MR Mister Loc: Washington DC

Steve Wozniak thinks you should quit Facebook


Big quote: “You should figure a way to get off Facebook.” That’s the advice Apple co-founder Steve ‘Woz’ Wozniak offers, warning that technology firms are invading our privacy now more than ever. His solution? Let people pay to keep their data more secure and private.

Wozniak was questioned at Reagan National Airport in Washington, D.C, by TMZ, who asked whether our devices were listening to private conversations to find out more information about us. The theory that this happens to serve people targeted ads has been around for years, and Mark Zuckerberg was forced to assure Congress in 2018 that it doesn’t happen.

The Woz confessed that the situation was one he was worried about, but doesn’t think it’s something we can stop. “But, everything about you... I mean, they can measure your heartbeat with lasers now, they can listen to you with a lot of devices. Who knows if my cellphone’s listening right now. Alexa has already been in the news a lot,” he said.

“So I worry because you’re having conversations that you think are private [...] You’re saying words that really shouldn’t be listened to, because you don’t expect it. But there’s almost no way to stop it.”

Wozniak’s opinion of the social network shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise. At the height of the Cambridge Analytica scandal last year, he was one of the many people to join the #deleteFacebook movement, publicly announcing that he was quitting the platform over privacy concerns.

As he did back then, Wozniak reiterated his solution to the problem: let people pay for increased privacy. “People think they have a level of privacy they don’t. Why don’t they give me a choice? Let me pay a certain amount, and you’ll keep my data more secure and private then everybody else handing it to advertisers.” It’s an option Sheryl Sandberg has talked about in the past. The Facebook COO said users would need to pay to avoid having their data used for advertising.

Just how many users would be willing to pay Facebook to keep their data private remains to be seen; most people who feel that strongly about the subject are unlikely to ever use the platform.

One group that agrees with Wozniak are teens and young adults, who are abandoning the social network in droves in favor of YouTube, Snapchat, and Instagram.

Carol Kelly

I’m not on facebook, but with all the stuff coming in on my iPhone, I guess I’m toast.

Sew_What

I'm not convinced that paying for privacy will eliminate privacy concerns. The NSA hires hackers every day who look for back doors into purported secure websites or apps. One virus, meticulously constructed could do the job. Security is simply a honey pot, and if you're dumb enough to use Facebook, you deserve to get caught.

Crayons Loc: St Jo, Texas

The old operating systems are EZ to lock down, haven't upgraded my ol' XP since who knows when, But the concept
today is the same as back then, Block and Blacklist everything at the DNS Router level and for extra measure
use an old legacy UB-original in an old Firefox Browser...it's a proven fact=its hard to break a locked down FF45 through FF51 browser...haven't used Any antivirus program since 03...

Today FakeBo0k has over 440 trackin scripts and today Winblows10 upgrades the unknowing rubes computers every month with more and more phone home trackin crap to Micro$hit...Don't use any Goolag products either

MR Mister Loc: Washington DC

Same here, few understand it.