Many of us are thinking about this. Facebook has gone from being a great place to meet people, old friends and new, and to stay in touch over distances, but it’s really becoming a nightmare of scams, lies, and potential threats. Many don’t understand how to hide their friends list – or why they should – therefore making every one of their friends vulnerable to attack! Many don’t understand about “data mining” and how “liking and sharing” a post – however innocent sounding – can be sharing their own data and all their friends data as well, with unknown and potentially dangerous sources.
One of the biggest money making operations on Facebook, is ‘like farming” Pages with huge numbers of followers and likes, are worth BIG money. What do you think is done with YOUR information shared with these pages? If you like one of these pages, and share it, you have shared YOUR information AND all of your friends information, to be onsold to unknown sources to be used for unknown purposes. Hacked accounts are a very small, but consistent result of these types of pages. All the “type Amen” – “share if you agree” “like so this person can save a life” etc – are just scams! Sharing and liking a post on Facebook does NOTHING – that is NOT ONE THING – to help anyone in need! No-one will donate money for every like or share – no one will win a prize, no company is giving away free cruises, boats, homes, cars or anything else! The rule of thumb is “If it sounds too good to be true, it is”!
You can check the validity of anything via Google search – or the many sites who supply information about scams and hoaxes. Type “scams and hoaxes” or “facebook scams” or “facebook hoaxes” in Google and you will soon see there are plenty of ways to verify anything BEFORE you post it on Facebook, or forward it to every living soul on the planet! If in doubt – ASK someone!
If you use Facebook on your regular browser – i.e Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox etc, even if you are NOT logged in to Facebook, they are still able to see your search history and other (who knows what! ) information your browser sends to the web. This information is used to target you with advertising. The problem here is, that you do not know what OTHER information Facebook (and Google) are collecting from you- both within Facebook and outside of it. Do you do your banking online? Pay bills online? Potentially Facebook has access to this information as well!
If you have Facebook on your phone – they are tracking you there too!! If you are tech savvy, have a look at what Facebook has access to on your phone – and note this – if you do not give permission for them to access this information, Facebook won’t work on your phone! Wonder why they need access to your phone calls, phonebook, internet connection, WiFi information, photos, files and to me the most scary – access to your SD card and requests to be able to read, add to, delete and change information on your SD card! It also requests (you can’t refuse) access to your location, not only the general location, but EXACTLY where you are at any given time???????? Most of us have nothing to hide, but do we really want someone, somewhere, unknown to us, tracking us like this? What is this information being used for? Why? And where is it being stored and kept for how long? Talk about “Big Brother”!!
Do you know that you can “Deactivate” your Facebook account and still use Messenger? If you “delete” your Facebook Account, you also delete your Messenger account. I’m not sure how safe Messenger is, but does seem to access less of your data. Many of us rely on Messenger for daily contact with family and friends. Most of us have chat groups we are part of, so doing without Messenger may not be an option for most. There are some excellent alternatives – Telegram which is fully encrypted is a good example. Stable and reliable, but of course, all your friends need to have the app for it to be useful.
But the bottom line is, there ARE alternatives to Facebook!
The Wendy Diaries 