Facebook was established in 2004 in the States and became accessible for the rest of the world in 2005. For more than a decade, Facebook has been maintaining its position as the largest social network company on this planet earth with 2.3 billion monthly active users in 2018. Unfortunately, this fact might not hold true for this big fish anymore. With numerous data breached incidents, raising number of fake accounts and strong competitors, Facebook might fall off its throne anytime.
According to INQUIRER, Facebook has given access to more than 150 companies in regard of personal data of Facebook users without their consent. While Facebook did admit conducting such deals with those companies, it claimed that the deals were no longer effective since 2018. However, Facebook later changed its statement that the deals started in 2010 and are still effective in current year of 2019. Some of its dealing partners including famous company like Spotify, Netflix and even Royal Bank of Canada. Spotify said that it was able to read private messages of more than 70 million Facebook users per month. According to the survey, only 23% believe that they hold the full control of their information store on Facebook.
Another drawback to Facebook is the countless of fake accounts. Fake accounts on Facebook has been responsible for fakes news, spam, hate speech, terrorist propaganda and even online scam. Facebook announced that it has removed more than 1.5 billion fake accounts between April 2018 and September 2018, reported by TNW. Facebook also claimed that by removing fake accounts, it can reduce cyber-crime index happen on its social media platform. However, due to the continuously raising number of fake accounts, most users seem to be not buying Facebook’s statements.
Other Facebook’s cyber security issues, it is also facing competitors in the industry (Investopia). Snapchat is one of Facebook’s largest competitors. A lot of people consider Snapchat is better than Facebook privacy wise. Snapchat allows its users to fully control their own privacy, for instance, users can select some among their friends to be able to see their posts. Moreover, posting on Snapchat take less time and the posts will vanish after a period of time set by post owners. As a result, Snapchat continues growing. Facebook even tried to purchase Snapchat once after realising its potential but Snapchat rejected the offer.
A lot of consumers say that they don’t trust Facebook anymore and would turn to other social media platform because they don’t feel safe by entrusting their privacy to Facebook. Personally, I do not entrust my privacy to any social media platform including Facebook. In my opinion, if you cannot stop others from breaching your privacy, then why not protect it yourself. You should limit your contact with strangers online. You can even make up your personal information like fake names, fake contact numbers and don’t use profile pictures. As long as you don’t do any illegal online conduct and post no harm to others, I don’t see this as an issue.
According to the video of Zuckerberg’s above, soon the new privacy will be introduced but will it really work? Let me know what you think! Share your thoughts in the comment section below!
Alicha's blog 
Hi Alicha,
It is really concerning that Facebook sells our information to other companies, which has lead me to not trusting Facebook and other social media platforms. Thats a reason why I never post much on Facebook as you don’t really know who else is viewing this information apart from your regular friends list. Even though Facebook say they are going to commit to more safety in privacy, in my opinion it’s all talk and no action when it comes to a big company like them. Which is another reason why Facebook won’t become the leading social media platform anymore in the future, has people have concerns and issues on privacy leaks and won’t be able to rely on a company that takes our information and shares it with strangers.
LikeLike
Hi Alicha
Interesting read, I don’t think Facebook is going anywhere soon. I feel like Facebook has really engraved itself in our society and just the word Facebook has become commonplace for most people. Even though they have faced recent issues, the grip the site has on it’s users is just too strong. People will complain and some people will leave but with the power Facebook currently has I don’t see it ever disappearing.
LikeLike
Hey Alicha, great post! I don’t think Facebook will lose its ’dynasty’ in the future. Regardless of privacy issues and the fact that they have leaked users’ private information to third parties I still believe that they will still be one of the dominating social media platforms. I guess there’s a privacy risk with everything, whether we sign up for a new account or online service, and many people would still be willing to use Facebook at the risk of their privacy. But I agree with you that making up personal information is a good idea.
Kristina.
LikeLike