I have not found any news article on this on a whim. Because my friends and family, I need to use Facebook Messenger, and Messenger Lite was a OK client - lightweight, no unnecessary features, etc., compared to the regular Messenger app.
Now I'm a little torn, having a Meta app on my phone is already bad, but having to downgrade to the bloated Messenger app? Not sure I will make a change. What are your thoughts?
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I work in tech privacy, I'm an expert in this space, it's literally my job to know how this stuff works. I've had this conversation many times and the amount of times I've been called an idiot, ignorant, a shill, etc for trying to stop the spread of misinfo on here is fucking exhausting. But sure, let's do it again.
Facebook makes billions by selling targeted ads, not by selling your data. Facebook has never sold user data, that's never even been a popular criticism of them. The "other companies" it mentions here are other Meta products. Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Oculus are all considered "other companies", and even cross app linking is coming under regulation by the GDPR.
You are being tracked on the internet via web cookies (not personal identifiable information), but that was never the topic of conversation, we were discussing whether or not you're being spied on "all day long". There's a misconception that Facebook products listen to your conversations through your microphone or somehow root onto your phone and dig through your data without you knowing it. This doesn't happen and there's no reason to think it's ever happened.
Additionally, Facebook's policy is that the content of private messages in Facebook Messenger is not used to target advertisements.
And before you say you don't believe them, look at the size of the GDPR fines that are being handed out. Lying about something like this has the potential to wipe out tens of bllions of the revenue of a company that makes $80-90B per year. That's hugely significant. Getting caught once would absolutely obliterate their stock price.
There are plenty of actual reasons to be skeptical of big tech and social media and your comment is nothing but a distraction.