Steve Wozniak, Apple’s Co-Founder is concerned about how internet companies are irresponsible when it comes to protecting the private information of users. Therefore, he is bidding farewell to the biggest social network that was recently marred by a data breach scandal.
Wozniak pointed out that users provide all the intimate details of their life to Facebook, and the social network yields a lot of advertising revenue off this information. The profits are based on the information provided by the users, however, they do not get any of the profits back. He’d rather pay for using the services of Facebook than have his personal information violated for advertising. Wozniak deactivated his Facebook account on Sunday after posting the following message,
“I am in the process of leaving Facebook. It’s brought me more negatives than positives. Apple has more secure ways to share things about yourself. I can still deal with old-school email and text messages.”
His announcement comes after various corporate executives and technology leaders have criticised the platform for comprising data that was used for political targeting. Right after the scandal was brought to light, Elon Musk took down the Facebook pages of Tesla and SpaceX. Similarly, Mozilla also announced that they are halting advertisement on the social network until remedial actions have been taken by Facebook. Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook also did not shy from criticizing Mark Zuckerberg. In an update last week, Facebook announced that over 87 million accounts were violated, a number far greater than the previous estimate.
Wozniak was taken aback when he noticed the extent of the data collected by Facebook while changing and deleting some of his personal information before deactivating his account. Breaking up with Facebook is not easy for the Apple Co-Founder, there he did not choose to delete his account permanently. He also did not want to give up his screen name, “stevewoz”.
He also praised Apple for respecting people’s privacy,
“Apple makes its money off of good products, not off of you. As they say, with Facebook, you are the product.”
