The fallout from the Cambridge Analytica scandal and Facebook’s handling of user data has many calling for sweeping changes to the social network. While users have already started to get behind the #DeleteFacebook movement, with some support from the co-founder of Whatsapp and entrepreneur Elon Musk who deleted the pages for SpaceX and Tesla from the site, others are calling for sweeping change.
Apple CEO Tim Cook is the latest voice calling for new regulations on data privacy and changes at Facebook, pointing out that it had been predicted for a long time and the latest situation should be the beacon for bringing about a solution. Cook was at the annual China Development Forum in Beijing according to Bloomberg, calling the situation with Facebook “dire”:
“I think that this certain situation is so dire and has become so large that probably some well-crafted regulation is necessary,” Cook said after being asked if the use of data should be restricted in light of the Facebook incident. “The ability of anyone to know what you’ve been browsing about for years, who your contacts are, who their contacts are, things you like and dislike and every intimate detail of your life — from my own point of view it shouldn’t exist.”
Cook continued, discussing the thoughts that have followed creating online profiles that out to be treasure troves of information for third-parties to rifle through. How he and others talk about, it is almost like a train traveling on tracks that are blocked from the start and never touching the brakes to do anything about it:
“We’ve worried for a number of years that people in many countries were giving up data probably without knowing fully what they were doing and that these detailed profiles that were being built of them, that one day something would occur and people would be incredibly offended by what had been done without them being aware of it,” he said. “Unfortunately that prediction has come true more than once.”
As The Verge adds, these comments might ruffle a few feathers considering Apple’s recent decision to move Chinese iCloud operations and encryption to servers in China that some feel open them to be more susceptible to government snooping. Even with that, it is clear that many are pushing for a change following this latest data breach and Facebook is scrambling to handle it in a way to satisfy everybody. Their delayed response seems to have them playing catchup, but it seems that some change will need to come.