Nearly a Third of Tech Workers Are Ready To #DeleteFacebook (betanews.com) 307
An anonymous reader quotes a report from BetaNews: A survey conducted in the wake of the #DeleteFacebook campaign that followed revelations about the data breach and the logging of Android users' calls and texts, found that a surprising number of tech workers were ready to delete their Facebook accounts. 31 percent backed the #DeleteFacebook campaign, including 50 percent of Microsoft workers, and 38 percent of Google workers. The survey -- conducted using the anonymous app Blind -- found that nearly a third of those questioned were planning to delete their Facebook accounts. In all, over 2,600 people were surveyed between March 20, 2018 and March 24, 2018, so it neatly took in the peak of the controversy. Broken down by company, the numbers make for interesting reading:
-50 percent of Microsoft employees said they will delete Facebook.
-46 percent of Snapchat employees said they would delete Facebook.
-40 percent of Uber employees said they would delete Facebook.
-38 percent of Google employees said they would delete Facebook.
-34 percent of Amazon employees said they would delete Facebook.
-2 percent of Facebook employees said they would delete Facebook.
-50 percent of Microsoft employees said they will delete Facebook.
-46 percent of Snapchat employees said they would delete Facebook.
-40 percent of Uber employees said they would delete Facebook.
-38 percent of Google employees said they would delete Facebook.
-34 percent of Amazon employees said they would delete Facebook.
-2 percent of Facebook employees said they would delete Facebook.
If you work in tech (Score:5, Insightful)
and you haven't deleted Facebook already, you're behind the curve I'm afraid.
You KNOW what they're doing. Why are you still there ?
Re:If you work in tech (Score:5, Funny)
Re:If you work in tech (Score:5, Insightful)
I downloaded what they have on me. Nothing I didn't post there in the first place.
And you trust that? Facebook decided what was available to "download", remember? Did you have unlimited query access to their data stores? How can you know what they have or don't have on you, short of an independent forensic audit?
I know enough about tech to stop them from getting anything else.
Did you know that your profile on Facebook and the data associated with it consists of more than simply what you gave them first hand? How can you work in tech and not have at least an inkling of that? Ever heard of data brokering? Yeah, it's a whole industry that knows just about everything about you despite the fact that you probably mostly never gave them any of it first hand. Please tell us you're not this naive.
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They can't be that careful about what you can download.
The recent discovery that Facebook is retaining detailed call data from Android app users was found out by someone looking at the zip Facebook let him download.
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The recent discovery that Facebook is retaining detailed call data from Android app users was found out by someone looking at the zip Facebook let him download.
Have you actually looked at that .zip? Here are a few things I found:
* Call numbers & durations for a portion of 2016
* List of every app that is, or has been, installed on my current & previous phones
* Complete transcripts of every conversation I've had using messenger
* No location history information
* No web tracking history
They're not giving us everything with the "Download my Facebook data" option.
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* No location history information
Mine has "Location inferred from IP address" up until mid 2016, that is logging in exclusively from web browsers. I'd expect that if you were using the app, and had given it location permissions, it would have snarfed that as well. .
* No web tracking history
Not web tracking per se, but they have a full record of which ads you have clicked on (mine has about 6 records over 8 years, all of which I suspect were accidental slips of the mouse).
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Mine has "Location inferred from IP address" up until mid 2016...
Mine doesn't; at least I haven't found it. I wonder what the difference is. In any case, I'm more concerned with the location information they get using "Location Services". I once stopped in a parking lot on the way home from work. That evening, FB asked me about my visit to a business that shared that parking lot. I want to know what's up.
Not web tracking per se, but they have a full record of which ads you have clicked on...
Mine had a list of ads I've clicked on within Facebook but I'm more interested in what they've scraped up about my activities away from their site.
The information they p
Re:If you work in tech (Score:5, Funny)
You know that even if you don't have a profile on FB they still have a dark profile on you, from a combination of friends uploading their contacts
I don't have any friends.
Checkmate, Facebook.
well go ahead, collect my middle finger (Score:3)
Yeah, and they also have metadata indicating that 100% of what they've collected on me came from tertiary sources (after they've ignored me not having an account, hardly anyone in my family having an account, and my browser having every privacy extension known to man).
Doesn't smell a whole lot like consent, does it? Not even by the imagined 18-year-old male "no means maybe, and maybe means yes" standard
Re:If you work in tech (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh please. I knew what they were doing when I joined. It's a trade off. Get over yourself.
