Facebook Fallout and What it Means for Social Media

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, then you probably aren’t aware of all the controversy surrounding Facebook right now.

Recently, a third party political consulting firm, Cambridge Analytica, accessed over 50 million Facebook users’ information without their knowledge. They gained access to users’ identities, friend networks, and even their “likes.” This information came out right after Facebook confirmed that they have the ability to track your phone calls and text messages if you have an Android device.

Both of these revelations are leaving people worried about their privacy. Facebook has come to their own defense by stating that this was not a data breach because they routinely allow researchers to have access to their user’s data for academic purposes; which all users consent to upon creating a Facebook account.

However, the case with Cambridge Analytica is a little different. They gained access to the users information after users willingly downloaded the third party personality quiz app, “thisisyourdigitallife,” on Facebook by the app developer, Aleksandr Kogan. Once downloaded, the apps developers could scrap users’ data along with the data of their friends. Those who downloaded the app were told that it was a “research app used for academic purposes” (according to The New York Times), but instead their data was being collected and sent to Cambridge Analytica to help political parties target voters by using the users’ information to sway them whichever way they needed.

This incident has many people not only worrying about their privacy and security online, but also what is going to happen to social media now and in the future?

Firstly, privacy is dead. The faster people start to realize that privacy is a thing of the past in the digital age, the better.

I grew up having a computer in my home and a cell phone in my hand, therefore I’ve had the internet at my fingertips for most of my life. So, with that being said, I’ve also been using social media platforms since Myspace was a thing; that means there are horrible photos of me with side swept bangs and pounds of eyeliner are still out there somewhere on the Internet (which can easily be found).

We use the Internet for literally everything. We pay our bills, we apply for jobs, we online shop, and we even voluntarily tell strangers every little thing about ourselves and our mundane lives. That information can easily be accessed by pretty much anyone at any time from any place in the world.

We don’t need a “data breach” to make us realize that someone halfway across the world knows our exact address, first childhood pet, and what you ate for breakfast. However, what it does do is it forces other social media platforms, like Instagram (which is owned by Facebook), Twitter and Snapchat, to up their security and privacy for their users.

As it stands, Facebook has already experienced a drop in their stock of roughly 35 points. The fall out could be that other social media platforms get hit with a drop in their stocks as well. There has been a call to ban Facebook, (which sounds like a novel concept in theory) as we saw Elon Musk announce via Twitter that he’d pull SpaceX and Tesla from Facebook earlier this week, but not off of Instagram, which is owned by Facebook.

People are not willing to disrupt their social media life because of something as common as our information being used to let advertisers know what they like so they can curate ads to each individual user. Humans thrive on being connected to others, and we’re not willing to disrupt that connection by not using our social media accounts.

Most of us use our social media accounts daily. Humans have a hierarchy of needs, and one of those needs is social belonging. Social media is a great platform for people to use to feel accepted and stay connected with others. It’s a place for people to express themselves through writing, photos, videos, music and so much more.

So, the fear of social media disappearing because of the Facebook “information breach” is just that, a fear. Despite that, it will not come to fruition since people are not willing to disconnect from their devices and social media in general.

The only change I see is that social media sites will be giving their security and privacy setting a huge facelift, which will actually be for the better… Facebook is already talking about rolling out a new ‘Privacy Shortcuts’ menu within the next coming weeks that will allow its users to regulate the amount of personal information they keep on file. Users will also be able to delete things they have already shared that the company uses to show ads.

My guess is that many, if not all, social media sites will be following in Facebook’s footsteps, and allow their users to choose what information they want public or to be shared. I doubt that there will be any monumental changes to the way people use their social media sites. People will still post what they ate for dinner on Instagram, and how drunk they got last night on Snapchat despite the threats of future data breaches. Ergo the status quo…