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Nearly a Third of Tech Workers Are Ready To #DeleteFacebook (betanews.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the say-when dept.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from BetaNews: A survey conducted in the wake of the #DeleteFacebook campaign that followed revelations about the data breach and the logging of Android users' calls and texts, found that a surprising number of tech workers were ready to delete their Facebook accounts. 31 percent backed the #DeleteFacebook campaign, including 50 percent of Microsoft workers, and 38 percent of Google workers. The survey -- conducted using the anonymous app Blind -- found that nearly a third of those questioned were planning to delete their Facebook accounts. In all, over 2,600 people were surveyed between March 20, 2018 and March 24, 2018, so it neatly took in the peak of the controversy. Broken down by company, the numbers make for interesting reading:

-50 percent of Microsoft employees said they will delete Facebook.
-46 percent of Snapchat employees said they would delete Facebook.
-40 percent of Uber employees said they would delete Facebook.
-38 percent of Google employees said they would delete Facebook.
-34 percent of Amazon employees said they would delete Facebook.
-2 percent of Facebook employees said they would delete Facebook.

42 of 307 comments (clear)

  1. If you work in tech by nehumanuscrede · · Score: 5, Insightful

    and you haven't deleted Facebook already, you're behind the curve I'm afraid.

    You KNOW what they're doing. Why are you still there ?

    1. Re:If you work in tech by jfdavis668 · · Score: 4, Funny

      I downloaded what they have on me. Nothing I didn't post there in the first place. I know enough about tech to stop them from getting anything else.

    2. Re:If you work in tech by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Oh please. I knew what they were doing when I joined. It's a trade off. Get over yourself.

    3. Re: If you work in tech by slazzy · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Same here, the only reason I have a Facebook account is to show potential employers I'm not too anti-social, I have cute dogs and some friends. Login once a year and like a few things. So far, I've gotten the jobs that I wanted to so I assume it works.

      --
      Website Just Down For Me? Find out
    4. Re: If you work in tech by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I work in tech and am not on Facebook - for the sort of jobs I go for it's important to demonstrate to potential employers that I'm not stupid enough to be on Facebook.

    5. Re:If you work in tech by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I downloaded what they have on me. Nothing I didn't post there in the first place.

      And you trust that? Facebook decided what was available to "download", remember? Did you have unlimited query access to their data stores? How can you know what they have or don't have on you, short of an independent forensic audit?

      I know enough about tech to stop them from getting anything else.

      Did you know that your profile on Facebook and the data associated with it consists of more than simply what you gave them first hand? How can you work in tech and not have at least an inkling of that? Ever heard of data brokering? Yeah, it's a whole industry that knows just about everything about you despite the fact that you probably mostly never gave them any of it first hand. Please tell us you're not this naive.

    6. Re: If you work in tech by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Where do you work that facebook friends counts as proof of social aptitude, a prison library?

    7. Re:If you work in tech by Excelcia · · Score: 5, Insightful

      And look at the wording "...would delete facebook...". Who is going to go through the trouble? What will really happen is they will stay off it for a few weeks, Facebook will ramp up their "we miss you" emails. You know, the ones like "So and so has messaged you ten times and you haven't responded. Click here to see their messages", and "Hey look at the ten single girls who would probably respond to a friend request, click here to see them". After a few of those they'll go back on and it will be business as usual.

      I will be more impressed when I see "nearly a third of tech workers HAVE deleted Facebook". Then I'll think the movement is working.

    8. Re:If you work in tech by swillden · · Score: 2

      and you haven't deleted Facebook already, you're behind the curve I'm afraid.

      You KNOW what they're doing. Why are you still there ?

      This is self-congratulatory bullshit, twice over (and note that I deleted my Facebook account in 2010 or so, so I'm not defending my own actions here).

      First. It's perfectly possible to work in tech, have a full appreciation for what Facebook has done, and to decide that the trade for the services received is acceptable. This may be because someone doesn't place a high value on privacy on principle, but only on actual negative effects they think they're likely to receive, and they think those are probably small (I actually agree with that). Alternatively, it may be because they place a very high value on the service, which is pretty common because for many people it is where all their family and friends are, and leaving Facebook would significantly reduce their information about those people. I'm not one of them, but I know many, many people who are in this category. Actually, the only reason I'm not one of them is because my wife is on Facebook and tells me what I need to know.

