It’s been another rough day for Facebook, both on the stock market and in the court of public opinion. With no new answers as to how user data will be safer in the future, some people say they are leaving Facebook, searching for social alternatives.
The backlash comes in light of reports that U.K.-based Cambridge Analytica harvested data from more than 50 million Facebook users to help Donald Trump win the 2016 presidential election.
#DeleteFacebook is trending on Twitter, and as the company deals with a serious trust issue, the question on everyone’s mind is: Is this the end for the social media giant?
As the company faces intense scrutiny from the Federal Trade Commission – the other question on everyone’s mind is #WheresZuck. On Tuesday, a British parliamentary committee summoned Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to testify on fake news. But even as the pressure mounts, neither Zuckerberg nor Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg have made any public comments.
A statement from Facebook simply says: “The entire company is outraged we were deceived” by Cambridge Analytica.
Shares of Facebook fell another 3 percent Tuesday.
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Ann Skeet, director of leadership ethics at the Markkula Center, says a lack of trust is why users are leaving the social network.
"Basically, they're taking away the privacy of anyone who uses it,” Skeet said.
The Federal Trade Commission is opening an investigation into Facebook and how 50 million users had their data accessed by an outside company before the 2016 presidential election. That data, it turns out, was accessed after those users’ friends took a Cambridge Analytica survey on Facebook.
In response, many of them say they now will, as the hashtag said, #deletefacebook.
Among them is WhatsApp co-founder, Mark Acton, who sold his company to Facebook for $19 billion.
“It is time. #deletefacebook,” Acton tweeted Tuesday.
He also posted it on Facebook.
It is time. #deletefacebook
— Brian Acton (@brianacton) March 20, 2018
