By Susan Traherne
WHEN I first joined Facebook in 2007, it seemed such a marvellous innovation. An effortless way to keep in touching distance with the lives of friends, relative and former colleagues.
But now I am beginning to realise that Facebook is not a force for good. And that is why I am deleting my profile while continuing to freely use WhatsApp and Instagram.
I’m not somebody who follows the “tech news”. I don’t know how all these big companies fit together. But as I was saying in our Conscious Capitalism WhatsApp group last night, Zuckerberg has gone too far.
Facebook should not be harvesting our data. It should not be selling that data to unscrupulous third parties. But it has forgotten that it is nothing without its users.
Most importantly, it is no longer the only social networker in town. If I want to message friends, there’s an app for that. If I want to share photos, there’s an app for that too.
I will no longer give Facebook my precious likes. Instead, I shall bestow them elsewhere, and there is nothing they can do to stop me.
Tonight, I shall be deactivating my Facebook account and notifying that unethical internet conglomerate that I wish them to delete my data. If you want to join me, then I can guide you through the process step-by-step because I’m filming it as an Instagram Story.
Facebook is over. It triumphed only because of our naivety and ignorance about Big Data. But we will never been that foolish again.