      Oh, and don't give me any of that crap about how people got along without Facebook before it existed. That's a seriously stupid argument. It doesn't matter if people got along without Facebook before, by exchanging letters or phone calls or visits. If everyone you care about has moved that stuff to Facebook, then if you decide to leave Facebook you need them all to step up and start using those other mechanisms to communicate with you -- but only with you, because everyone else is on Facebook. Unless you have an outrageously high opinion of yourself you have to know that's not going to happen with any kind of consistency.

      Second, you're acting as though there is no new information here, which is ridiculous. It is not the case that "everyone knew" that Facebook leaked information like a sieve. Sure, lots of cynics assumed (without reason or evidence, indeed despite all available reason and evidence) that Facebook resold all of the information it gathered about users. In fact, the recent news has made it even clearer that they don't sell data, else CA wouldn't have had to violate the ToS to steal the data they got on 50M users, they could have simply paid for it. Or the Trump campaign could have, then paid CA to analyze it.

      It was reasonable (note that mashing the cynicism pedal to the floor isn't "reasonable", it's by-definition irrational) to assume that Facebook mostly kept the data close because that's how they could most effectively monetize it. And we don't have lots of stories of big Facebook data leaks. A few, and not terribly big, at least on a percentage basis (which is the only rational way to evaluate such risks).

      I suppose it's possible that you know a lot about Facebook APIs and already knew that they could be abused to allow Facebook apps to gather data far beyond what users had actually approved sharing with them. If so, then why didn't you write up a paper and tell us all about it sooner, and thereby push Facebook to close the holes faster? It's possible you could even have gotten some cash from the bug bounty program (I don't think that's likely, but it's possible).

      So, no, you didn't have that specific knowledge. You're just applying post hoc confirmation of your prior irrationally cynical bias and claiming it as proof that you weren't irrational. But that presumes that irrational behavior which turns out to be correct wasn't irrational. I could be screaming that Bitcoin will hit 100K tomorrow, with absolutely no rational basis for my claim, but whether or not it actually happens doesn't change the fact that my claim was irrational.

      Now that we see how leaky Facebook has been, our estimate of probability of actual harm from leakage of private data must increase, which changes the cost/benefit calculation. Does it throw it entirely to the "Must delete Facebook now!" side? Of course not. There's a Laff

      --
      Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
    9. Re:If you work in tech by rtb61 · · Score: 2

      There was a election way back in Australia and the Labour Party posted some stuff to face book and I wanted to peruse it, so an account was temporarily required. Managed to unknowingly offend some people when I would not respond to the forced Facebook must communicate everything scam, I was not logging in and I done the bit I was interested in and new used it beyond that. Little did I know I had to actively delete that account to escape the Facebook must read and post treadmill. So disconnected and checked a week latter, whoops, do that and the idiot account would reactive and require deletion again, have not even tried to log in since. More than a decade ago, pretty nasty stuff how you can offend people with a unused Facebook account and they made that happen on purpose.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    10. Re: If you work in tech by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I've been quite desparate for jobs in the past (I'm over 50...) - but I'd never create a fb account JUST to 'show them' ... ANYTHING.

      any job that you would not get BECAUSE of a lack of fb is no job worth having. and I'm saying that as someone who has been nearly broke from unemployment more times than I care to count.

      I think you are lying to yourself, though. no job insists on having fb next to your name. you assume too much.

      --

      --
      "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
    11. Re:If you work in tech by msauve · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "...would..."

      The article is BS. Do. Or do not. There is no try.

      --
      "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
    12. Re:If you work in tech by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      You know that even if you don't have a profile on FB they still have a dark profile on you, from a combination of friends uploading their contacts

      I don't have any friends.

      Checkmate, Facebook.

