Maggie's Farm

I use Facebook regularly. I fought it, but it provided a good way to reconnect with friends and family.
Given my intimate knowledge of the privacy and other data issues, I'm familiar with everything FB does, so I do this willingly - knowing it's a trade-off. They don't really care about anything I have or what I do, except to try and sell me stuff and I'm not buying anyway.

Here's what it's allowed me to do:
1. Remain in constant contact with groups of family and friends more consistently.
2. Reconnect with family and friends.
3. Share information and/or ideas with them.
4. Introduced me to some like-minded people, although in a different fashion than Maggie's has
5. Given me access to track my travels (they have a great tie-in with TripAdvisor that helps me log what countries/cities I visit as well as find reviews and information quickly. It was invaluable for me over the last year.
6. Sharing my pictures with family and friends. Several of them enjoy seeing my travels, as they don't get out much. I get lots of compliments on the little art, history, geography and other lessons I provide by sharing these pictures.


I don't use any other social media. Twitter is a waste of time, and other than that I'm just not interested in social media. But most of my job is related to the day-to-day activities of privacy, data sharing and (sometimes) outright theft of user data by online vendors. So while nothing is perfect at keeping me incognito from online providers, I'm aware of what the trade-offs are.

For what it's worth, if you think that not belonging to Facebook keeps you out of their clutches, you're wrong. Anytime you visit a page with a social media widget on it (usually there is something that says "share on Facebook" or something like that on most articles), those social media entities are collecting data on you and your computer and they do indeed know who you are.

I'll add this.

One thing people think is that "we need privacy protection".

Well, no you don't. Not really. Here's why.
You have more privacy protection now than you will if we pass laws like Europe and California did.

Both those laws (GDPR in the EU) give TONS of power to the large firms, Google and Facebook. Yes, they can be fined in a punitive fashion. But they are the least of your worries. The REAL 'privacy crime' happens with much smaller firms. What these laws do is just raise the stakes. Google and Facebook can pay their fines. Most smaller firms can't. But law breakers can. They simply find new sources of revenue to help fund their activities and stave off the law.

Many legitimate and good vendors that I work with have left the EU market for fear of punitive retribution in the case of error. Better to have the risk reduced to as close to zero as possible than to take the chance at all.

More importantly, the 'protections' provided by these laws really don't protect much. They add a layer of cost to legitimate publishers and vendors, which is passed on to users or advertisers (who pass it on to you), and most users rarely utilize these protections.

It's a 100% law used by less than 10% of users which increases costs substantially. There's a reason why Google and Facebook support laws like Net Neutrality and GDPR - they know they can benefit from it.

I'll add this.

One thing people think is that "we need privacy protection".

Well, no you don't. Not really. Here's why.
You have more privacy protection now than you will if we pass laws like Europe and California did.

Both those laws (GDPR in the EU) give TONS of power to the large firms, Google and Facebook. Yes, they can be fined in a punitive fashion. But they are the least of your worries. The REAL 'privacy crime' happens with much smaller firms. What these laws do is just raise the stakes. Google and Facebook can pay their fines. Most smaller firms can't. But law breakers can. They simply find new sources of revenue to help fund their activities and stave off the law.

Many legitimate and good vendors that I work with have left the EU market for fear of punitive retribution in the case of error. Better to have the risk reduced to as close to zero as possible than to take the chance at all.

More importantly, the 'protections' provided by these laws really don't protect much. They add a layer of cost to legitimate publishers and vendors, which is passed on to users or advertisers (who pass it on to you), and most users rarely utilize these protections.

It's a 100% law used by less than 10% of users which increases costs substantially. There's a reason why Google and Facebook support laws like Net Neutrality and GDPR - they know they can benefit from it.