Do you trust Facebook with your personal data?

If yes, you should really reconsider it.

The reason that such questions now arise in our mind before posting any personal picture on our Facebook account these days, is an effect of all the security breaches that Facebook has seen in the last year. The year 2018, has been a year of havoc for Facebook, primarily because what it lost the most in 2018 was its customers’ trust.

It all started during April 2018, when the that the well-known British political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica had accessed data of 50 million users on Facebook & used it for political purposes. The data that was accessed included the profiles of the users, their network of friends & data pertaining to their Facebook likes. After the breach came to light, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg apologized for the same & as always assured that it won’t happen again.



But to his surprise, it did.

Not long after the CA breach, in June 2018, Facebook admitted another security breach, under which a software bug had changed the privacy settings of around 14 million Facebook users to Public, displaying their personal feed to a large audience. In another breach soon after in July 2018, Facebook admitted that one more bug had unblocked a large number of people, who had previously been blocked by many users on Facebook. This breach affected 800,000 people & proved to be a major security ineptitude on Facebook’s part.

Before people could get over this breach, yet another one was reported in the month of September 2018 wherein around 50 million accounts globally were hacked, giving the hackers access to all the personal information of the hacked profiles. This information included everything, from the user’s location to even their personal messages. This was a major security breach on Facebook’s part & even though they again assured the users that they were working on making themselves better, the patience of the users has been drawing thinner with each of these incidents.

Sorry if you‘re having trouble logging back into Facebook after yesterday’s security issue. These are the official tools to help (always beware of non-facebook. com links): — Facebook (@facebook) September 29, 2018

These constant data breaches also put Facebook in the way of reproach from the leaders of tech giants like from the CEO of Apple, Tim Cook.

Tim Cook criticises big tech firm Facebook and Google for data breach https://t.co/fHxwId0gB3 — Techpwynt (@techpwynt) June 19, 2019

Facebook tends to put customers data at stake repeatedly & we can’t afford to be complacent about data security.

These breaches & hackings are leaking really sensitive data of the users, (which they do not wish to share with the world, or at least not with everyone) out in the world for a large number of people to use; some of whom may & will misuse it. Owing to these incidences, people are losing trust in the company & for a good reason.

In a recent survey, where multiple people were asked to rate certain companies on the amount of trust they have in them, Facebook ranked the worst with a rating of 3.6 points. This is suggestive to the fact, that consumers are being affected by the breach which is not a piece of good news for the brand.

If the breaches & hacking weren’t enough to convince us against Facebook, a recent report suggests that even when you deactivate your account, Facebook can still keep tabs on you, which honestly, is quite scary.

Keeping all this in mind, when you think of it, do you really think you can trust Facebook with your data now?

Over this period of time, the only thing that has remained constant is Mark Zuckerberg accepting the breaches & assuring they will tackle it & that it won’t happen again. And every time, it’s put to no use.

How long can we allow Facebook to use our data to cause damage to us? How long are we going to ignore the fact, that all our personal data on our Facebook profiles are far from safe? And how long are we going to neglect the fact that even though Facebook assures security to our personal data, giving us the choice of deciding who can or cannot view it, all our profile data is at Facebook’s disposal, to use as they deem fit? Facebook’s assurances are not good enough any more.

Take account blocking, for example. People block other people due to many reasons including security purposes & a breach like the one in July 2018 can put the security of a lot of users at stake as the blocked people will suddenly be able to see the posts & locations of the person. Similarly, texts are another personal data that can be misused by hackers to cause phenomenal damage to people.

This is why we believe it’s time that we as consumers get smart.

As that saying goes,

Fool me once, Shame on you.

Fool me twice, Shame on me

And it is high time that we stop getting fooled by Facebook’s assurances & take our privacy in our own hands.

Facebook has been acting as a modern link, connecting people globally. However, it’s time we realize that our data is not safe on the social media platform & stop sharing posts & pictures too personal to us, or things we fear could be misused. Also, sharing sensitive data or pictures over chats & messages can prove to be pretty disastrous for you, and so you might want to resist doing that. Because expecting to get security of private data from Facebook has become almost ludicrous these days. The only way we can ever feel completely secure on the social media platform is when we actually stop sharing sensitive data there.

Unless of course, you actually own a piece of the internet yourself personally.

Sounds silly?

Well, it’s true. You can actually own a part of the internet now that will be accessible only to you. You can put your personal pictures, documents or the soft copy of any data you think should be secured. You can later access that data without a worry, as no one around you can view or manage it unless you allow them to. It will be your digital home, where you can place all the data that you wish to keep & no one will be allowed to sneak into it.

But, how does this happen? It happens with Houm.

Houm allows you to own and manage a piece of the internet as your own. Houm makes it so secure, that no one except you can handle or see your data there, not even Houm. If you wish to maintain your privacy online, Houm is the best solution for you. Just put your documents on Houm & have no worry, as they are as safe as they can ever be. #MyDigitalFreedom