| I've never trusted Facebook, and the only reason I still have an account is that my family insists on using it. They acknowledge that I'm right to be wary of Facebook, but they're familiar with it and my sixty-something parents aren't going to switch because they have more pressing concerns and (in their opinion) nothing to hide. All I can do, since they won't use alternatives like email, SMS, or Signal, is give them as little data as possible. I don't post to the timeline. I use 20 year old photo as my profile pic. I don't provide any biographical info. I don't "like" anything or send friend requests. And I don't post anything on messenger that I wouldn't be willing to write on a postcard. Facebook won't be close to trustworthy until it is forced to buy out Mark Zuckerberg and sell off Instagram, WhatsApp, Occulus, etc. Remember, this was Zuckerberg at 19, according to transcripts leaked to Business Insider: Zuck: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard Zuck: Just ask. Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS [Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one? Zuck: People just submitted it. Zuck: I don't know why. Zuck: They "trust me" Zuck: Dumb fucks. He might have gotten less contemptuous of users with age, but Facebook's actions do not suggest this is the case. As an aside, the only thing that would get me to trust ANY social media platform would be if it served as a front-end for users' websites. When you sign up, you should be able to provide your website's RSS/Atom/JSON feed, and your posts should come out of the feed. When somebody follows you, they're just following your feed. When you delete your account, your data remains your own because all the platform was doing was pulling from your feed. I know the Solid project is supposed to address this, but I think it's a solution in search of a problem. |