Another Day, Another Facebook Privacy Issue

Why Social Media Privacy Protection Won’t Come From Facebook

After the news story broke in December that 267 million Facebook users may have had their details left open to hackers, it left the world wondering: Will Facebook and other giants ever get serious about social media privacy protection? Facebook has faced huge fines in the U.S. and in the European Union for privacy violations, but it hasn’t seemed to make them change their ways. Not as long as they can make money by gathering information on its users. So, once again, it’s left to us to protect ourselves.

Social media is free to members because the companies make money by selling targeted ads to their user base. Think about it: we have been freely announcing our likes and dislikes throughout the years, giving them all the data they need to precisely match ads with people who might be interested. Internet advertising revenues in the U.S. alone totaled $107.5 billion in 2018, with almost 20 percent of that going to Facebook, and the 2019 total is projected to be near $116 billion. When they can earn billions selling us, social media companies can afford the occasional scandal or fine.

Facebook has lots of ways to gather data on you. In addition to the information you share on your page, they track the things you Like and Share, the Facebook groups you belong to and events you attend, and location information from photos you and others post. Now that Facebook owns WhatsApp and Instagram, they can also track you through those apps.

Social media companies will argue that they don’t sell your data directly—they only use it to match you with advertisers—and if you’re going to get online advertising anyway, it might as well be relevant. There are two problems with that argument. First, data that’s stored can be lost or stolen, as evidenced by the December breach. The second issue is that bad actors are now using legitimate online advertising channels to accomplish their scams. In fact, experts say at least 1 in 10 online ads is now “malvertising” because buying ad space from social media is a profitable way for criminals to spread malware and scams. Researchers have found everything from romance scams to work-from-home, gift certificate, and sweepstakes reward scams, and spyware disguised as surveys.

As long as you use social media, you’re going to be tracked, but there are some things you can do to limit the amount of data that’s gathered:

• Disable ad tracking on your computers and devices.
• Use a browser plug-in to limit data tracking. For example, Mozilla launched a Firefox browser plug-in, called a Facebook Container, that helps control how much data the social media company can access.
• Regularly delete cookies from your browser, and consider using a “privacy-first” browser.
• Delete social media apps from your mobile devices, as those can gather even more real-time data on you.
• Use this tool from the Digital Advertising Alliance to opt-out of online advertising.

If you use social media at all, you’re still going to be subjected to some amount of malvertising, so proceed with caution. Consider your privacy before using Facebook dating services or a portal device. Beware of ads from companies you don’t know, and don’t take online quizzes. And if you have the chance, support legislation that promotes social media privacy. As one privacy expert noted recently, social media privacy issues will continue “as long as social media platforms like Facebook make their fortunes selling their users’ data and attention to advertisers and any others who want to manipulate them.”