privacy and security anymore.
This is an issue of trust.
How many times does a CEO of the largest social network in the world have to lie until people
realize his nefarious product can’t be trusted?
Just a few days ago, Facebook went public about the largest data breach in its 14-year
history.
Just as Facebook executives promised to be better prepared for the upcoming presidential
election campaign in the US, the attack of unknown origin exposed Facebook accounts of
50 million users.
Fairly enough, accounts of the Zucc himself and Sheryl Sandberg were also included.
What’s funny though, is that as the news coverage about this breach was spreading viral,
Facebook automatically blocked it as spam, making it less likely people would find out
about the breach in the first place.
So here I am making a video about it.
It’s time to stop using Facebook.
Facebook apologized for both the breach and the censorship of the coverage.
But we begin to see a pattern here.
There is this unhinged urge to ignore user consent and pursue corporate goals at all
costs, and then if something goes wrong, they can just say “sorry” without suffering
consequences.
“Facebook apologizes to Texas newspaper for part of Declaration of Independence being
labeled hate speech Facebook apologizes for promoting false story
on Megyn Kelly in #Trending Facebook apologizes to Myanmar rights groups
Facebook Apologizes For 'Real Name' Policy That Forced Drag Queens To Change Their Profiles
Facebook apologises for deleting free speech group's post on Syrian torture
Facebook apologizes for ‘breach of trust’ in newspaper ads
Mark Zuckerberg apologizes for Facebook’s data privacy scandal in full-page newspaper
ads Facebook's Zuckerberg apologizes to U.S. Congress,
vows to do better Facebook Apologizes To LGBT Community And
Promises Changes To Real Name Policy” I think it’s time to say enough.
Remember that time Zuckerberg said Facebook doesn’t make shadow profiles on non-Facebook
users for advertising purposes?
Turns out that was a lie.
If one of your friends signs up for Facebook and gives them their list of contacts with
your phone number included, Facebook gives advertisers ability to target your phone number
even if you never used Facebook at all.
And what’s most hilarious is that Facebook will not let you see or delete this shadow
profile, because it would violate your friend’s privacy according to the Facebook’s terms
of service.
Facebook can also have your phone number if you ever purchased anything anywhere in your
life.
If you gave a retailer your phone number, this company can go to Facebook and give them
your number so that Facebook can match that to your advertising profile.
Facebook is not just a social media platform.
Above anything else, Facebook is an advertising network and they go great lengths to track
your purchasing record without your consent.
Have you ever thought about turning on two-factor authentication to secure your Facebook account?
You probably didn’t know that as you gave up your phone number to receive security codes,
Facebook also used it for targeted advertising.
Essentially, Facebook is giving you a choice between privacy and security.
And you can’t have both.
Hmmmm… who else said that?
Did you follow the Cambridge Analytica scandal, where Facebook exposed profiles of 87 million
users to presidential campaigns without users consent?
Facebook had actually been hammered over its policy that enabled Cambridge Analytica to
obtain the data four years before that happened.
Their privacy policy used to have a clause that allowed Facebook to sell data to third-party
advertisers.
In 2010, many if not all popular apps and games running on Facebook, like FarmVille
and Texas HoldEm Poker, were transmitting data about Facebook users and their friends
to advertisers.
And this would affect even people that opted out of this form of advertising or set their
profiles to be completely private.
You might not care about your private data leaked in this instance, which I find hard
to conceptualize.
But do you also not care about Faceboook proactively ignoring users consent and straight out lying
to users about its practices?
What else are going to lie about?
Is Facebook going to lie and censor when Mark Zuckerberg runs for president?
Facebook privacy policy has always been a giant mess that no one could understand.
But even if you tried to read through it, you would still not get the whole picture
about what Facebook knows about you.
Until just recently, Facebook have not only been collecting your Facebook site and app
data, like chat messages, posts, likes, etc. but they would also obtain data you generated
entirely outside of Facebook.
And not just outside of Facebook, but outside of the entire Internet!
Have you ever signed up for a loyalty card in a brick-and-mortar retail store?
If you gave them your phone number, Facebook collected that information and tracked your
purchasing history for targeted advertising.
