“Privacy is dead, and social media holds the smoking gun.”
– Pete Cashmore, CEO of Mashable4
Social media platform Facebook has been involved in controversy after controversy throughout its lifetime, which has many people questioning the ethical practices that Facebook continues to do today. I think that the quote above is an important realization about Facebook and other platforms, that daily users are not paying enough attention to. Exploitation of millions of users’ personal data for market dominance worldwide is a very significant issue that should not be taken lightly by anyone, as privacy is a right that a human being should have at all times.
The Lawsuit
On January 14, 2022, Meta6 got sued in the UK for £2.3 billion (roughly $3.92 billion CAD) in a class action lawsuit. According to the lawsuit, Facebook has set an unfair expectation upon its users, by handing over users’ personal data, without giving them adequate compensation for stealing said data.1 Covering the time period of October 1, 2015 to December 31, 2019, legal experts have claimed that more than 44 million users’ personal data have been exploited for Facebook’s personal gain.2 Legal experts also state that since Facebook is abusing their power unfairly, Facebook could have to pay £50 (roughly $85.1 CAD) to every UK user.3
In the UK, there has not been a claim like this ever against Facebook, as it is the dominant social media platform for people to communicate and connect with family, friends and coworkers. This allows Facebook to have market dominance with users’ data, which caused some UK users to realize the dark side of Facebook’s policies. Following this, a Meta spokesperson spoke about the matter in the following quote.
“People access our service for free. They choose our services because we deliver value for them and they have meaningful control of what information they share on Meta’s platforms and who with. We have invested heavily to create tools that allow them to do so.”
Meta Spokesperson1
My Personal Thoughts
I have never been the biggest user of social media in the first place, but I used to have a Facebook account where I would communicate with mainly family. After some time though, I discovered about some of the information that Facebook had on me, which shocked me to say the least. I think this lawsuit should help raise even more awareness about privacy, to the UK users who use Facebook on the daily, they should question whether they want to continue using Facebook going forward.
I also think that this affects social media platforms such as Instagram and WhatsApp, which are owned by Facebook, so that hopefully more people are aware about what happens as they continue to be users. Most people typically would not read through the entire terms and conditions when creating an account, but if people were more aware about the amount of data Facebook is obtaining, their privacy could be saved.
References:
- Milmo, D. (2022, January 14). Meta sued for £2.3bn over claim Facebook users in UK were exploited. The Guardian. Retrieved January 19, 2022, from https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jan/14/meta-sued-for-23bn-over-claim-facebook-users-in-uk-were-exploited
- PYMNTS.com. (2022, January 17). UK lawsuit claims Facebook Exploited user data. PYMNTS.com. Retrieved January 19, 2022, from https://www.pymnts.com/legal/2022/uk-lawsuit-claims-facebook-exploited-personal-data-of-44-million-users/
- Landi, M. (2022, January 15). Every UK facebook user could get £50 as lawsuit filed against social media giant. mirror. Retrieved January 19, 2022, from https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/every-uk-facebook-user-could-25954863
- Dispatch. (2019, May 15). Holding the smoking gun. The NYU Dispatch. Retrieved January 19, 2022, from https://wp.nyu.edu/dispatch/2019/05/15/holding-the-smoking-gun/#:~:text=As%20Mashable%20CEO%2C%20Pete%20Cashmore,media%20hold%20the%20smoking%20gun.%E2%80%9D&text=As%20startup%20entrepreneur%20David%20Alston,looking%20for%20the%20best%20deals.
- Newton, C. (2020, July 30). Facebook usage and revenue continue to grow as the pandemic rages on. The Verge. Retrieved January 19, 2022, from https://www.theverge.com/2020/7/30/21348308/facebook-earnings-q2-2020-pandemic-revenue-usage-growth
- The Facebook Company is now Meta. Meta. (2021, November 23). Retrieved January 19, 2022, from https://about.fb.com/news/2021/10/facebook-company-is-now-meta/
- Hern, A. (2020, February 16). Internet privacy: The apps that protect you from your apps. The Guardian. Retrieved January 19, 2022, from https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/feb/16/internet-privacy-settings-apps-to-protect-you-
Interesting post and most importantly thanks for raising awareness about this lawsuit. I still remember the time when my brother set up my Facebook account for me. I was seven maybe, or even 8. The point being at that time Facebook was the number 1 social media app since other apps like Instagram and WhatsApp didn’t exist.
After reading your post about the lawsuit and the breach of privacy I must say I am having second thoughts about my other social media accounts since most of them are owned by Facebook. You are right most people do not read through the terms and conditions but in light of recent events one must at least skim through so they know what they are accepting to. Nevertheless, every person will have a different opinions about their privacy and will value their privacy in different ways.
