Facebook And Other Corporations Routinely Violate Our Privacy

I read this post by @ash, and it reminded me of an experience I had with Facebook that I will never forget. This is one of the many reasons that we absolutely need Steemit, to free us from the tentacles of corporate social media.

I was dating a woman for a few years, and it was pretty serious. We lived together and all aspects of our lives became intertwined in ways that took some time to unravel when we eventually broke up. I'm sure many can relate with that... Adulting is kind of hard some times.

Broken Heart Grunge by Nicolas Raymond, on Flickr

One of the things that lingered unresolved for a while was my cell phone. When we were together, it made the most sense to share a cell phone plan. For whatever reason, I ended up switching over to her plan.

It really wasn't a big deal... until we broke up, and I couldn't just leave her plan without paying an early termination fee. It would have been best for both of us to just move on with our lives, but Verizon was having none of that.

So I deposited money to her checking account each month, for the six months, year, or however long it was until it ran out. We were both on the same page that when the time came she would drop me from her plan and that would be that.

I knew that it was getting close to the time when this would happen, and I was waiting for her to call or email me telling me that she was about to go ahead and drop me... but it turns out she didn't feel like contacting me when the time came.

How did I find out?

I got a Facebook message, asking me to update my cell phone.

What?!

I had every kind of mobile alert and notification turned off. There was no possible situation that would have come up where Facebook would have legitimately tried to message me via my cell phone and found it to be out of service.

As a matter of fact, I used the phone throughout the morning. Facebook messaged me in the afternoon.

Before I knew that my cell phone service was discontinued, Facebook did!

At that point it became clear to me that there is an inappropriate sharing of information between Verizon and Facebook. I can't imagine that this is the only privacy violation that they engage in.

I would strongly advise everybody to limit what they share with Facebook. There is no telling what they or any other corporation will do with your information. Privacy is not some lofty ideal... it is something that we all must safeguard at all times.