It's no less valid than other ways for people to collectively pool influence to enact change (i.e. boycotts or forming other types of organizations).
Can you provide a way I can get Equifax and similar companies to stop stealing and selling my data? I've been trying to do that for decades. No. Your argument is bullshit. I didn't sign up for this shit and neither did anyone else, yet we still got fucked. How do you propose we fix it now? The cellular companies are still selling my data. Should I not own a cell phone because I can't get a cell plan that won't steal and sell my data? The ISPs are selling my data. Should I not have an Internet connection? Yes, I can get rid of those, lose my job, be homeless and starve while I wait for the idiot masses to do the same so maybe a competitor could rise up. That's your brilliant solution. And it still doesn't deal with the fact that companies I didn't sign up with are stealing and selling my data.
You’re being disingenuous by equating that with theft.
No one needs a social network like FB. Just stop using it and they will go away.
Do you need credit cards to survive? No, you don't. If you sign up, you get what you deserve.
While consumer credit is a useful service, Facebook is not. No one's life or business is going to be affected because they don't have FB. If you oppose their business model, simply quit and they will wither away and die.
Facebook will not be "a thing" in 10 years. If more people quit today, it could have a shorter lifespan that that.
Power companies, cable companies, and telco operators are all monopolies propped up by government. An actually free market will always eliminate them when some competitor rises up with a lower cost, a better product, or better service.
There has never in history been a monopoly company that could operate in a free market without government support.
No, this is why we have regulations for cars, food, and everything else.
Free markets don't work well in most of these areas because information can't flow properly. If it did, markets might work quite well.
But they don't, and players cheat, so we need regulations.
With Facebook and other "free" services, you are the product -- not the customer. Stopping this is very simple; just don't agree to be the product anymore.
No one needs a social network. There isn't one compelling reason for anyone to join one unless you are a shareholder. You don't need the government to protect you from social networks or fix their ills. You need to delete your account and take personal responsibility for your complicity.
No, you are a supplier of a key input to the product.
Don't ask government to save you from this when you can delete your FB account by yourself and get out of the game.
There isn't one personal or commercial benefit to FB or other social networks which has not already been solved by other technologies.
> Your personal information [...] is the product.
I am not my personal information.
> you can delete your FB account by yourself and get out of the game.
Not really. https://www.techopedia.com/definition/29453/facebook-shadow-...
FWIW, I have a FB account, never initiate friend requests, log in rarely, post ~never. I make no claim that this is the "best" strategy by any particular metric.
Of course I had the engineers stand under the bridge while my army was marching across.
This part isn't fixable. But by having an FB account and actively using the service, you become part of the problem. FB would not have nearly the market value that they do if no one used their product. Actually, they would have zero value.
Is there something in your life that requires FB so badly that you're willing to continue being their product? No, there isn't. You can still phone your friends. You can still text your family. There are plenty of other methods of communication without FB.
FB is not a communications tool, though they pitch themselves that way. They are a data gathering and advertising tool. If you agree to be part of that, that's on you.
Here is just a partial list:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_data_breaches
When these companies have data breaches and loose your credit data into the public they should pay a real price. At the moment their penalty is offering you "a years worth of credit monitoring".
There is virtually no accountability for protecting this data yet your credit profile is used extensively for everything from getting a load, to rending an apartment, security and background checks.
Here again, personal responsibility trumps government salvation every time.
https://www.theverge.com/2017/9/7/16257412/rehabs-near-me-go...
Targeted advertising can be and is used to target people at their most vulnerable. There almost certainly is a death toll.
As I've said before and will say again, a social network is not a human necessity nor a right. Delete your account and watch these problems go away in a flash.
That incredibly naive, unless you’re a literal hermit other people in your social and professional circle do spread your data around, as to do businesses you use. I don’t have a Facebook account and never have, but I’m not gulllible enough to seriously believe that means they don’t have a shadow profile one me.
And what about Google, or Amazon? Sure, you can go full T. Kazynski and live in a shack, but short of that you’re screwed.