Last month, it was announced that there had been a massive data breach at Facebook, regarding customer information and data being shared with Cambridge Analytica. Of course, Facebook users and the internet in general have freaked out about this, but in all fairness, they have every single right
to do so.

Although this was not a problem with iOS users, it was found that users who had the Facebook app on their Android smartphone had their calls being stored on Facebook. This does not include Facebook Messenger calls, but the phone calls you make from your smartphone.

I understand why people would be mad about it, but my concern is that people are so dumbfounded by it. This whole thing should have been no surprise to anyone.

Have you ever noticed how when the Facebook app updates, it says that there is an update but it does not tell you what the app update does? For example, in their app update from four days ago, it says, “Thanks for using Facebook! To make our app better for you, we bring updates to the App Store regularly. Every update of our Facebook app includes improvements for speed and reliability. As new features become available, we’ll highlight those for you in the app.”

Don’t you see that? As for the current update, it does not tell you what the update is doing but that it will let you know when there are new features. Shouldn’t Facebook have done that before? Whenever I download updates from apps like Tweetbot, Target or WordPress, they tell me exactly what they are changing, updating and adding. In this day and age, there is no excuse to not be telling customers and users what you are doing to their app and what you are doing with their personal data.

So, as a Facebook user, what could you be doing in order to avoid having your data compromised and used for Facebook’s own “evil” ways?

Well, there are only a couple of solutions that came to mind. The first is to obviously delete your Facebook account. However, that would mean that you would miss out on those fun family photos and hilarious memes.

My second solution is to download a third-party app. Third-party apps that are available for both iOS and Android are Friendly for Facebook and Puffin for Facebook. These apps do not have as many features as the official Facebook app due to Facebook’s both limited and strict API. The app does not have as many features as Facebook’s app. On the bright side, at least Facebook and Messenger will be in one app!