Facebook: A Sleazy Company

Facebook is not exactly a place that inspires trust these days. With the social network advertising monolith facing a string of privacy scandals, not to mention the unchecked power and influence it wields as a platform to broadcast and amplify viral propaganda and misinformation, incite genocides and lynchings, and disrupt electoral processes on a mega scale, the company's growth-at-all-costs mindset, putting its massive profits ahead of the interests of their customers, has rightly come under severe criticism more than ever before. In short, it's been a tough few years, much of it being of its own making.

But what's extremely disconcerting is the underhanded manner Facebook chose to deal with the escalating crises. From aggressive lobbying to unleashing propaganda campaigns to downplaying Russia's interference in 2016 U.S. elections to hiring PR firms to write negative articles about rivals Apple and Google to pushing the idea that billionaire George Soros was behind a growing anti-Facebook movement, it appears to have orchestrated everything it can in its capacity to deflect criticism away from itself.

Additionally, Facebook is said to have roped in a Jewish civil rights group in an attempt to paint the company's censure as anti-semitic (CEO Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg are both Jewish). Mr. Zuckerberg apparently was so "infuriated" by Apple CEO Tim Cook's critical comments — "I wouldn't be in this situation" — in the wake of Cambridge Analytica data fiasco that he ordered his management team to switch to Android phones.

Which is why this sleazy act of denying and diverting blame by pointing fingers at its competitors to help shore up its image is another sobering reminder why all the scrutiny that has come Facebook's way is completely warranted, and most importantly why users should never ever trust Zuckerberg & Co. with their personal information. He is after all the very guy who called all those who joined Facebook and shared their emails, pictures and addresses back when he was a 19-year-old student at Harvard as "dumb fucks."

But as the previous data breaches have shown, the revelations wouldn't so much as barely make any dent to their bottom lines as bring out a lip-service of an apology promising to clean up its act (again) that will doubtless be rinsed and repeated every time it finds itself caught like a deer in the headlights. So, Facebook will chug along just fine.

When even the worst privacy blunders can't drive users away because it has become so dominant (another reason why Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram need to be split), so embedded in modern life, what else can we expect? Like I said back in March, "what instead we deserve is a platform that takes privacy seriously and encodes it into their design in a manner that instills transparency and trust."