Study Finds the Majority of Texans Think Facebook is Spying on Them

I always figured the percentage of people who thought Facebook was spying on them would be way high. Like, somewhere in the 99% range.

Call me paranoid, but I don’t trust Big Tech. Not that I necessarily think they have evil intentions or anything like that. It’s just that I know we’re constantly being tracked by them and I’m not comfortable with that.

Earlier this week, the news broke that Texas sued Facebook parent company Meta, saying the company captured Texans’ facial recognition without their consent. The complaint claims Facebook committed the violation billions of times, according to NPR:

The scope of Facebook's misconduct is staggering. Facebook repeatedly captured Texans' biometric identifiers without their consent not hundreds, or thousands, or millions of times — but billions of times, all in violation of CUBI and the DTPA.

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Meta says that the claims are “without merit,” but research suggests the majority of people don’t trust them.

WhistleOut published a survey in September of 2020 that found a whopping 85% of respondents believed they had been spied on by at least one tech company.

And Facebook was the company most respondents believed was spying on them. 68% of those who participated in the survey believed the social media company violated their privacy.

Most people who responded believe tech companies are listening to their phone conversations. But I believe they’re actively listening to us whether or not we’re actually talking to someone on the phone.

I specifically remember talking to my wife once about wanting to buy a chainsaw. The next thing I knew, there were all kinds of chainsaw ads on different apps on my phone.

Coincidence? I think not.