Facebook and Privacy

Right now in the news is the issue of Facebook’s use of user data and possible privacy violations.

Part of the concern, noted in this New York Times article is third parties being able to also use and mis-use that data for their own private gains, as in the case of the Trump campaign.

This issue brings to mind how safe it is to have your livelihood and identity as well as cookie information such as online shopping done, political views, or even just your favorite TV shows made available online through Facebook.

I know in my recent research for our group project on Toms, I now see Toms ads in my Facebook feed in multitudes.

I also visit the Aerie clothing brand website regularly but not their Facebook, yet what should appear in my feed but this? Additionally telling me one of my friends also likes this company.

I personally don’t like the idea of corporations for brands or entities like Facebook being able to shape my reality (or that of other people, especially politically) through advertising based on the data they gather about me. It will be interesting to see how Facebook responds to these latest allegations. As of yet, officials have made no public statement, but there are calls for Mark Zuckerberg to appear to testify into this latest possible user data violation. Perhaps fears have been heightened since the Russia hacking/ voter influence topic has come to light since the presidential election.

References:

Kang, C. (2018, March 21). Facebook Faces Growing Pressure Over Data and Privacy
Inquiries. The New York Times, retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/20/business/ftc-facebook-privacy-investigation.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news