The biggest news, as of the time this article was written, is how Facebook indirectly gave personal information, taken from their users, to Cambridge Analytica. One of the first articles I ever wrote, for Blasting News, was titled, "Why I deleted my Facebook account and why you should do it too." In this article, I will tell you why Facebook collecting all our Data is not as important and severe as the media is making it seem.
It's been going on for over 10 years
Let's be honest, most of us knew Facebook saves and shares all of our information to brands and other corporations that are able to afford it.
We did not know, however, to what extent they saved and shared our likes, our followers, who we were following, or even for how long we look at any given post. Keep in mind, I deleted my Facebook account a few years back, so I am drawing testimony from current Facebook users and other articles. I do, however, have an Instagram and WhatsApp account, which are both owned by Facebook.
If this data collection has been happening for over ten years, why didn't anyone do anything about it this whole time? I want to get this correct, so I am quoting this from a reliable source like NPR, "Facebook users who downloaded an app developed by Cambridge University psychology professor Aleksandr Kogan gave personal data to the firm (Cambridge Analytica) — as well as information from their Facebook friends who had not downloaded the app." Personally, I already thought Facebook allowed this kind of behavior, but according to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, they do not allow it and it is against their terms and conditions.
Should the government regulate Facebook?
Keep in mind, this is an Opinion Article, but I will say yes, the government should regulate Facebook. Why? Because Facebook is using its power over information to influence its users' behavior. For example, the experiment they did in 2012 in which they showed happy posts to some users, but sad posts to others.
They have also been unable to regulate Russian bots and propaganda and this eventually had a deleterious effect on the 2016 Presidential election and is still affecting users to this day. A fake Black Lives Matter Facebook account had twice as many followers as the real one, and many people donated money, approximately $100,000, to the page, but the page was linked to an Australian bank.
The US government should also regulate Facebook's other apps, like Instagram and WhatsApp, as there have been several news articles saying that Russian bots also affected those apps. The obvious downside of the government regulating Facebook is that private companies will no longer have complete control of their own companies, which can lead to disastrous side effects.