Re: If you work in tech (Score:5, Interesting)
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I work in tech and am not on Facebook - for the sort of jobs I go for it's important to demonstrate to potential employers that I'm not stupid enough to be on Facebook.
Re: If you work in tech (Score:5, Funny)
Where do you work that facebook friends counts as proof of social aptitude, a prison library?
Re: If you work in tech (Score:5, Insightful)
I've been quite desparate for jobs in the past (I'm over 50...) - but I'd never create a fb account JUST to 'show them' ... ANYTHING.
any job that you would not get BECAUSE of a lack of fb is no job worth having. and I'm saying that as someone who has been nearly broke from unemployment more times than I care to count.
I think you are lying to yourself, though. no job insists on having fb next to your name. you assume too much.
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I'd be less likely to hire someone who would be less likely to hire someone who had a Facebook account, because it implies that:
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"When friends move away, you never bother to keep in touch with them."
To be fair, I don't consider facebook keeping in touch. Really keeping in touch is orthogonal to having a facebook account.
"You were so cliquish in high school that you never want to hear from anybody back there ever again. You were equally cliquish in college."
Randos who got their education at the same time as me in the same building as me but who were never my real friend at the time? Why would that make me want to be pretend friends wi
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Friends come and go. They are supposed to. People who desperately try to hang on to everyone they ever knew are insecure losers who aren't good at meeting new people.
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Your list of implications is absolutely insane and I pity the people who have to work with you.
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Right with you there AC.
Never had Facebook. What does that say about me?
I knew about their "Hoovering" (vacuum for those that didn't get the reference) way before all this Cambridge stuff came out, just didn't have any proof of course. I do not have time to constantly be chasing their security settings/what they share/what they gather/etc.
The only winning move is not to play.
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I'd say you were in the minority. I think a lot of people understood that if they posted a picture of their dog that they'd get some dog related advertising. A few years down the road and a after a chat with a techie, they might have realised that if they click about on the Internet on cat websites that when you log onto facebook you might see some cat related adverts.
What I don't think very many people knew is that data was bought and sold to a myriad of companies that you have never heard of. They then us
Re:If you work in tech (Score:5, Insightful)
And look at the wording "...would delete facebook...". Who is going to go through the trouble? What will really happen is they will stay off it for a few weeks, Facebook will ramp up their "we miss you" emails. You know, the ones like "So and so has messaged you ten times and you haven't responded. Click here to see their messages", and "Hey look at the ten single girls who would probably respond to a friend request, click here to see them". After a few of those they'll go back on and it will be business as usual.
I will be more impressed when I see "nearly a third of tech workers HAVE deleted Facebook". Then I'll think the movement is working.
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The article is BS. Do. Or do not. There is no try.
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"...would..." The article is BS. Do. Or do not. There is no try.
Tell that to Uber's self-driving researchers.
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and you haven't deleted Facebook already, you're behind the curve I'm afraid.
You KNOW what they're doing. Why are you still there ?
This is self-congratulatory bullshit, twice over (and note that I deleted my Facebook account in 2010 or so, so I'm not defending my own actions here).
First. It's perfectly possible to work in tech, have a full appreciation for what Facebook has done, and to decide that the trade for the services received is acceptable. This may be because someone doesn't place a high value on privacy on principle, but only on actual negative effects they think they're likely to receive, and they think those are probably
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The major point of OP's post was that joining FB can be, a rational trade-off between privacy and utility . Surprise? Your personal information is the service cost and obviously FB (a for-profit company) needs to monetise that information. Hello?
There are two problems with this. The first is that it assumes information symmetry. People are starting to become aware of the information that Facebook collects, but far fewer have an idea how much information Facebook infers. There's a lot of information that can be gleaned from combining seemingly unrelated data sets, which is why everyone in the security community is sceptical of claims that data sets can be anonymised: it's easy to do in isolation, but there's a huge body of research combining two
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There was a election way back in Australia and the Labour Party posted some stuff to face book and I wanted to peruse it, so an account was temporarily required. Managed to unknowingly offend some people when I would not respond to the forced Facebook must communicate everything scam, I was not logging in and I done the bit I was interested in and new used it beyond that. Little did I know I had to actively delete that account to escape the Facebook must read and post treadmill. So disconnected and checked
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Remember:
1. The only way to hide is to blend in.
2. The best disinformation is too much information.
3. Offence is the best defence.
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Good points. It surprises me that so many people are under the illusion that having an account makes any difference. Try using a script blocker like uMatrix on Firefox for a while and you will see that almost every website on the planet is trying to track you with Facebook and Google scripts. They have a profile on you whether you think you have one or not. The trick is to screw around with it as much as possible. Moving on from script blockers one should probably move on to using VPN and ultimately Tor. Pe
Google (Score:2, Insightful)
Next thing : Delete Google.