    13. Re: If you work in tech by dgatwood · · Score: 3, Funny

      I'd be less likely to hire someone who would be less likely to hire someone who had a Facebook account, because it implies that:

      • When friends move away, you never bother to keep in touch with them.
      • You were so cliquish in high school that you never want to hear from anybody back there ever again.
      • You were equally cliquish in college.
      • You still didn't learn to get along, and now hate everyone at every previous employer.
      • You only keep people around when those people help you, and as soon as you no longer need them, you throw them away.
      • You tend to make broad, sweeping assumptions based on the assumption that everyone must think the way you do, or else they must be stupid.

      In short, it is a strong indication that you're precisely the opposite of the sort of person that I would want to work with. In fact, in a bit of dramatic irony, your post exhibits some of the classic symptoms of the very narcissism you're claiming that all Facebook users exhibit. Hilarious.

      I put pretty much the entire "Delete Facebook" noise into the same mental bucket as your post. Facebook only gets what you and others give them. Don't want them to have information? Say less and click less frequently. Deleting Facebook won't keep other people from saying things about you, though it will prevent you from correcting hurtful untruths. Either way, on the whole, the only thing you can really control is what you do or say on Facebook, which means the best thing to do is to keep Facebook, but use it less.

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

    14. Re: If you work in tech by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Friends come and go. They are supposed to. People who desperately try to hang on to everyone they ever knew are insecure losers who aren't good at meeting new people.

    15. Re:If you work in tech by darth.hunterix · · Score: 3, Interesting

      To poison their well. If you don't have an account they just shadow profile you and have only truthful data about you. If do have an account, you can create a lot of noise, which hides your genuine activities. Better yet, log from VM set up for that specific purpose to make tracking harder.

      Remember:
      1. The only way to hide is to blend in.
      2. The best disinformation is too much information.
      3. Offence is the best defence.

      --
      What is best in life? Hot water, good dentishtry and shoft lavatory paper.
    16. Re:If you work in tech by coastwalker · · Score: 2

      Good points. It surprises me that so many people are under the illusion that having an account makes any difference. Try using a script blocker like uMatrix on Firefox for a while and you will see that almost every website on the planet is trying to track you with Facebook and Google scripts. They have a profile on you whether you think you have one or not. The trick is to screw around with it as much as possible. Moving on from script blockers one should probably move on to using VPN and ultimately Tor. Perhaps someone could comment on the effectiveness of this.

      I quit reading Facebook posts a couple of years ago when they started pushing more advertising in Europe. I was also distressed to see ignorant people re-posting "Britain First" propaganda. (Britain First's leaders just got sent to jail for hate crimes. Nasty self promoting scum who are using nationalism and race hate to make money for themselves.) So the debacle of AQ and Cambridge Analytica weaponizing personal data and advertising to throw elections, bring about the exit of the UK from the EU and mess with third world countries comes as no surprise. Any politician who thinks that the Russians have not been doing the same thing are cretins who should be lined up and shot for treason. Presumably the ones that are denying this are in fact already being paid for by Putin's gangster state.

      I am not sure that you can do much about the data that Facebook and the like collect but you certainly can do something about regulating the use of it. Instead of worrying about migration we should be worrying about what the owners of big data are going to do with our lives because slavery to those owners is already happening.

      --
      Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.
    17. Re: If you work in tech by Opportunist · · Score: 2

      And of course we will delete it. Honestly. We will. This time, for sure, we will. Promised.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    18. Re: If you work in tech by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Your list of implications is absolutely insane and I pity the people who have to work with you.

    19. Re:If you work in tech by coofercat · · Score: 2

      I'd say you were in the minority. I think a lot of people understood that if they posted a picture of their dog that they'd get some dog related advertising. A few years down the road and a after a chat with a techie, they might have realised that if they click about on the Internet on cat websites that when you log onto facebook you might see some cat related adverts.

      What I don't think very many people knew is that data was bought and sold to a myriad of companies that you have never heard of. They then used and abused that data in order to subtly influence you and other people in ways you weren't aware of (and in places not marked with "advertisment"). That those companies got so good at their 'secret influencing' that they claim to be able to manipulate the outcome of elections. This is a world away from showing you ads based on the crap you posted on the site, and so it's somewhat unreasonable to expect 'average joe' to have understood all that at sign-up time.

