In May 2018, I wrote an article about how the Cambridge Analytica fiasco might have signaled the beginning of the end for Facebook. It would now seem that I was prophetic in my predictions. Of course, one would think that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg would be keenly aware of the damage that was done to his company’s image, implementing corrective measures. But, alas, that seems to be beyond his capacity. Add in the “shadow banning” and the constant invasion of our privacy and you can now see the writing on the wall as plainly as I can.
This latest step by Facebook, however, might just be the proverbial final nail in the coffin.
Now, I am nobody to tell Mark Zuckerberg how to run his company. But, I am an American citizen, so I can definitely tell him what to “do” with his company. What has Zuckerberg done this time to draw my ire? Let me explain.
To start with, you just can’t believe the brass you know what on these guys. And I don’t mean this in a good way. You see, despite congressional inquiries and severe public backlash, Zuckerberg just won’t stop his blatant abuse of the very customers that support his business. Honestly, his impudence and arrogance defy comprehension.
Defying comprehension pretty much describes perfectly the latest scheme Facebook is trying in order to once again take advantage of the billions of individuals that use the social media platform.
According to an exclusive report by the Wall Street Journal, Facebook has been secretly asking major banks and lending institutions to turn over your financial details. “The social-media giant has asked large U.S. banks to share detailed financial information about their customers, including card transactions and checking-account balances, as part of an effort to offer new services to users.”
Facebook contacted JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup, and U.S. Bancorp.
But in a surprising twist, one U.S. bank actually showed a backbone and a strong moral and ethical position on the matter by walking away from Zuckerberg’s latest endeavor to fleece his users. To their credit, they walked away citing “privacy concerns.”
The Wall Street Journal went on to say, “Facebook has talked about a feature that would show its users their checking-account balances, the people said. It has also pitched fraud alerts.”
The Journal continued, “Facebook has told banks that the additional customer information could be used to offer services that might entice users to spend more time on Messenger.”
Facebook spokesperson Elisabeth Diana said, “We don’t use purchased data from banks or credit card companies for ads…we also don’t have special relationships, partnerships, or contracts with banks or credit card companies to use their customers’ purchase data for ads.”
She continued, “Like many online companies with commerce businesses, we partner with banks and credit card companies to offer services like customer chat or account management. Account linking enables people to receive real-time updates in Facebook Messenger where people can keep track of their transaction data like account balances, receipts, and shipping updates.
“The idea is that messaging with a bank can be better than waiting on hold over the phone – and it’s completely opt-in,” she added. “We’re not using this information beyond enabling these types of experiences – not for advertising or anything else.”
Really, Elizabeth?
Isn’t this the same Facebook who constantly told its users that their information was safe, only to turn around and find out it was selling it to Cambridge Analytica?
Is this not the same Facebook who continuously promised Congress for over a decade that it would change its business practices to better protect the consumer?
C’mon, this is just par for the course for Zuckerberg. This is the man who has been screwing people since day one.
Case in point, as reported by Forbes: “But as Zeynep Tufekci has eloquently chronicled, Zuckerberg’s most recent apology tour and pledge to restore user trust is just the latest instance of breach/apologize/repeat that has played out time and again since the company was founded.
“Zuckerberg’s public apologies began in 2003, when the then 19-year-old college sophomore launched a short-lived but popular Harvard version of the Am I Hot or Not? website. Zuckerberg’s version, called Fashmash, non-consensually scraped pictures of coeds from Harvard’s intranet and asked users to rate their hotness. Zuckerberg was accused by Harvard of breaching security, violating copyrights and violating individual privacy. Facing expulsion at his disciplinary hearing, Zuckerberg apologized profusely, noting: ‘I hope you understand, this is not how I meant for things to go, and I apologize for any harm done as a result of my neglect to consider how quickly the site would spread and its consequences thereafter.’ As it turned out, Zuckerberg wasn’t expelled, but left Harvard voluntarily the following year to launch Facebook.
“As it turned out, this apologia became the basis of a script Zuckerberg would read from time and again over the next 15 years along the lines of: “My intentions were pure. Gosh, I didn’t realize anyone would be hurt. I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.
“For example, in 2007, Facebook introduced the Beacon program in which participating advertisers reported back to Facebook on members’ activities on their websites, even if the users weren’t logged in to Facebook and had refused to have their off-platform activities broadcast to their Facebook friends. Facebook users were never informed that data on their activities on external sites was flowing back to Facebook, nor given the option to block that information from being transmitted.
“Privacy advocates howled, and Zuckerberg’s apology rang a familiar bell: ‘When we first thought of Beacon, our goal was to build a simple product to let people share information across sites with their friends…We made a lot of mistakes building this feature, but we’ve made even more with how we’ve handled them. We simply did a bad job with this release, and I apologize for it…’
“Zuckerberg has steadfastly claimed that Facebook doesn’t sell user data. But in 2007 Zuckerberg announced the launch of Facebook Platform, which, while not selling user data, gave it away for free to hundreds of thousands of third-party apps developers.”
Folks, Zuckerberg repeatedly promised Facebook users that Facebook was not selling their data. No, of course not. They were giving it away for free!
This is the same Zuckerberg that appeared in front of special Congressional hearings of two separate committees. Both times he had to answer questions about the mishandling of data privacy and data mining. Of course, once the story broke and the news got out, Facebook went into full damage-control mode, promising that they would “alert anyone whose data may have been improperly used by Cambridge Analytica.” Well, based on the last reported numbers, that would be somewhere around 87 million Facebook users.
They went on to say, “users whose information may have been improperly used by This Is Your Digital Life and Cambridge Analytica, will get a link to the Facebook Help Center page with a tool that will tell them if and how their data may have been misused.” Want to bet they didn’t do what they promised?
Now we are supposed to believe they won’t use our private banking information for some such nefarious purpose just because they say so?
Well, it looks like I was right, because all of these shenanigans are catching up to Facebook. This story about Facebook trying to gain access to your financial records comes just days after the company suffered the worst “one-day” loss in market valuation in the history of the stock market. Based on reports, Facebook lost a mind-blowing $120 billion in market value in just one day.
Now we are seeing daily reports that Zuckerberg and his progressive counterparts at Twitter and other social media platforms are censoring conservative political content. Their excuse? The posts don’t conform to their community standards. But we all know the truth. They are censoring conservative political content that they don’t agree with. And as is typical of the progressive movement, they label anything they don’t agree with as “hate speech.”
Despite all of his promises, we know that sometime in 2016-2017, Zuckerberg purposely changed Facebook with the purpose and intent of directly targeting conservative websites by denying them access to the social media platform in order to drive hundreds of these small conservative websites out of business. If you have any doubt about their stance or position, just research the story of Diamond & Silk, two African-American conservative women who support Trump, and what Facebook has done to them.
There is no doubt in my mind that this new scheme by Zuckerberg is just one more in a long line of attempts to gain access to your private information. If he succeeds, you can take it to the bank (pun intended) that he will once again use this information for his own gain.
I am sorry, folks, Facebook is breaking the law and needs to be investigated by the Department of Justice and prosecuted for its crimes. Congress needs to stop their ridiculous hearings and simply refer Facebook to the DOJ for investigation and prosecution.
But, if neither Congress nor the DOJ wishes to do their job, then we need to vote…and we do that with our real vote and with our pocketbooks.
If you remember nothing else, remember this: Stop giving permission to these unscrupulous companies to access and share your private information.
