Delete Your Facebook: A Movement

On March 17, news outlets such as the London Observer and The New York Times reported that Cambridge Analytica acquired millions of people’s personal information from Facebook. They used this data to build a software that would target swing voters in political campaigns, such as Drumpf in 2016. The program was named “thisisyourdigitallife” and 270,000 people agreed to have their data collected with a small payment. What they did not know was that they were also collecting their friends’ data. The data was used to design targeted political ads, with more than 50 million users worth of information.

Cambridge Analytica’s co-founder Christopher Wylie told the Observer, “We exploited Facebook to harvest millions of people’s profiles and built models to exploit what we knew about them and target their inner demons. That was the basis the entire company was built on.”

The #deleteFacebook began trending on Twitter as many began to delete their profiles from Facebook for fear of their information being stolen. The value of Facebook dropped down $60 billion USD at one point, with Facebook denying any claims of a data breach. Many celebrities such as Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, Will Ferell, a famous actor, WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton and many more have announced on social media platforms that they themselves had deleted Facebook.

Although many teens have stopped using Facebook as it was deemed ‘uncool’ after parents went on it, many still have existing profiles. Would you delete your Facebook? Leave a comment below telling us if you would, and why.