      I'll just finish by saying that Cambridge Analytica is just one of thousands of organisations collecting facebook (and other) data. Not all of them are crooked, but I'll bet right now there are hundreds of them all looking on fileservers and in databases to delete any data they collected (and have used) but should not have had. Again, I'd imagine "average joe" would be trusting enough to assume FB was doing a considerably better job of controlling the 'leak' of data than it actually has done.

  2. My shocked face by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    30% of #FACEBOOKCOMPETITOR employees say they would delete Facebook. [Until their boss leaves and they whisper 'no I wouldn't ever.']

  3. But will they do it? by quonset · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Saying you'll delete your Facebook account is one thing. Doing it is another. Especially in the tech industry where if you're not on at least half a dozen anti-social media sites, people will think there's something wrong with you.

    Until these people actually delete their accounts, it's all talk.

    1. Re:But will they do it? by viperidaenz · · Score: 2

      Don't worry, mewe.com has the standard "fuck you in the ass if we can" clause

      MeWe reserves the right, in our sole discretion to modify these Terms, effective upon the date a revised Terms of Service is posted on the Site with notice to you, the User, of such modification. Your continued use of the Service constitutes your binding acceptance of the terms and conditions of this Agreement, as they are amended, revised and posted on the Site periodically. We may assign our rights and obligations under these Terms, including in connection with a merger, acquisition, sale of assets or equity, or by operation of law.

      They'll be all nice to you and your privacy until if some day they find themselves in a position of power. Then they'll change the terms and bend you over.

      Kind of like what Facebook did.

  4. Frogs on a log. by Mistlefoot · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There is an old proverb:
    There are 5 frogs on a log.
    2 of them decide to jump into the water.
    How many frogs remain on the log?

    The answer is 5. As deciding to do something is not the same as doing something.

    31% are ready to do it. But that 31% hasn't yet. What is holding them back?

    1. Re:Frogs on a log. by mark-t · · Score: 4, Insightful

      More likely what is holding them back is the lack of any widely used alternative that does everything that people would have expected from Facebook without having to use multiple services.

      --
      File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
    2. Re:Frogs on a log. by Subm · · Score: 5, Funny

      > 31% are ready to do it. But that 31% hasn't yet. What is holding them back?

      They're procrastinating on Slashdot.

  5. Cry me a river by ArchieBunker · · Score: 3

    What is the big outrage here? Did everyone not see that screen when you installed the app asking for permission to access every single area of your phone? Why did you think it needed access to the microphone or your contacts? You 100% gave permission for this.

    --
    Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
  6. "Ready too" by kamapuaa · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You either delete it or you don't. This is like people who are going to start going to the gym "next week."

    --
    Slashdot: providing anti-social weirdos a soapbox, since 1997.
    1. Re:"Ready too" by PPH · · Score: 4, Funny

      people who are going to start going to the gym

      Same people by the looks of them.

      --
      Have gnu, will travel.
  7. Going back to MySpace by jfdavis668 · · Score: 2

    Tom is ready to welcome me back.

  8. Competitors by AHuxley · · Score: 2

    When competitors talk of doing something to another brand its all for the users privacy.

    How much did social media profit from your workers use of social media while at work over the years?
    Why did you allow your workers to risk company security by using social media at work?
    Who in your company thought it would be ok for social media to track your workers habits and sell that data about your company to anyone with cash?
    Time to stop using other brands social media at work. Create your own networks that are safe and help your company be more productive.
    Social media is a brand that is using your workers for its profits on your time. Your company networks are paying for social media to profit from your workers.

    Time to stop social media selling data about your company and the inner workings of your company.
    Secure your company. Block social media and start protecting your brand.

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  9. No way I am going to delete my Facebook account by OneHundredAndTen · · Score: 2

    How else could I automatically log in to sites for comments, while making sure that the junk that that will elicit will end up in the black hole that is my Facebook account, which, otherwise, I couldn't care less about? I need my Facebook account as a trash dump.

