> No, we willingly and voluntarily gave our personal information away to companies in exchange for their services. Sucks to be us, but there do exist people who

> No, we willingly and voluntarily gave our personal information away to companies in exchange for their services. Sucks to be us, but there do exist people who refuse to give away their information online, and it's not exactly impossible to be like them. To turn around after having received the benefits from Google, Facebook, etc. and cry foul about them receiving their part of the deal is childish. It's become quite clear that most users did not make a reasoned choice about what data they were giving away or to whom. It is the latter that is most concerning as scandals like Cambridge Analytica or the Equifax data breach show. It is hard to see how you can argue that this type of misuse is not a serious problem. A better criticism is that the cited article does not go far enough. We've effectively ceded the public square to Facebook, WhatsApp, and other large social media apps. You can reasonably argue this is undermining democratic values (see US 2016 election) and even inciting extreme violence, as happened to the Rohingya in Myanmar. [0] It's likewise becoming clear that these are side-effects of the business model followed by many social media companies. https://qz.com/1170111/is-facebook-playing-a-part-in-myanmars-rohingya-genocide/ https://qz.com/1170111/is-facebook-playing-a-part-in-myanmar...