Facebook Has Become A Manipulative Boyfriend

[Pressing-On]

Facebook Has Become A Manipulative Boyfriend

Two years ago, I broke up with Facebook. It was one of the best things I’ve ever done. Like any big break up, I had complex reasons, but the biggest was that I simply did not trust Facebook. The relationship started out with the euphoria of new love, but over the years turned to something resembling abuse.

Facebook eerily insists on invading your life. It insinuates itself into your phone, it peeps through your contacts, wants to know your location. It tracks you even when you’re not on Facebook. Then it sells you to the highest bidder. We all know this, but we keep going back.

I left because I no longer trusted Facebook with cute pictures of my kids, I didn’t want it to catalog my political views. It doesn’t need a record of my evolving faith, what I ate for dinner, or my insomniac midnight searches for a sailboat in the Caribbean. Only friends deserve this level of revelation, although perhaps no one in his right mind would want it, and Facebook was increasingly not my friend. It felt more like a creepy uncle or a used car salesman.

Now, with the news breaking that Facebook allowed social scientists to manipulate news feeds, possibly in violation of ethical guidelines, to see how it affected our moods, I’m feeling vindicated.

http://thefederalist.com/2014/07/02/...ive-boyfriend/