  10. You insenstive clod! by PPH · · Score: 3, Funny

    How can I delete something I never had?

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
  11. Deceiving Ourselves by Bruce+Perens · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If most people who understand tech are like me, you never thought commercial social networks were a good idea, you joined them only reluctantly because lots of other people were on them and you needed them for business purposes, and you still have really mixed feelings about them.

    However, the average person is eager to give away their privacy and can't be bothered to assure their own security.

    So, aren't we kidding ourselves to think that anyone but us is going to delete Facebook?

    --
    Bruce Perens.
  12. So stop talking about it! by kenwd0elq · · Score: 2

    Don't say you're GOING to delete Facebook; just DO IT.

    I don't need to "delete" Facebook. I use Facebook for only one purpose; some of the blogs I follow use Facebook for their comments. I logged into Facebook a few days ago (I had to look up my password to do that....) and followed the "Download Everything from Facebook" procedure. Seriously, there's almost nothing there. An empty Profile, no games, no pictures, and the only messages were the ones I posted to the various blogs. Nothing that I wouldn't post openly.

    Part of that is that I've never opened the Facebook apps on my phones or tablets.

    If you're a big Facebook user, go back to email, or start a blog, or do something more constructive with your life.

  13. Holier than thou by radarskiy · · Score: 4, Funny

    Deleting your facebook account is easy for people with no friends.

  14. I've tried by burtosis · · Score: 5, Funny

    I tried to delete Facebook, but I'm having trouble hacking in and remote wiping the whole deal. Any ideas?

    1. Re:I've tried by WallyL · · Score: 2

      Have you tried social engineering?

  15. Re:Slashdot Poll Suggestion by Bing+Tsher+E · · Score: 2

    Your photograph is still tagged on several of your aunts' facebook pages, and your cousin has you listed. And your contact info was sucked into your invisible profile because your sister said 'okay' when they wanted her contact info.

  16. Will Microsoft employees delete Windows 7/10? by ayesnymous · · Score: 2

    That telemetry is just as bad or worse than anything Facebook does.

  17. Re:Why is this even news? by AHuxley · · Score: 2

    Follow the US party politics. Social media was all cool and trendy when it helped and supported one side of US politics.
    Another party won a US election by having a winning politician and the losing side could not accept their own party was to blame.
    So they had a story about Russian.
    Now a story about social media and privacy.
    That effort could have gone into policy and a new look to the party.
    The effort is now in showing how demographic information lost an election. All the fault of social media. Not the political party.
    -

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  18. well go ahead, collect my middle finger by epine · · Score: 2

    There's really no way around it, unless you're a total social recluse they probably have some info on you.

    Yeah, and they also have metadata indicating that 100% of what they've collected on me came from tertiary sources (after they've ignored me not having an account, hardly anyone in my family having an account, and my browser having every privacy extension known to man).

    Doesn't smell a whole lot like consent, does it? Not even by the imagined 18-year-old male "no means maybe, and maybe means yes" standard of consent.

    I don't block all this shit to prevent tracking. Good grief, I read The Puzzle Palace back in 1982 while you could still smell the ink drying and like they say in cryptography (attacks only get better), in practical terms, surveillance only ever collects more. This was obvious in the eighties already.

    I block primary and secondary collection strategies so that the commercial parties collecting this information about me can't for a moment pretend I was nodding my head while they did it.

    Yeah, I know you're doing it, by increasingly more strenuous methods, and I'm not on board.

    Blocking primary and secondary collection is fundamentally a speech act.

    Zuckerberg apologist: "Blah, blah, blah none of the users seem to mind."

    Me: "Oh, yeah? 70% of everything you collected about me is based on user-agent fingerprinting my web activities based on a browser extension list top-heavy in surveillance blockers. I mind a lot, and your collected dossier on me basically screams that message."

    The exception would be that Facebook has painstakingly whitewashed their own metadata, in a bizarrely ironic act of plausible-denial QED.

    "Of course we don't have your middle finger on file, and we know that for certain because we've got this sophisticated, hand-crafted algorithm to precisely erase any trace of a collection-M.O. middle finger."

    So now look at which side has No Way Out .