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You KNOW what they're doing. Why are you still there ?
Because I don't care.
Because the information they have is quite meaningless.
Because the service still offers things I want despite the fact I pretty much never post stuff.
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And of course we will delete it. Honestly. We will. This time, for sure, we will. Promised.
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Facebook might own the legal rights to use the information you gave them
Last time I read the Facebook T&Cs, they owned an irrevocable, commercial, sublicensable, transferable license to anything that you upload. Oh, and you agreed to indemnify them in cases where it turned out that you weren't legally able to assign those rights. They may not own the uploaded content in a strictly legal sense, but they own the rights to do pretty much anything except claim that they created it (in jurisdictions where Moral Rights are a thing - not in most of the USA) and to prevent you fr
My shocked face (Score:2, Insightful)
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But will they do it? (Score:5, Insightful)
Saying you'll delete your Facebook account is one thing. Doing it is another. Especially in the tech industry where if you're not on at least half a dozen anti-social media sites, people will think there's something wrong with you.
Until these people actually delete their accounts, it's all talk.
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I for one didn't even know it's possible to delete anything from Facebook.
Disable your account, sure. Hide messages from everyone including your self, no problem. But actually deleting stuff? I highly doubt it. Whatever you place on Facebook will be there for eternity.
Just like /. comments, for that matter. But without that much tracking.
Anyway, not going to delete my account. Too useful to promote my local business, and it helps many people to contact me. If only they realise that it's not the way for last
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I'm not on Facebook, or Twitter, or Snapchat, or Google+, or any other similar site. And I've always known there was something wrong with me so it's OK if other people think that, too. But I like it here. It's a good place to be. I'm happy in this little slice of the world that is mine, where I'm only being judged by cats.
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Don't worry, mewe.com has the standard "fuck you in the ass if we can" clause
MeWe reserves the right, in our sole discretion to modify these Terms, effective upon the date a revised Terms of Service is posted on the Site with notice to you, the User, of such modification. Your continued use of the Service constitutes your binding acceptance of the terms and conditions of this Agreement, as they are amended, revised and posted on the Site periodically. We may assign our rights and obligations under these Terms, including in connection with a merger, acquisition, sale of assets or equity, or by operation of law.
They'll be all nice to you and your privacy until if some day they find themselves in a position of power. Then they'll change the terms and bend you over.
Kind of like what Facebook did.
Frogs on a log. (Score:5, Insightful)
There are 5 frogs on a log.
2 of them decide to jump into the water.
How many frogs remain on the log?
The answer is 5. As deciding to do something is not the same as doing something.
31% are ready to do it. But that 31% hasn't yet. What is holding them back?
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Probably their relatives are holding them back. You know the ones, who practically demand that you post pictures of your kids on Facebook so they can watch them grow up without getting off their lazy asses and coming to visit.
Yeah... not that I'm bitter or anything :)
Re:Frogs on a log. (Score:5, Funny)
> 31% are ready to do it. But that 31% hasn't yet. What is holding them back?
They're procrastinating on Slashdot.
No decision (Score:2)
31% are ready to do it. But that 31% hasn't yet. What is holding them back?
Possibly the fact that they haven't actually decided to do it but as still thinking about it? Deciding to do something might not be the same as doing it but it does mean that you are definitely going to do it. If not then you have not really decided anything and are still considering your options.
Re:Frogs on a log. (Score:5, Insightful)
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When did I suggest that it was anything other than what people might want?
Lots of people want stuff they don't need. That doesn't make them stupid, it just means they want stuff they don't need.
You didn't need to post any of what you said... but you did. Does that make you stupid for doing so?
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NO ONE NEEDS
Nope, but clearly over a billion people WANT.
Cry me a river (Score:4)
What is the big outrage here? Did everyone not see that screen when you installed the app asking for permission to access every single area of your phone? Why did you think it needed access to the microphone or your contacts? You 100% gave permission for this.
