Should I trust Facebook with my data?

Oh, boy. A big question. Facebook went from a spot of love and community to one of the most distrusted places on the internet. 

A series of revelations in the last two years alone have led people learning unsettling things being done with their personal information. People learned that their information was being sold to advertisers. One day, people found that security bugs unblocked whomever they had blocked. Recently, they’ve learned that random surveys they’ve taken were linked to election intelligence. 

Then, even more recently, Facebook quietly revealed that they’re using WhatsApp’s data to help advertisers. Even now, it’s quite clear that WhatsApp/Facebook have some sort of conversation listening module enabled as I’ve been targeted ads for products/ideas I have only ever verbally discussed with friends. But hey, some people do like personalised ads. It’s akin to the ‘people also viewed/read/bought’ once you’ve clicked on a certain product to buy. Very much like your Amazon search. 

But at the heart of this is the real problem: people do not like being seen as data. 

People as data 

For a company built on the idea of human connection, data breaches took away from the trust Facebook had built. They’ve struggled with questions of data security and privacy for a while now. 

Seeing all the reports, you may have considered getting off Facebook. You probably removed the app from your phone thinking you could use it only on your browser. You have probably stopped liking multiple pages because it affects the kind of ads you see. I’ve even heard instances where friends feel uncomfortable by the ads they’re served. 

People with power  

I feel we need to go back to what Facebook claims it stands for. Give power back to the people. What do I mean by this? Taking more time to consider what you do on Facebook? Denying Facebook access to your location?  

Most of us want to feel safer online and multiple news stories about Facebook have created privacy-related anxiety to be a real thing. So, it might be worth considering what kind of data you are happy to share and what it allows you to do. If you wish to keep Facebook strictly to interact with friends across the world and little else, then you probably have little to worry about.   

But if you play games on Facebook, you have a bit more to chew on. Think about the kind of time you spend playing that game, for example. Or who you usually play with. If you use Facebook to interact with brands, then you are giving away a sense of your preferences. You may want to, then, look at how these brands use your information. How much of this interaction ending up with data to exploit you more?  

If you use Facebook to find local businesses or friends to hang out with, then be prepared to let your location be given away. It is important to remember that all of this can be managed using your account settings. Unfortunately, Facebook has changed privacy options many a time without letting users know beforehand.  

So, people power comes down to keeping up with changes in privacy settings on your Facebook account. You will have to think about keeping up with how any changes affect you or you lose the protection over your own data. 

If you’re paranoid about your information being used (like most of us are now), you can go into your account settings and disable whatever bothers you. Did you log into an app or a website using your Facebook details weeks ago and no longer need it? You can fix that in your settings. 

Did you realise your location services were on via your browser, not just the mobile app? You can fix that in your settings. You get the idea. So, much like me, you can continue to like Facebook for all the good things it offers with your friends and families.  

This will enable you to keep up with the kind of data has about you and what’s being used to show you what in your newsfeed.

The answer?

So, it may not entirely be about trusting Facebook with your data, but more about what you let Facebook do with it. As long as you are prepared to keep up with Facebook’s ever-changing settings and policies.