Still on Facebook? Be careful

Everybody knows about Facebook. It’s the go-to place when you wake up, while you sleep, while you commute and what not.

10:46 11 April 2021

It’s the platform to share your experiences, proposals, pictures. Users trust Facebook more than their own blood relation, doctor or mentor nowadays. But the question arises, is Facebook worthy of such trust? Facebook has all your personal information, who you talk to, your birth date, phone number and access to the contact list as well. Who knows the email you are using uses the same password for Facebook as well.

 

The most critical point about Facebook has been forgotten! Like other social media platforms, facebooks purpose is also to do business. It’s no NGO. With Facebook, the company is earning our information and selling it to multiple companies. Type anything on Facebook, and within the hour you will start receiving ads relating to your keyword search! It will be filled and bombarded on your homepage, sidebars, pop-ups, and timeline. This is how Facebooks tracks your searches, and through that information, multiple ads are targeted towards that recipient. Sounds unrealistic but it’s the truth!

 

At some level we can assume it’s a plus factor as whatever we need will be available on your timeline. It will help us buy what we want comparing multiple products at the same time. But is there a chance Facebook is selling our private information of what we like and dislike. I’m sure you much be wondering if we have nothing to hide then why care who Facebook sells our data to? In a recent turn of events, Facebook acquired users data, and it leaked through a third party app which sold data to Cambridge Analytica reported by Knowtechmag. Known as a UK based company which assists politicians to target specific messages to voters. The process is called data mining, and through that, the data has been harvested of 50 million users on Facebook.

 

What Is Cambridge Analytica And How Facebook Breached User Privacy?

 

Facebook landed in controversies in early 2015 when they joined hands with an app developer Aleksandr Kogan, who violated and disturbed their policies. The app itself called, “This is Your Digital Life” which requests and collected user data and information on the basis of conducting a psychology research. The truth was the opposite. Cambridge Analytica used Facebook users information and targeted multiple voters through it. That specifically violated Facebook's policies.

 

More than 270,000 Facebook users downloaded and installed the app allowing the developer to steal and snatch their data. Access it used it against the users. This is the most significant security leak in history where users blindfolded trust Facebooks policies. This mishap affected of around 50 million users.

 

How Facebook Apps Can View And Use Your Profile Data

 

Every day we download and delete apps, we grant permission to countless apps in a single tap. Have you wondered why a game as simple as a Puzzle is designed for Voter manipulation and? Sounds fishy but its high time we restrict our apps access. If you are an iOS user, then today is your lucky day. You can avoid all these debacles with a single download! Having a free VPN for iOS like Avast Secureline VPN is key for your secure information and future as it will keep your identity safe.

 

Further, you can do the following.

 

• Open Facebook and select the downward facing arrow located at the right side of your News Feed. Click on Settings next.
  
  
• Double tap on ‘Apps’ located in the left-hand sidebar
  
  
• Through Mobile tap on the icon shown as three stacked lines.
  
  
• On settings scroll down to find ‘Account Settings’ and chose Apps
  
  
• Next click on ‘Logged in with Facebook’ to see which apps have access
  
  
• Apps logged into with Facebook can be seen here.

 

Authentic websites like Amazon and eBay can be trusted but shady apps with weird names is a red flag there and then.

 

Is There A Way From Being Traced?

 

Are you still on Facebook? Can you avoid the atrocities of Facebook? Either ways, no matter how hard you try, the power of social media is bigger than all the preventions we take. Logged out users data will also be saved even if the account has been deleted. While there is no way to delete your data permanently. It’s a shadow profile.

 

Being asked in Hearing Mark Zuckerberg consecutively denied having the knowledge of a Shadow Profile. Facebook still collects data from who have never used Facebook as well, that means avoiding social media platforms like tumblr did no good to users as well. The CEO himself Mark Zuckerberg denied of such activity yet there is one.

 

The truth is yet to uncover, and as more research, you do and look up. Facebook is far more dangerous than we can ever believe. The lesser the information you share on Facebook, the better. But the worst part is users knowing all this still prefer to use Facebook hands on.