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Some brands top cyber security experts just enjoy social media too and don't want to stop it at work?
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1. Install the app.
2. Do not run the app until completing step 3.
3. Turn off all the permissions you don't want the app to have.
4. Relax
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You don't have to install the app, just speaking near someone who installed it.
And even if you did agree, I doubt many people saw the microphone permission as agreeing to have all their conversations sent to Facebook, and I have a feeling most courts would agree.
Even if they put "we will record you 24/7" in their ToS it would still be morally indefensible, considering how deliberately unreadable those things are.
"Ready too" (Score:5, Insightful)
You either delete it or you don't. This is like people who are going to start going to the gym "next week."
Re:"Ready too" (Score:5, Funny)
people who are going to start going to the gym
Same people by the looks of them.
Going back to MySpace (Score:3)
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Friendster. Oh wait...
Competitors (Score:3)
How much did social media profit from your workers use of social media while at work over the years?
Why did you allow your workers to risk company security by using social media at work?
Who in your company thought it would be ok for social media to track your workers habits and sell that data about your company to anyone with cash?
Time to stop using other brands social media at work. Create your own networks that are safe and help your company be more productive.
Social media is a brand that is using your workers for its profits on your time. Your company networks are paying for social media to profit from your workers.
Time to stop social media selling data about your company and the inner workings of your company.
Secure your company. Block social media and start protecting your brand.
No way I am going to delete my Facebook account (Score:3)
You insenstive clod! (Score:4, Funny)
How can I delete something I never had?
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if it was up to me (Score:2)
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Dude, that sounds like too much work. Call Ellen Ripley and ask her how she's do it.
Deceiving Ourselves (Score:5, Interesting)
If most people who understand tech are like me, you never thought commercial social networks were a good idea, you joined them only reluctantly because lots of other people were on them and you needed them for business purposes, and you still have really mixed feelings about them.
However, the average person is eager to give away their privacy and can't be bothered to assure their own security.
So, aren't we kidding ourselves to think that anyone but us is going to delete Facebook?
Anti-social networking (Score:2)
I have an account.
I set it up after pestering from one of my classmates in grad school to bulk up numbers for a group for our program.
Years later, after they had opened it up, and it wasn't just for '.edu' addresses, one of my friends mentions it, and how great it is. So I casually mentioned that I had an account.
And the next time I see him, he insisted that I didn't, because he searched for me. I explained that's because I didn't put my last name on it (as there are less than a dozen in the US with it, a
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What makes you think that they did not grab your ip address when you logged in - or more importantly your MAC address. They are still following you and using all your internet transactions that they touch.
OOps (Score:2)
-50? We have either an arithmetic error or a punctuation flaw
Wonder how many were (Score:2)
Hmm... (Score:2)
”40 percent of Uber employees said they would delete Facebook.”
Although, in that particular case, the complaint was Facebook isn’t evil enough for their tastes.
So stop talking about it! (Score:3)
Don't say you're GOING to delete Facebook; just DO IT.
I don't need to "delete" Facebook. I use Facebook for only one purpose; some of the blogs I follow use Facebook for their comments. I logged into Facebook a few days ago (I had to look up my password to do that....) and followed the "Download Everything from Facebook" procedure. Seriously, there's almost nothing there. An empty Profile, no games, no pictures, and the only messages were the ones I posted to the various blogs. Nothing that I wouldn't post openly.
Part of that is that I've never opened the Facebook apps on my phones or tablets.
If you're a big Facebook user, go back to email, or start a blog, or do something more constructive with your life.
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Dude, don't try to involve Nike into this.
Slashdot Poll Suggestion (Score:2)
How surprised are you that FB has been caught abusing your data? ... (my boss, my spouse, the fuzz, ...)
A: Hasn't FB always been doing this?
B: Shit! My data is logged and is possibly available to
C: Is Facebook going down? I mean I need my FB apps!!
D: Cowboy Neal read me the fine print, and I'm sure everything is on the up and up.
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How surprised am I that Facebook has been caught abusing my data?
Completely astonished, since I've never had a Facebook account to begin with!
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Your photograph is still tagged on several of your aunts' facebook pages, and your cousin has you listed. And your contact info was sucked into your invisible profile because your sister said 'okay' when they wanted her contact info.
