Where have I been?

I’m alive and what not. I just haven’t been on Facebook lately except to promote my curiously Pulitzer-bereft blogs. So if people notice I haven’t been liking statuses lately, it’s nothing personal. I’ll still respond to messages and what not (at least as much as my general flakiness will permit).

It’s just that I’ve been turned off by Facebook lately because there’s always a problem. There are data breaches and all other types of scandals. They’re always having to mea culpa before Congress and the public. There’s just never not a problem with Facebook and it’s exhausting.

Go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Facebook and you have to scroll way the hell down to get to the end of all the problems they’ve had. The paperwork is more complicated than our taxes. It has 522 references. Some examples:

·      Endless problems with privacy and data mining.

·      Cambridge Analytica, the shady company involved with the 2016 Trump campaign, used data from 87 million people for political purposes.

·      Gaining access to users’ private messages without permission and sharing the data with third parties.

·      Selling ads to Russian companies that spread false information on the 2016 election.

·      A security breach last year that exposed the data of 50 million users.

·      Misleading advertisers that users wanted more videos, which indirectly led to media outlets “pivoting to video” and laying off non-video employees.

·      And just this morning, I hear Facebook improperly kept records of millions of passwords.

Granted, when a company has as much influence and size as Facebook, there are going to be problems. It’s just that it seems like Facebook is constantly having to apologize and explain and testify, and it’s a turn off.

They don’t seem to know what they’re doing over there. The executives will keep promising to do better but it’s like watching an Andy Reid press conference after a loss—he keeps saying “I gotta do better” but then just keeps mismanaging the clock.

Also, can we please, as a society, stop patting Mark Zuckerberg on the back for showing up to Congress in a suit? Every time he has to appear, there’s a general aura of, “Ooh, look at you! Don’t you clean up nice!” It is no longer 2004. Zuckerberg is not a college student in flip-flops and a hoodie. He is a 34-year-old multi-billionaire and if he has to testify in Congress, he doesn’t deserve extra credit for wearing a suit, because that’s what adults do. The Social Network was 10 years ago, and that flashback portrayal of him was dated even then.

I’m not saying get off Facebook or anything, and I’m not criticizing people who are on a lot. I’m not deleting my account. It’s just all the scandals are getting old and I need a break.