Devin Coldewey comments on a recent Facebook data breach, claiming that people can’t expect the tech giant to be able to protect against such failures. He argues that Facebook is too big, too complex, and too decentralized to prevent hackers and abusers of the platform.
Another day, another announcement from Facebook that it has failed to protect your personal information. Were you one of the 50 million (and likely far more, given the company’s graduated disclosure style) users whose accounts were completely exposed by a coding error in play for more than a year? If not, don’t worry — you’ll get your turn being failed by Facebook . It’s incapable of keeping its users safe.
Facebook has proven over and over again that it prioritizes its own product agenda over the safety and privacy of its users. And even if it didn’t, the nature and scale of its operations make it nearly impossible to avoid major data breaches that expose highly personal data.
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Again, it’s not really Facebook’s fault exactly that there are people abusing its platform. People are the worst, after all. But Facebook can’t save you from them. It can’t prevent the new category of harm that it has created.
What can you do about it? Nothing. It’s out of your hands. Even if you were to quit Facebook right now, your personal data may already have been leaked and no amount of quitting will stop it from propagating online forever. If it hasn’t already, it’s probably just a matter of time. There’s nothing you, or Facebook, can do about it. The sooner we, and Facebook, accept this as the new normal, the sooner we can get to work taking real measures toward our security and privacy.