Note: The following piece contains arguments, uncategorized to conform to any particular format. Little coherence is to be expected as of this time when I’m preparing my message about quitting WhatsApp to be sent to my contacts and need to finish this up fast. There might be a revised version later here.
After a huge sweep of revelations that centralized social networks can be enablers of mass surveillance, the recent misuse of data uploaded to Facebook occurrence raised even more privacy concerns and a few questions.
If you are unconvinced about the need for privacy and/or go by saying something as "I don't have anything to hide", think of what this adage means to you: *Secrecy is different from privacy*
Facebook has a need to collect and sell my data for it to sustain. Facebook is a business organisation. Isn’t it?
If Facebook is providing you and me services free of charge, then they must be making money using some route that isn’t directly obvious to you and me. Look at this.
Government organizations can force organizations like Facebook to reveal information they have about us and they have to comply by law. Worse, they may not be allowed to reveal that they shared information about you without your knowledge. Read about Gag orders.
Our political beliefs revealed during conversations with our contacts can be used against us; Our past would never be forgotten and can be used by unscrupulous to attack us without our knowledge; Our real-time wereabouts and our daily routines with our families can be knowledge of someone without our consent first.
What this amounts to is a lack of control on our own lives. This is the price we pay for free exchange of messages and pictures. And I don’t want to do that.
My Facebook account has been silent for many years and it wasn’t any effort to click the Delete my Account (or to be exact, ‘schedule for deletion’. Ugh!)
Thanks for asking. With this as a start, I am initiating my deletion of centralized social networking site accounts.