It is often said that Facebook is taking advantage of teens and adults by giving them gift cards for installing apps that let companies collect data from their smartphones. On one side, I see that receiving gift cards simply for some information is quite an interesting concept. This is because one can make some fast, easy money. A few extra dollars for a few clicks with the once thought pristine reputable company of Facebook seemed to be so safe but really isn’t. Facebook took the trust of so many users for their own research gain. Most reasonable people believe that Facebook is in the wrong for invading the privacy of younger audiences as young as the age of thirteen years old but, after all, younger audiences are quite vulnerable.
People that use Facebook often have their suspicions that the app is listening and collecting information even when not being used and I believe in that observation as well. Facebook’s access to our personal information happens around the clock. They can follow every like, click, and search that a person may have made on their phone or computer. While one is sleeping the app reviews everything that person has been up to. These teens or adults might not know any better and do not realize how much of their privacy is being viewed just by installing these apps that are being told to download. After all, it is the easy money that attracts them. Their vulnerability is their absolute greatest weakness.
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Research shows that since 2016, Facebook has been paying users, some just as young as thirteen years old, up to twenty dollars a month just for installing an app called Facebook research. Yes, some minors at the naive age of thirteen are being lured. The app gives Facebook access to private direct messages, photos, videos, emails, web searches, and browsing activity. When I was thirteen, I surely believed I could make decisions this significant. Looking back, I was wrong about such notion. Ultimately, a thirteen-year-old is unexperienced and should not make a decision on sharing his/her privacy. Some might argue that a thirteen-year-old has no business on Facebook and fault guardians for allowing them to be. My belief is that Facebook has a greater responsibility to turn them away instead of pulling them in. If their research states, they were thirteen; they obviously knew this fact and did not reject participation without parental consent. The sharing of privacy also includes people around them that are being photographed and unaware to the extent details are being shared. This could be absolutely anyone at a family festivity or work gathering. It was also found that Facebook extended a surveillance feature for teens to add to their phones. This allowed Facebook access at any given time to see what the user was doing. The main concern here is that Facebook was not completely transparent on all of the abilities this app would have. Facebook advised that they were finding a way to interest the younger generation to use Facebook. Ultimately, what is at stake here is privacy. The extreme action Facebook has taken to invade privacy for research and marketing purposes is not acceptable. For example, Apple was not happy about this information either and banned the Facebook research app from being able to be downloaded.
This is not the first time Facebook has gone to extreme lengths just to get more information out of their users. Back in 2013, Facebook bought a company called Onavo and allegedly used the Onavo app to get more information about WhatsApp. WhatsApp is a messenger app that allows text messaging, voice calls, images and other various types of media, including the user’s location. Facebook bought the WhatsApp for nineteen billion dollars just to access more information out of people and their interests. As a result, Facebook could possibly become more popular and make more money. Apple’s reaction to the Onavo app was similar to the Facebook research app and was unavailable to be downloaded by the public. Facebook privacy may seem to be monitored by Apple, however, overall privacy for all audiences thirteen years and older is still vulnerable.
Just recently last year in April, Mark Zuckerberg (chief executive officer of Facebook) went to court for leaking people’s personal private information. There was a complete disruption by the majority of the Facebook users because they were unaware that they were becoming just extra information for the experiment conducted by Facebook full of personal and private information. It is a disgrace that they knowingly went to extents to prey on the ignorance of users desperate for an extra quick buck. People may disagree with this by saying that social media within itself is public. Social media is public but private messages and private information should remain private if that’s what a person is wanting. Facebook dips into some people’s private things and lures others in by going off of the messages and seeing what interests people the most. People truly believe that with the new technology that has come to market serves as a protector to online privacy. We have all seen the advertisements of spy ware prevention. Quite frankly the opposite is true. There is no software that will keep what is posted on social media private. Facebook has always been reputable in the eyes of many consumers especially those of our youth.
Ultimately Facebook is wrong for knowingly asking users as young as thirteen years old to download apps for research for their own gain. It is also wrong for Facebook to ask users of any age to download an app without transparency of what the app will view and follow. Privacy is privacy. We should always protect the privacy of ourselves and others around us.
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