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Only 22% of Americans Now Trust Facebook's Handling of Personal Info (fortune.com)
An anonymous reader quotes Fortune:
Facebook is the least trustworthy of all major tech companies when it comes to safeguarding user data, according to a new national poll conducted for Fortune, highlighting the major challenges the company faces following a series of recent privacy blunders. Only 22% of Americans said that they trust Facebook with their personal information, far less than Amazon (49%), Google (41%), Microsoft (40%), and Apple (39%)....
In question after question, respondents ranked the company last in terms of leadership, ethics, trust, and image... Public mistrust extended to Zuckerberg, Facebook's public face during its privacy crisis and who once said that Facebook has "a responsibility to protect your information, If we can't, we don't deserve it." The company subsequently fell victim to a hack but continued operating as usual, including debuting a video-conferencing device intended to be used in people's living rooms or kitchens and that further extends Facebook's reach into more areas outside of personal computers and smartphones. Only 59% of respondents said they were "at least somewhat confident" in Zuckerberg's leadership in the ethical use of data and privacy information, ranking him last among four other tech CEOS...
As for Facebook, the social networking giant may have a difficult time regaining public trust because of its repeated problems. Consumers are more likely to forgive a company if they believe a problem was an aberration rather than a systemic failure by its leadership, Harris Poll CEO John Gerzema said.
The article concludes that "For now, the public isn't in a forgiving mood when it comes to Facebook and Zuckerberg."
In question after question, respondents ranked the company last in terms of leadership, ethics, trust, and image... Public mistrust extended to Zuckerberg, Facebook's public face during its privacy crisis and who once said that Facebook has "a responsibility to protect your information, If we can't, we don't deserve it." The company subsequently fell victim to a hack but continued operating as usual, including debuting a video-conferencing device intended to be used in people's living rooms or kitchens and that further extends Facebook's reach into more areas outside of personal computers and smartphones. Only 59% of respondents said they were "at least somewhat confident" in Zuckerberg's leadership in the ethical use of data and privacy information, ranking him last among four other tech CEOS...
As for Facebook, the social networking giant may have a difficult time regaining public trust because of its repeated problems. Consumers are more likely to forgive a company if they believe a problem was an aberration rather than a systemic failure by its leadership, Harris Poll CEO John Gerzema said.
The article concludes that "For now, the public isn't in a forgiving mood when it comes to Facebook and Zuckerberg."
I think the crazy thing here is that 22% of Americans still trust Facebook with their private data. That number is astonishingly high.
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Apple is lower than Google? WTF kind of poll is that? Google literally sells you out to advertisers as their primary business model.
That FB is at the bottom doesn't shock me. That Apple is 2nd to last does. So does Google being so high in the rankings. And that Amazon is #1 is also pretty shocking.
My personal trust ratings are: Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Google, FB.
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The vast majority of people don't give two shits about privacy.
If they did, Facebook wouldn't have hundreds of millions of users.
The true headline here is "Facebook is run by evil scumbags and most people are just fine with that."
I don't think they are "just fine" with it, it's more like indifference. They don't care until something bad happens.
I want the list of the 22% because I have some emails to send them for all sorts of wonderful products.
Handling of Personal Info. There, FTFY.
I think you have to go one step further. It's not just indifference but ignorance of what is at stake or the value of their personal information. I regularly support a large number of 'elderly' folks who use Facebook and email in general and they have no concept of information privacy or the potential impact. Only after it is explained to them in a manner they can understand do they begin to grasp the significance and the value of their privacy and the impact of their personal information being gathered and used against them. Most of the seniors bless their hearts think of it as the mailing address or phone number being in the old school yellow pages.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
The vast majority of people don't give two shits about privacy.
If they did, Facebook wouldn't have hundreds of millions of users.
The true headline here is "Facebook is run by evil scumbags and most people are just fine with that."
Your vast majority data and your subject are at odds with each other.
My own assessment is that probably most people do not mind if a site like FB uses their data to send them ads or information that can be helpful. Say a auto buff does't mind getting ads for cars and parts and gatherings that he or she is likely to be interested in. My gusee is that most people find that pretty handy.
But after getting caught giving people's information to groups that have weaponized it, I don't think very many people think that is a good thing at all.
And that 22 percent of people who trust Facebook seem to be those who find they like the weaponized personal data, fonr one reason or another.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Targetted ads are bad in that they can, over time, change the way you think to more aline with what they want to sell you.
Say you are looking for cutlery. You begin to look around to see what the options are. You then get served ads. So far so good. right? But what if one company pays more to serve you more ads? And they make more by selling crap products at higher prices. Both Facebook and the advertisers want this to be the way forward for marketing. All it does is drive profit at your expense.
And the important thing to remember, even if you don't find that sort of thing bad, is that it doesn't just apply to commerce. The people paying to serve you ads for their goods can go on and pay for political ads to get you to consider voting for politicians who will further trade policies which make business conditions more favorable to them. And immigration policy. And workers rights policies. And so on and so on.
It is what happened to empower tech companies and isn't the first time the world, or even the US, has seen something like it. Back in the US mega capitalist days (Andrew Carnegie famous for providing funding for many groups to this day) it got so bad that companies paid their employees in currenay that could only be spent in company stores, to buy only those goods the company sold at the prices the company chose. Employees were told who to vote for, what they could buy, and what conditions they were going to work in. There we're no vacations and people didn't leave company towns....
It's still the same old game. A little power is a little profitable. A little more, a little more. With the end result always being someone or group ending up with all the power and another with none. It's why slavery existed. It's why civilizations rise and fall. It's why old people shouldn't be allowed to much political and economic power or control because they tend to be the ones who care the least for the consequences of their actions.
That 22% is all the bots, anyway. We're good now.
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At least 22% of Americans are still utter fucking morons.
At least 22% of any group, of random average people, are utter fucking morons. I'm not disputing your statement, as it is accurate, but it is... incomplete.
Dumb fucks.
is that 22% of Americans are employed by Facebook or have a close relative who is.
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... still use it.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
0% of facebook employee trust facebook.
"22% of Americans for some unfathomable reason still trust Facebook's handling of personal info"
The dystopian stuff happens when the data is shared willy nilly, and there isn't any particular person in charge of the data: Facebook providing API's that allow open harvesting, Apps on IOS and Android that allow similar harvesting by random 1 or 2 person companies, and/or fronts for foreign entities. It is far more difficult to find hundreds or thousands of such organizations, whack-a-mole style and get them all to fix their behaviour. so to me, Facebook's business model is a problem. Apple and Google's app store policing is critical, but what Google does with data is pretty much the ideal. We are getting services in exchange for giving data to one large corporation that is amenable to pressure (the *one throat to choke* model of risk mitigation.)
Only 22% of Americans will admit to trusting Facebook, yet 68% of Americans still use it. That says to me that a LOT of these 'untrusting' souls are in fact liars. If you truly distrust a company whose products and services you don't really need, then you simply don't maintain a relationship with them. If you DO continue to do business with them, then your protestations of mistrust are pretty much meaningless. Such people are likely motivated by conformism and/or wanting to be seen as informed citizens; if they REALLY distrusted FB, they'd simply opt out.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.