As you’re probably aware, Facebook has recently been involved in a scandal. The short story being that data harvested through Facebook was then sold to a company which used it to help political parties target voters. Which put Mark Zuckerberg on the spot.
The Cambridge Analytica scandal led to calls for everyone to delete Facebook, and for the social network’s share price to drop. However, once the dust has settled, will there be any longterm consequences for Facebook? A new poll suggests trust is now an issue.
In Facebook We Don’t Trust
An online poll conducted by Reuters/Ipsos found that just 41 percent of Americans trust Facebook to “obey laws that protect their personal information”. Which, by extension, means that 59 percent of Americans think Facebook is capable of flouting those laws.
The poll, which collected the views of 2,237 people across the United States, found that—at 41 percent of the population—fewer people trust Facebook than Amazon (66 percent), Google (62 percent), Microsoft (60 percent), and Yahoo (47 percent).
This shows how far people’s trust in Facebook has fallen. After all, in the Echo, Amazon has a device always listening for a wake-up word, Yahoo has suffered serious security breaches in recent years, and neither Google or Microsoft is squeaky clean either.
However, in light of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, and previous revelations including its history of secret experiments, people’s trust in Facebook has been eroded. And it may take more than reassurances from Zuckerberg to regain people’s trust.
You Are Always the Product
To be fair to Facebook it’s important to remember that if you’re getting something for free then you yourself are the product. Corporations are not known for their charitable acts, so either through data collection or advertising you are paying for these services.
Facebook has already made changes to the way it operates, and is likely to do more in the future. And who knows, perhaps people’s trust will slowly return. In the meantime, just be damn sure to check your Facebook privacy settings as soon as you finish reading this.
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