Holier than thou (Score:5, Funny)
Deleting your facebook account is easy for people with no friends.
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Not just hard, impossible! (Score:2)
It's just as easy for people with friends, and family.
No, it really isn't. In fact, I can honestly say it's not only hard but actually impossible for me to delete my Facebook account since I have no idea how to delete something that doesn't exist. My family and most, if not all, my friends will have the same problem.
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Don't worry, Facebook has an account to keep track of your data anyway.
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Deleting your facebook account is easy for people with no friends.
And if you think that the "friends" you have on FB are actually friends (who will help you when you need it, or go for a beer with you or invite you to their wedding) then you are sorely mistaken.
People collecting "friends" on Facebook is like dogs collecting fleas.
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Every single contact I have on Facebook is someone I know in real life.
I've tried (Score:5, Funny)
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Wait remotely wiping? I don't understand. I thought we were just deleting the app! I even logged in to Facebook this morning to post about how I just #deletefacebooked
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Have you tried social engineering?
Block HIM... (Score:2)
I guess a symbolic gesture, if you need or want to keep using FB, would be to Block Mark Zuckerberg... If enough people do it, it might get noticed.
Opt out of equifax (Score:2)
You'll have about the same success. You think they'll just forget about you? I never had a FB account...that I can log into, that is. Doesn't mean much about what they've got on ya. Heck, they even put together adopted kids with parents when one or both don't have accounts, and some friend noticed....and outed some sex workers as having two accounts, one under a pseudonym. I laugh at puny efforts in the face of that.
What do I win... (Score:2)
If I never signed up to join facebook at all?
Now I can't join the party and delete my account in a fit of revenge!!!
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Why is this even news? (Score:2)
And advertising company - and that's what Facebook is - makes money from selling ads, and makes more money from selling demographic information to its advertisers. And grass is green, the sky is blue and water is wet.
Anybody who is in any way surprised by Facebook doing exactly what they were obviously created to do is a moron.
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Another party won a US election by having a winning politician and the losing side could not accept their own party was to blame.
So they had a story about Russian.
Now a story about social media and privacy.
That effort could have gone into policy and a new look to the party.
The effort is now in showing how demographic information lost an election. All the fault of social media. Not t
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All the parties are funded by billionaires and corporations. I am surprised you can tell the difference between them. All the parties are going to be using new social media weapons to persuade you to vote for them. The difference is that these weapons are the same psy-ops that are used by a military to defeat a country. Good luck with civilization if you don't try and regulate the use of these weapons.
Words, not actions. (Score:2)
And let's see how many actually do!
That is all the matters: not what people say (they often will say what they think the surveyor wants to hear), but whether they follow through. And I doubt that many actually will.
Will Microsoft employees delete Windows 7/10? (Score:2)
100% (Score:2)
Worse than pointless (Score:2)
This movement to delete Facebook is virtue signaling at its worst I fear.
It's not hurting Facebook any, they will continue to collect data about you from your browsing and through others. That data will still go to advertisers, only now you have zero control over what is stored, whereas if you have a Facebook account you can at least review and modify some of what it thinks about you.
It also cuts you off from people that may follow you on Facebook, that do not want to leave.
If you don't want to feed the be
If 1/3 of "tech workers" delete FB (Score:2)
That'll cut out more than 2/3s of all the ignorant left-wing posts. So where's the downside?
Delete Google (Score:2)
Google employees watn to delete Facebook? LOL! Delete Google! I've been weaning myself off it for a while now. Duck Duck Go for me - and use Google sparingly when necessary (no logins, Ghostery, delete cookies). Ok, it won't make me invisible to them - but seriously - fuck Google.
will/would/maybe (Score:2)
Linked in? (Score:2)
Has anyone deleted linkedin? I am considering it as I can't seem to find any value in it and they keep updating their TOS, which they just did again.
The Circle... (Score:2)
What I want to know is whether Zuckerberg and all of the rest of the FB execs have Facebook on their phones.
Akin to The Circle, while maybe not a box office smash, points out how the social network company execs love to have more people join and use their platforms, that often times they know so much about what is going on with the apps and the data that they choose not to participate themselves.
Being a cynic, however, seeing an active exec on the platform, I would likely assume they had two (or more) devic
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I was about to post something similar...
"2 percent of Facebook employees are now looking for a new job."
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https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/... [wikiquote.org]
(2004)
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