This has been on my mind for a while. Facebook tracks us in ways many of us don’t even realize and is so good at it, we think it’s monitoring our conversations. I am pretty sure most of us stumbled upon an ad, on Facebook, relating to our most recent conversation. Apparently, Facebook uses sophisticated demographic and location data to serve up ads. They previously denied exploiting microphone access but I find that hard to believe due to the specificity of the ads. I, personally, use Social Media for mainly content promotion since they are great platforms to do that but even then it bugs me to think about how they are collecting data. I try my best to keep my social media persona separate from my private life though. Regardless, this is a great post that raises awareness and I think it’s high time we start thinking about the ways we might be exploited on Social Media platforms and even online.
An interesting read. Digital privacy in the modern age has truly reached near dystopian levels. We live in an era where it is nigh impossible to survive without creating a digital footprint. This is even more true in the context of covid-19 where almost all communication occurs online. At this point it’s no longer a matter of preventing your data from being farmed, but rather choosing which platforms you’ll forfeit all your information to. Personally I am not hopeful about people becoming more aware about their privacy due to this lawsuit, but I am hopeful that better mechanisms will be put into place to prevent these monopolistic tech giants from abusing their power.
It seems that social media has become so much of a normalized phenomenon that we tend to overlook more detailed concerns regarding the information we release about ourselves. It kind of reminds me of the long list of “Warnings/Precautions” you will find on products with potentially hazardous effects. It’s almost impossible to read and no one really bothers to do so, but I think the onus is on the provider/manufacturer to make this sort of info accessible. Of course, as with any issue targeted towards corporate behaviour towards consumers, it will only change if we put pressure on companies to do so.
A change in attitude towards privacy has to start with education, and this is a really difficult thing to do when practices become normalized over time. I actually went through a process of trying to clear up my digital footprint recently (deleting old accounts, etc…) and I was surprised at how many companies don’t make it an easy process. I often had to go back and forth with someone from their support team and make it clear that I wanted my data permanently erased (or at the very least anonymized). I also noticed how many services make their deactivation/deletion buttons tiny compared to everything else on the webpage.
Great post. It really disturbs me when their spokespeople say things like that, implying that by providing such services for “free”, despite raking in a significant portion of ad revenue, it entitles them to collect and do as they please with whatever information people are careless enough to share on their sites, as it was “their choice” to share it. Not only that, but strong-arming their way around with market dominance to get away with it as well. I’m glad that legal systems are starting to take the approach that such breaches of privacy are essentially mass theft of something belonging by right to the individuals using their system.
Nice post! I already aware that Facebook hands out its users data and invading their privacy but this makes me realize that Facebook does this over and over again which I find pretty scary. Considering that Facebook also owns other huge social media apps as you’ve mentioned Instagram and WhatsApp, they could also do the same thing in selling user’s personal data from those apps as well, it makes me wonder if individuals will ever be safe when using social media.
This is a very insightful post! I remember watching the Netflix documentary “The Social Dilemma” which says that “if you’re not paying for the product, you are the product.” It seems like some of the services that claim to be free like Facebook are making money by selling their users’ data. It makes me wonder to what extent our data is being monitored or tracked whenever I encounter some of the advertisements on Facebook. Because Facebook almost always displays oddly detailed and accurate advertisements, I was very shocked and disturbed at the same time by how much Facebook knows about me and how invasive the data mining algorithms are. It seems like their data mining algorithms are a lot more creepy than people realize!
Interesting post Jazib. From the very beginning, I knew Facebook or any other social media that gives us free services are not giving us these services for free. When I first opened my Facebook account, I opened it basically because of my family members and friends. And after some time I realized that Facebook is giving us these services by selling our data, which is ethically wrong because everyone should have the choice what they want to share with others. It is true also that most people do not read these terms and conditions but even if they do and do not want to accept these terms and condition, they won’t be able to use the app. So, I think it’s high time we start thinking about the ways we might be exploited on Social Media platforms and save ourselves from stealing our information.
Great post. Ever since I made my Facebook account, way back in middle school, I’ve always wondered what Facebook does with my personal information. Throughout the years, I’ve heard of many Facebook and other social media controversies of personal information being leaked. Every time I hear about something like that, I just feel so weird. For the exercise in worksheet 1 where we had to check our Facebook info, I was surprised to see how much information they can gather on people. Also, it’s one thing for them to keep that much information on us, but the fact that they even leak that information to others is just appalling. Facebook and other social media platforms need to be much more responsible when it comes to something like this. I believe when they do something like this, they are abusing the trust that we put in them when we use these apps. I hadn’t heard of this whole UK issue, but hearing about this just makes me want to trust these social media platforms like Facebook less.
Great Post! Facebook provides its business partners tracking software they embed in apps, websites and loyalty programs. Any business or group that needs to do digital advertising has little choice but to feed your activities into Facebook’s vacuum
Interesting post! Nowadays, social media seems to have become a very common phenomenon. Facebook is one of the widely used social software. I have been registering for an account since I was in elementary school, and after reading this post, it makes me wonder if my personal information is known to others. I think when they do things like this, they are abusing the trust we put in them when we use these apps. Right now I don’t want to trust a social media platform like Facebook.