'The Facebook Dilemma' Documentary Reaction

 

'The Facebook Dilemma' is a documentary detailing how Facebook willingly exposes it users data for profits. What really get me worked up was that Facebook willingly sells their users private information, but when asked about it they beat around the bush as if nothing is going on. One moment in the film that stood out to me, and made me a little excited, was when Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was being interviewed at a forum (32:52) and when asked if he how he felt about violating his own users privacy, he would not answer the question, and totally diverted the topic. For Facebook users this should be the first red flag for the social network as far as privacy, because during that interview Mark was clearly distressed and trying to avoid the question meaning he didn't have a direct answer. At this point Facebook had been around for long enough to have amassed millions of users so they were well aware of what was happening with their users data. At one point in the documentary they said that early on in the development of the social media network that they "wanted to work now and perfect things, and apologize for mistakes later." But in the latter when the issue of user privacy came up and they messed up massively on it, they weren't trying to be apologetic, but rather defensive of their invasive practices.

One of the questions that I kept thinking of throughout this whole documentary was "what if someone doesn't care if their personal information is given to the world." Otherwise known as the 'I have nothing to hide" argument. Some people, including myself sometimes, resort to this argument, but we should still be concerned because if they can get away with selling our information legally now, like: names, numbers, and addresses, what will they be able to get away with in the future. With a generation who is willing to forgo privacy to scroll through an app, that could be troublesome for the future of privacy rights.