Facebook takes another shit in our cereal, but we’ll keep eating that squishy, flaky load of social
Just eat it.
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If you woke up this morning and wondered why you were logged out of Facebook, Messenger or Instagram, you aren’t alone. About 90 million users were bumped out of Facebook and Facebook-related apps after the company discovered a security breach in its “View As” feature that affected 50 million users. Fuck. Facebook.
On the heels of this bullshit with your phone number, Facebook takes aim at our genitals and delivers a swift, defining kick. After a moment of whimpering, we’ll do our best to stand up straight, look Mark Zuckerberg directly in the eye and ask that he put on the steel toes for the next one.
The “View As” breach allowed hackers to steal access tokens but didn’t affect your password security (hence the mass logout this morning). It’s not known at this time if any accounts were hacked with the access tokens, but at least Facebook took somewhat immediate action. That’s a small, silver lining akin to picking wet toilet paper out of your banana pudding. This is just the latest piece of fuckery that should make you want to quit the social platform, but you won’t.
Same shit show, different toilet
Time and time again, the company has proven that it’s still a fledgling service that even after all these years has yet to prove its mettle as a network of personal data and information we can trust. We can’t. Trusting Facebook with whatever data you call personal is like getting plastic surgery out of the back of the same van from which you buy your electronics. Sure, the van runs and the guy is wearing a lab coat, but the alley is filled with rabid stray cats, the van smells like hot death and there’s another guy filming the whole thing on a VHS camera.
Image: Axios
If Facebook wants us to really trust it, then it should shut down for a while, rebuild a secure product and charge money to use it. That way, when it fucks up, we can file a class action suit against it. While some people claim to not be into Facebook anymore, you know that’s absolute bullshit. While we’re whining about Facebook mucking up the midterms, we’ll be happily trying to hook up using its dating service. Security only matters when we’re not trying to get some, apparently.
Facebook knows you’ll never quit
We are never going to quit Facebook no matter how many times Mark and company expose our personal data like an elderly couple on a clothing-optional beach. Every time this happens there is an inevitable squeal of hand-wringing, blame, and cries of outrage — often as self-flagellating posts on Facebook itself.
It’s a strange form of social media masochism that we can’t seem to walk away from. A lot of our lives are deeply ingrained in the fabric of FB and Twitter, Instagram and others. Walking away from a serious addiction isn’t easy, and these data breaches are part of the silent agreement we made with whatever devil(s) rule the social landscape.
We seem to forget the core purpose of the social site is to make tons of money on the backs of hapless losers (er, users) — security compromises be damned. This latest breach shows once again that it’s always time to quit Facebook, but that takes the kind of personal fortitude and spirit we just aren’t capable of and Mark knows this, profits off it, and proliferates a twisted reality on the back of it.
We’ll take our lumps and keep on chugging because really — what choice do we have now?
Where do you stand? Are you still on Facebook or, are you still on Facebook?
Editors’ Recommendations:
- After paying $100k to hackers to keep quiet, Uber’s 2016 data breach is going to cost it millions
- Instagram’s cofounders are calling it quits to work on new projects
- You’ll soon be able to register to vote directly from Snapchat
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