Posted on 03/20/2018 7:28:07 PM PDT by Behind Liberal Lines
Chris Wylie, the whistleblower who brought to light Facebook's latest controversy, is having a hard time since the social network suspended his Facebook and Instagram accounts.
Over the weekend, the 28-year-old data scientist provided whistleblower accounts to The New York Times and the UK's Guardian and Observer newspapers about Cambridge Analytica, a consultancy he worked for that was hired by the Trump campaign. The firm allegedly harvested data from more than 50 million Facebook accounts without users' permission.
After he turned whistleblower, he was abruptly booted from Facebook's services.
"This is the power Facebook has," Wylie said Tuesday during an onstage interview at the Front Club in London. "They can delete you from the internet."
Facebook is so ingrained in our modern online experience, Wylie said, that his suspension from the social network has had a ripple effect.
"I know this sounds ridiculous," he said. "I can't use Tinder now, for example -- because you have to validate yourself with... Facebook." (One of the most popular ways to log in to Tinder is to link it to your Facebook account, however it's now possible to sign in using your phone number.)
The issue sounds trivial, but it does underscore how powerful and ubiquitous Facebook has become. It's a platform for 2 billion people to connect and chat with family and friends.
Facebook, for its part, said Wylie was suspended because he violated the company's terms of service.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnet.com ...
...or use personal information for illicit reasons (the most common practice). I believe that we will find out that these tech a-holes have sold information or just given it away to the Obama Administration and Hillary Clinton's campaign.
Me first - although getting booted from facebook is hardly getting booted from the internet
Get rid of Facebook get rid of Google. An unholy alliance.
I’m going Apple phone and some other search engine besides Bing and Google.
“although getting booted from facebook is hardly getting booted from the internet”
To a silly, snowflake millennial, Facebook IS the internet.
so true and so sad
“Get rid of Facebook get rid of Google.”
I don’t use either of them and never have.
I’m probably the subject of some secret study somewhere by somebody.
People would pay bigly if FB could actually do that.
Jim Rob can Zot you if you prefer to go that way. Just commit Zotticide
Deleted from the internet? Where do I sign up?
Is that you, Zuck?
Exactly.
Why would this be perceived as a threat?
(unless your’re a bleeding heart liberal
snowflake who’s lifeblood courses thru
yout smart phone.)
You say that like it’s a bad thing.
I have been very careful not to get involved with 'social media' as I feel it's a fad and will be short lived.
So to Facebook I say, "C'mon, delete me if you can."
First, you're mis-characterizing the problem with these social companies.
What they're doing is setting out the same terms of service for all users– which amount to a contract– then picking and choosing winners amongst those users. There is a real contract here: in using social media you are trading information about your habits in exchange for use of their platform. By favoring some users over others– going so far as to suppress free speech and association– without informing those users, they're denying some users their contractual rights.
Worse, they're doing this while favoring political parties to influence elections.
If you can't see the problem with this, you only have to consider the grievances of the workers who have to pay union dues which go to politics they oppose. It's true that no one if forcing you to use facebook, but according to their own terms of service users expect to be treated equally. Not so.
And breaking up Ma Bell was, in retrospect, stupid.
The breakup of Ma Bell led directly (in less than 10 years) to the rise of the cell phone and the internet, and the ability of everyone to communicate with anyone the world over for a tiny fraction of what it cost only a few years ago.
I think ctdonath2 you may be on the wrong website.
Well said, IncPen.
Bravo.
Cannot delete email accounts.
Yep.
We would still be using land lines with rented rotary-dial corded phones. Maybe touch-tone phones, but either way...
We would also be charged for every long distance call, probably would still have portable bag phones or at least nothing in the Smart Phone category and the costs would be astronomical.
Without the breakup there would have been no reason to innovate or cut costs and thus cut the charges to the users.
Breaking up Ma Bell started one of the greatest innovation cycles that led to a great portion of what we today take for granted.
If for some reason I have to log on to a web site I never use the FB logon and would not use that web site if it was the only way to do so.
I’ll be darned if I give FB all that tracking data that also may include whatever I purchased from that web site. I go so far as to have my Firefox NoScript and AdBlock add-ons set up to reject all FB and most Google cookies and ads and I am very careful to allow some of them to make a site function.
I know allowing some Google crap allows them to track me but they don’t get everything they want and they have to work for what they do get.
I’m sure some people would pay good money for that service.
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