Gave up your email address to sign up for a newsletter and offers?
Most likely that information was handed to Facebook too.
And if your email address in the newsletter matched with the email address on your Facebook
account, you were bombarded with “relevant” ads based on collection you might have never
even imagined was even possible.
Facebook can never be trusted what they say about protecting your privacy.
When Facebook got that sweet deal to acquire WhatsApp, they promised to maintain the ‘no
ads, no games, no gimmick’ policy.
Not anymore.
Facebook admitted they will use WhatsApp data to target ads.
WhatsApp was essentially a money-losing giant global registry of phone numbers that was
apparently worth $22bn.
Take a look at Zucc’s testimony before the US Congress.
The big topic during the congressional hearings was whether or not Facebook sells data.
Facebook doesn’t need to sell your data.
It makes most sense for them to follow you everywhere you go to increase the value of
their own network and lock it down so that no one else can benefit from the precious
Facebook data.
The more efficient they make their network, the more they can charge advertisers for targeted
ads.
Even if you think you are somehow above ordinary humans and are resistant to advertising, or
just ignore ads, there files on top of files of Facebook studies proving how overwhelmingly
effective Facebook is at advertising.
Facebook don’t work like Google Adwords.
They don’t require an immediate response from you.
Rather, Facebook ads are trying “to plant an idea in your head—to introduce you to
a new product, to get a name stuck in your head, to improve how you feel about a company.”
Almost every TV commercial functions this way and marketers are willing to pour millions
into this system.
At Facebok, 70% of marketing campaigns get 3 to 5 times returns on money invested in
ads.
That’s why Cambridge Analytica or even Obama campaign where so much after Facebook data.
Because in the long-run, they are extremely efficient at slowly but surely influencing
voters minds.
You might think you are totally immune to manipulation but I know I am human (→ Zucc
I am human still) I don’t want to be part of this psychological warfare called advertising.
I am not even going to get to all the shady stuff Facebook is involved in.
The list is too long for this video.
And I guess if you still want to hold on to your Facebook account, I don’t know what
else would change your mind.
But Facebook does one thing that’s absolutely disgusting.
Social experiments.
On top the list is the emotional manipulation experiment.
In 2014, Facebook actually proudly admitted to actively change content on news feeds of
689,000 users to measure how much they can manipulate their emotions.
It turns that Facebook was very efficient at influencing how people feel by changing
the amount of emotionally negative or positive posts from their friends.
Facebook never informed the users about the experiment, quite possibly breaking the Federal
law requiring signed written consent from users and approval from Institutional Review
Board.
And the execs at Facebook even refused to apologize.
In 2010, Facebook was experimenting with influencing real-world voter behavior of more than 61
million users.
The results of the study concluded that political messages directly influenced “self-expression,
information seeking and real-world voting behaviour... of users who received them but
also the users’ friends, and friends of friends.
The effect of social transmission on real-world voting was greater than the direct effect
of the messages themselves.”
Then in 2016, Facebook decided it would turn off visibility of news coverage in six random
countries, to measure the impact on democratic discourse.
Turns out that impact was pretty huge, as percentage points of views fell by double
digits overnight for most publishers.
What a great schizophrenic idea to combat fake news.
And speaking of fake news, you can never trust the content you see on Facebook.
The platform claimed monopoly on truth, and is implementing polices that censor content
and entire groups left and right.
Mostly right.
Zuckerberg himself openly promises to be better at policing the platform, effectively giving
people directions what they can and can’t think on the network.
Imagine the effect this is going to have on a new generation, for which Facebook is the
gate keeper to the entire Internet.
How carefully selected portions of information they are going to be served in order to create
perfectly docile population.
In 1970s we were promised to have a colony on Moon by now.
Instead we got Mark Zuckerberg.
Facebook is his version of the world.
A corporation that evades taxes, manipulates people, censors speech, filters information,
invades privacy, corrupts our politicians, perpetually deceives, and its CEO wants to
be the president of the most powerful country in the world.
There aren’t anymore red lines Facebook needs to cross.
Mark Zuckerberg’s corporation is over.
We don’t need it.
We never asked for it.
It does more harm than good in the long run.
It’s time to stop Facebook.