Canadians joining #DeleteFacebook amid fears about electoral meddling: experts
Many Canadians are pledging to delete their Facebook accounts as part of an online campaign encouraging people to permanently log off the site amid mounting concerns that the social media giant is inappropriately sharing users’ information beyond their circle of friends.
Privacy experts say numerous Canadians are taking to other social media platforms to join in on the #DeleteFacebook hashtag in the wake of recent revelations about the potential for their personal information to be mined for political gain.
Canadian data scientist Christopher Wylie has accused a voter-profiling company of improperly obtaining private Facebook data from some 50 million users in an effort to tip the scales in the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign and the U.K.’s Brexit referendum.
Former Ontario privacy commissioner Ann Cavoukian said a data leak of that scale was an “unthinkable proposition” for many Canadians who have long harboured frustrations about Facebook’s apparent lack of safeguards to protect user data from being shared with dubious actors.