Keller @ Large: You Should Care About Facebook's Data Privacy Scandal
BOSTON (CBS) - Another day, another slide for the stock price of Facebook, the social-media giant that has proven to be great at amassing power and wealth but not so great on ethics and accountability. And if you listen closely to the marketplace, it seems to be saying that those things still matter. Ask yourself - do I care about the security of supposedly-private data about me that Facebook compiles?
If the answer is yes, you should care about the news that Facebook data was harvested by a dishonest company that turned a profit on its use as a political weapon. The data of about 50 million Americans ended up in the hands of Cambridge Analytica of London, which used it to create targeted political advertising.
Read: How To Stop Facebook From Sharing Your Data
David Carroll, a Facebook critic suing to find out more about this huge data breach, put it in perspective.
"If they did let data get collected in an illicit manner and didn't adequately protect it when they learned how it was used… then yes they are responsible. That's the deal they make with us, that they protect our data in order for us to use the service," Carroll said.
We as a society have honored Mark Zuckerberg and his Facebook cronies with great wealth, book sales, and honorary degrees. But they and the other tech titans now face a reckoning.
The truth is, they've prioritized profits and market share over customer safety and privacy, misleading us about it every step of the way. The popularity of their products has rewarded them handsomely. But as the Bible says, to whom much is given, much is expected. And they have fallen way short of even the most modest expectations.
Share your take with me via email at keller@wbztv.com, or use Twitter, @kelleratlarge.
