Deleting Facebook For Good

In an amazingly tone-deaf move Facebook has announced two new products, the Portal and Portal Plus. Over at The Verge, Jacob Kastrenakes writes:

As Facebook works to contain the fallout from its biggest-ever data breach, the company is introducing a product that will bring a camera and microphone into your living room. Facebook Portal, and the larger Portal Plus, are smart displays that are laser-focused on video chatting.

The Portal is designed to simplify video chatting by having a wide-angle camera capable of identifying your body, then tracking you as you move around the room...Once a chat starts up, the device’s camera will automatically find people in the room and keep them in frame.

The Portal’s launch was delayed in hopes it could escape the long shadow of the Cambridge Analytica data privacy scandal.

I just can’t even with Facebook anymore.

“Hey I know we’ve proven ourselves to be incapable of keeping your information secure, that we’ve allowed fake news to possibly sway the outcome of a Presidential election, that 50 Million users’ information just got stolen two weeks ago, and that we logged an additional 40 million users out of their accounts just in case their info was stolen as well…but hey, we’ve got this fancy new Portal thing that puts a microphone and camera inside your home. You should totally try it out, I mean what could go wrong?”

I removed the Facebook app from my iPhone months ago and it was a great decision. Facebook has routinely proven that they are actively negligent with their users privacy and data. So, after reading this announcement by Facebook today I’ve decided to delete my account.

Yup. Goodbye Facebook and all of your stupid ads, pointless notifications, and your opportunity to let creeps get at my information.

If Facebook was your main way of staying in touch with me, you can use these other outlets instead:

  • Instagram (Yes, Facebook owns Instagram but there has yet to be reason to believe that Instagram plays with my privacy and information like Facebook does. The second it feels that way I’ll be gone from here too…which sucks because I really like Instagram.)

  • YouTube (I’ll be more active here as we are starting to live stream our podcasts on YouTube Live.)

  • Twitch (Mostly Fortnite, FIFA, and Madden)

  • Snapchat

  • Twitter

  • My Website (You’re already here but did you know that you can subscribe to my email newsletter and get each week’s articles delivered to your inbox every Friday afternoon? Hint: look at that Light Gray box below the Comment Section. 😉)

AppsCam Brennan