Facebook Has been Hacked and Consumer Trust has Plummeted on the Platform

Once the focal points of the internet, companies such as Facebook and Google are going through a decline of trust. This is evident not only in their reputation with consumers, but internally as employees leave and are divided into

However sadly this title is literal, it’s not for fun.

Facebook just announced it was hacked, and almost 50 million users have been affected

Facebook breaches are nothing new, as they did not regulate the data harvested by third party apps. Silicon valley is getting itself into new territory of shady business practices of late.

Facebook released details Friday September 28th where 50 million users accounts were affected by the attack, in which attackers were able to take over users’ accounts.

News of the cyber attack — which appears to be one of the most significant in Facebook’s history — sent shares of the company down roughly 3%, according to Business Insider. Meanwhile Google is in the midst of an internal war on ethics involving Project Dragonfly. It appears Google’s executives are taking a hard stance on would be whistle blowers, and it paints Silicon Valley in the worst possible light in years.

Zuckerberg has not been transparent just how significant the data breaches and cyber-attacks have been, nor just how serious the mass exodus of users will become. But we know the truth, we don’t expect honesty from tech CEOs in this day and age.

“We do not yet know whether these accounts were misused but we are continuing to look into this and will update when we learn more,” Zuckerberg said in a blog post published on Friday.

A farcical interview with Congress aside, the talent exodus from Facebook has been pretty epic in 2018. The trajectory of Facebook’s stock also mirrors this. It’s entered what CNBC calls the dreaded death cross, and I find it pretty entertaining. Basically what this means is its 50-day moving average moved below its 200-day moving average. “Sorry” Facebook, it’s bad news all around.

It’s making investors who were bullish about Facebook not that long ago, go a bit antsy.

The weird part about Silicon Valley’s plummeting trust and the leadership that doesn’t take responsibility. Again and again tech employees have to be the ones to quit or leave or even resort to being whistle blowers. This might herald that we’ve entered a dark-age of technology in America. One in which the Chinese Government regulation and taking-over Chinese equivalent companies and molding them according to its values and over-taking American companies in innovation is a distinct possibility in the 2019–2029 period.

When the original founders of WhatsApp and Instagram have left Facebook now, it’s in the clutches of perhaps the most greedy company in Silicon Valley. A company where the average salary is nearly 10x that of Amazon’s. When rich executives don’t know display such lapses in judgement that the trust in their ecosystem is receding, it’s shows an abysmal lack of leadership in America.

Facebook already had a serious problem of fake accounts, but with the cyber-hack and data harvesting; it’s nearly beyond repair. Ethical hackers globally are increasingly taking aim at tech companies whose “black mirror” ethics are worrying global citizens. The revelation of the hack ironcially, comes a day after a famous Taiwanese hacker publicly declared plans to delete Zuckerberg’s Facebook account and to livestream the feat.

Facebook has a significant trust problem and even investors of the FANG variety, are starting to get alarmed. This has Facebook’s foray into online dating and blockchain still remain unclear. Facebook keeps doing PR articles on how many millions of users are using stories, but it has real problems that are making Millennials and GenZ delete their apps. That’s WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook Messenger, and the flagship Facebook app. Nobody wants to be vulnerable to data harvesting, cybersecurity threats or the ethical breaches that Facebook and Google are becoming synonymous with.

The dark era of social has arrived, and Facebook is bleeding in 2018 as badly as Uber did in 2017, or worse.