FACEBOOK... SOCIAL NETWORK OR VIGILANCE NETWORK?

Let's talk a little about the controversy that has been generated these days about the case of Facebook and the data of more than 50,000,000 users who have collected this "social network" and that other people have taken advantage of this data. I won't go into details, since you should know them because it has been front-page news. But neither, I wanted to pass my opinion to the respect.

To speak clearly, I've never been a fan of Facebook, maybe because my friends are few and I prefer to sit with them around a table, drink a few beers, share some snacks and laugh, cry, argue and laugh again, instead of to tell my sorrows and glories to "friends" that are not such, but neither I'm detractor of this platform. I have an account in it, but it isn't my favorite, because it generates me in a little distrust that people say how many minutes lasted in the bathroom. First, who care? And second, what does Facebook with that information? But well, that is each one's decision, that their life is as public or private as they wish.

A few days ago I read a tweet published by Edward Snowden on 03/17/18, where he expressed:

Fuente: Twitter

And I don't find it difficult to agree with him in a certain aspect: they watch us. Facebook knows our interests, what we buy, the places we go, who we are with and stop to tell. And this is not new thing, it isn't the first time that it has the knowledge of the great amount of information that Facebook has of us, all under the argument of selling more and better publicity.

Even so, and now I'm going to play the devil's lawyer, I think it's not entirely Facebook's fault or its founder's, or his team's, but it's our fault, it's the users' fault that we've yielded, many times without knowing it, data of our life to the platform, we blindly trust in these services, and we don't even bother to read the fine print, that which is where it says terms and conditions, which we accept and even it seems innesesary, and now it is shocking to discover what we already feared: Facebook knows, literally, almost everything about us.

But at least they have the delicacy to let us know what they know about us, if we enter the configuration of our account and download "a copy of your information on Facebook", which you will receive through a link in your email to download a file in .ZIP format, with everything that Facebook has from us, which is not little.

As a result of this, several countries are taking actions to protect their information, not only from Facebook but from other similar platforms, but only for now in Europe, the other countries, we will continue under the same scenario. But we don't have to wait for our governments to do something about our privacy, after all, it's about our data and it's our responsibility to decide who we share it with.

So, to close the idea, I can only give you some recommendations: common sense, stop a second before "Accept" everything that appears on the screen. Be a little untrust, it's not so bad, especially when it comes to deciding who has access to our life, and it's not about hiding something, but protecting, not only you, but your family and friends.

Be careful.