Should We Trust Facebook with Our Romantic Data?
In his article titled “Don’t Trust Facebook With Your Love Life”, Charlie Warzel argues that we should not trust Facebook with our intimate romantic data. Warzel comes to this conclusion because he believes Facebook’s history of privacy failures makes them particularly unsuitable for handling this information. Our romantic data is primarily different from the rest of our data because of its unique potential to absolutely destroy your personal life if it was leaked. For example your spouse would be pretty unhappy if a data breach revealed you were cheating on them.
It is unfair to single out Facebook in this regard because the benefits of modern-day social media can only be reaped by sacrificing our privacy to some extent. In addition, why does Warzel only have an issue with Facebook having our romantic data? We give Facebook plenty of equally sensitive information about ourselves such as our phone numbers, our contacts, as well as everything else we do on the app. So, the question is, what makes our romantic data any different from everything else Facebook knows about us?
To be fair, Warzel doesn’t single out Facebook entirely in his article but, his writing strongly implies that Facebook is the worst of the worst, unmatched when it comes to privacy blunders. As a privacy concerned user of social media myself, I know that other social media sites share Facebook’s reputation and can be just as bad concerning user privacy. For example, this past May it was discovered that Snapchat’s employees were spying on their users through a backdoor tool. Furthermore, sites such as Twitter share Facebook’s reputation for data breaches, Twitter having major breaches in both 2018 and 2019, the 2018 breach potentially leaking all the sites 330 million user’s login credentials. Even if a breach occurred that leaked romantic data Facebook would not be alone. In 2015 dating sites ashleymadison.com and match.com both suffered major breaches exposing the details of millions of users romantic escapades.
If we can’t trust Facebook, then who should we trust? When it comes to choosing a social media platform to use, we are almost forced to pick our poison. Some sites are better than others but, any site we pick will invariably collect, analyze, and sell our data for mass profit. It’s just the way the system works. For example Twitter can collect our location information, contacts, and our private direct messages as outlined in their privacy policy. Furthermore, Snapchat can collect our contacts, access our microphone, log our location, and can even access our camera and photos in accordance with their privacy policy.
In order to enjoy the many benefits of social media you have to give up any expectations of privacy you may have. If you are ok with that you can continue to use social media like the rest of us but, if you don’t want to deal with the privacy nightmare that is modern social media, the best way to ensure your privacy is to meet people in real life, no internet connection required. To conclude, Warzel was correct about Facebook being a privacy nightmare but, so are the rest of the social media platforms. What makes Facebook any different from the rest?
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I couldn’t say it any better than you said it yourself in your Reflective Statement, Vox. About my Letter to the Editor, “looking back at it now I find the differences between the first and final drafts astounding.” I do too. All credit to you for your willingness to submit to a relentless few rounds of feedback.
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—Your comma is still misplaced.
—Lessons from “Things Left Unsaid”: You haven’t eliminated the 2nd person, Vox. I don’t really care to be involved in your argument with facebook, but if you need me to imagine myself in trouble with my spouse, you’d better share that shame with me and include your own. In other words: WE language, not YOU language and no needless if/then setups.
—You string out every step of the logic of your argument needlessly. An illustration:
For your paragraph, the reverse of that procedure would look like this:
Does that seem fair?
—Not seeing any changes here.
—Your “only”s are both misplaced.
—Unless you’re prepared to answer that Rhetorical Question immediately, you’ll need a license to use it. As deployed here, you give your reader the chance to answer any way she chooses. Always a mistake. But didn’t you already take a stab at answering it in P1? If so, why is it still a question here?
P3 is your strongest because it makes a good evidentiary case the Warzel was unfair to single out Facebook. Readers who care will return to the original to see if he did. I care, so I did. Here’s what he said:
In other words, pretty much what you say. Not so much worse than others, but the worst.
—That said, when you finish laying out your evidence that other sites are also pretty terrible at protecting user data, the most you can say about Warzel is that he doesn’t phrase his conclusion quite the way you might.
You ALMOST say what I think you mean in P4.
Again, please leave ME out of your P5. Replace YOU talk with WE talk and stay on your readers’ side.
Finally, you could strike a slightly more nuanced balance. Not all sites require the same amount of personal information. Not all sites have the same history of breaches of user data. But not all sites are as successful at making good matches. Don’t sophisticated users of the site have to make a balanced calculation about whether for every site the risk of sharing is worth the reward of the quality results? With all it knows about us, Facebook MIGHT be “uniquely suited” to turn likes to loves, which MIGHT be worth the added risk.
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OK, VoxPop, let’s party.
—Your comma is misplaced.
—Including in the title, we read 1) “Don’t Trust Facebook with your Love Life,” 2) “we should not trust Facebook with our romantic data,” 3) “unsuitable for handling our sensitive romantic data.” That’s too many repetitions.
—You’ve missed an opportunity to express why our romantic data is important. Is it more or less important than our home address, bank account information, . . . ?
—Has Match.com or any other dating service proved itself vastly superior in protecting its subscribers’ information?
—There you go. You’ve anticipated my questions.
—So now, find a way to get those observations into the first few sentences. (Ask how if you want an example.)
—That does not have to be more than a hint.
—To be fair (and you want to be fair), Warzel doesn’t claim that he has a problem “only with Facebook.”
—Your last two sentences are not. Sentences. They’re fragments. Not allowed. Fix.
—Did other sites handle your sensitive user information poorly? If not, you can’t say you “know firsthand” about mishandling.
—You can surely say other sites have equally suspect histories. But you probably shouldn’t say they “share Facebook’s reputation” since it’s mostly Facebook that catches the bad press.
—Your first sentence gets the pronouns right: WE can’t trust Facebook; who should WE trust?
—Your second sentence should get it right too: WE are almost forced to pick OUR poison. Any site WE pick . . . and sell OUR data. Twitter collects OUR information, OUR messages. Snapchat collects OUR contacts, OUR microphone, OUR location, OUR camera.
—Any chance you might want to speculate WHY we make this deal with the devil?
—Would it have anything to do with our addiction to FREE services?
—Perfectly reasonable, but not funny.
—Just kidding, but not entirely.
—The story is pretty light-hearted; so is your reaction; why not have some fun? Before the internet, you knew who you could trust—and who you couldn’t!—with gossip about your lovelife! Uncle Bob would keep your secret; Aunt Gloria told the whole neighborhood.
To answer your actual question here, VoxPop, you’re on strong ground here. Your argument is clear. The details you provide about other social media sites are particularly helpful. The only strategic error I see is to blame Warzel for singling out Facebook as if it were the only site that doesn’t keep our data safe.
Helpful?
Keep the conversation going, please.
The best way to keep the feedback coming is to fully engage in the process.
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Just finished making the changes you suggested. Could I possibly get some more feedback if there is enough time? The type of feedback I am looking for is an overview in all categories for grade worthiness and if I made any new errors when I revised my letter. Thanks in advance, the feedback you have provided so far has proven to be very useful.
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The kind of feedback I am looking for is if I have enough support for my argument and whether or not my argument is clear enough. Thanks in advance.
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