Facebook No Longer Gives a Shit
So stop pretending they could change
If you’re still holding out hope that Facebook isn’t the data sucking vampire with as little concern for your privacy as a Peeping Tom, news of the recent exit of Instagram’s founders just took that hope and well, for a lack of a better phrase, shit on it. Last week, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, the co-founders of Instagram, announced that they were leaving Facebook, where they had worked since Mark Zuckerberg bought their company six years ago. In their statement, they claimed they were leaving Facebook to explore their “curiosity and creativity again.” Now, I’ll admit exploring your curiosity and creativity sounds like a great idea, especially for two people who are incredibly smart and creative but their exit comes 10 months after WhatsApp cofounder Brian Acton, also left Facebook, saying he wanted to focus on a nonprofit.
Here’s a quick primer on what happened after Acton left…
When details of the Cambridge Analytica scandal oozed out, he sent a Tweet that quickly went viral and shocked his former employers, who had made him a billionaire many times over: “It is time. #deletefacebook.” No explanation followed. He hasn’t sent another Tweet since.
Acton’s motto at WhatsApp had been “No ads, no games, no gimmicks” — a direct contrast with a parent company that derived 98% of its revenue from advertising. Another motto had been “Take the time to get it right,” a stark contrast to “Move fast and break things.”
So why should anyone care about a bunch of rich guys leaving other rich guys to pursue other things? That’s a good question with a likely answer that’s absolutely terrifying. But let’s think about it for a second.
In Systrom and Kiegler’s case, the answer is less obvious considering they haven’t yet publicly said anything about their departure that implicates Facebook’s utter lack of care for protecting its user’s privacy. But we can guess that based on the fact that Systrom and Kiegler had earlier this year stopped reporting to Zuckerberg directly that there were disagreements about where Instagram was headed. In Acton’s case, however, a pro-privacy zealot, who dedicated his life to creating a product that’s meant to keep your communications with other people private, the answer is more obvious. One possible reason, he looked at Facebook’s moral landscape and what he saw was a company helmed by a supreme leader that was less interested in gaining its user’s trust back and more interested in, well, making more money and gaining greater influence at whatever cost.
“They are businesspeople, they are good businesspeople,” Acton told Forbes in an interview last week. “They just represent a set of business practices, principles and ethics, and policies that I don’t necessarily agree with.”
Which is a nice way of saying that the people running things at Facebook don’t care about users’ privacy. And if that sounds a bit dramatic, I’ll remind you that just this past week Facebook, who’s on countless occasions promised its users that it’s going to take a more vigilant approach to protecting people’s privacy just had its largest data security breach in the company’s 14-year history.
The irony here is that the first two software bugs were introduced by an online tool meant to improve the privacy of users. Not to worry though, Zuck’s on the case.
“We’re taking it really seriously,” Mr. Zuckerberg, the chief executive, said in a conference call with reporters. “I’m glad we found this, but it definitely is an issue that this happened in the first place.”
We’re glad you found it too, Mark. But let’s be real, the only reason you say you’re taking it really seriously is because if you don’t, the government is going to step in and fix it for you.
