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welcome to the 359 I'm Alfred Inge I'm Joanie Sussman so in the wake of the Cambridge analytic a scandal there's been a massive call on social media for people to delete their Facebook there was a trending hashtag on Twitter on Tuesday and Brian Acton the whatsapp co-founder he ended up selling whatsapp to Facebook for 19 billion dollars in the past and he tweeted out also it's time to delete Facebook but you know I I'm very doubtful that people are actually going to do this Joan do you still have your Facebook page I mean I do one of the reasons that I do I think underscores the reason why it's hard to delete facebook you know as a journalist I'm like basically not allowed to delete facebook it's something that we have to do to promote our stories and it's not just people like me I mean like I didn't in addition to the normal reasons why people stay on Facebook to stay in touch with friends and family and know what's going on their lives you have to sign it a lot of apps sign in you just choose to sign in through Facebook so you don't have to remember another password there's a lot of ways that in facebook has become sort of an infrastructure for wider press the internet that makes it harder to just delete your account yeah so a lot of people have chosen or like jumped on this campaign to delete Facebook because of all the you know issues with data collection and issues going on with Cambridge analytic oh that broke last Friday you know a lot of is more of like a moral like issue for them but I feel like this is much different from the delete oberg campaign that had gone on or the delete HQ campaign that had gone on you know I feel like Facebook is a lot more essential to people's lives than a quiz app or getting a ride in a you know rideshare company right that's the thing about Facebook is that they're basically a monopoly in social networks I mean there's nobody that even comes close to the amount of their scale even with uber or at least it's a not as big and B they have robust competitors what would it what would it take for you to delete Facebook though like what would what like even if they did like the craziest thing in the world like would you still use it because it's so you know it's so ingrained in our society I don't know I mean I think that for the normal person a normal person to have to delete facebook an average user it would have to take a lot more than what's happened so far I mean we don't know but we don't know don't really know yet it's only just started to see if there's really been a ding to so so as a counterpoint you know for the stay on Facebook campaign Chris Wiley the Cambridge analytical whistleblower actually had his Facebook account deleted by Facebook itself so you know you can't delete us we're deleting you and he said it screwed up his life in many ways ironically on a Facebook live chat on Tuesday you know he's saying that he can't use tinder now because you can only validate your login through Facebook which you were talking about as like it's a login mechanism for a lot of people and he compared it to being deleted from the internet which i think might be of a stretch but i think he does have a fair point that you know there's a lot more cons than pros to deleting facebook i found in the past when i have tried to scale back the amount that i use facebook there are all these because it's so ubiquitous there are all these ways where i'm sort of forced to open and not force but if i want to make sure that i see this video or if i need to check something or even if it doesn't have anything to do with my own facebook account there's lots of times where I'm like oh I actually have to open a Facebook even if I don't want to yeah and finally the Senate Intel committee they hosted a hearing today on election security it turns out not every state is interested in the federal government's help so while 21 states were hit by hackers in 2016 only about 19 actually asked the Department of Homeland Security for its help so wasn't during this hearing wasn't there a senator that made a kind of extraordinary suggestion for how to test our security yeah so if senator angus King he's an independent from Maine he mentioned this to the Department of Homeland Security secretary saying hey you should create a Red Team which is basically like a you know offensive hacking team to hack these states that haven't opted in to show them how vulnerable they are and then maybe they'll choose to opt in I think there's ways to convince people that their systems are secure I wouldn't say that this is the best one and that's most of the time that we have for today but if you liked what you heard check us out on CNET I'm Alfred Inge I'm Joni Salzmann thanks for listening okay thanks for joining us everybody we are still gonna do the same even though we are running late I'm gonna jump through the chat and find some great questions and comments because we all have an opinion on Facebook and I think the first thing I want to start out with is this this is coming from me as a user of Facebook how much is it truly Facebook's fault at this point is it really a broken infrastructure or is it that it's been poisoned and destroyed by malicious users um I was I was gonna say it kind of depends on who you ask Facebook and you know a lot of like stories out there have been kind of saying this isn't really Facebook's fault in the way that you know this is a third party app that like lied to them and didn't you know like you know comply with their rules and then basically centas did something that they weren't supposed to but you know you could also make the argument that you know facebook didn't do enough to protect that information in the first place so that people couldn't lie to them so yeah there's two different perspectives on this but Facebook is well you know they're saying that they're the victims here and it's not their fault on this and I think that I think people have a good point when they bring up the you know if facebook was deceived then they were deceived and that's kind of been the party line for Facebook so far even though there's been a lot of kind of leadership silence about response to this particular scandal but I mean their friggin Facebook I think that argument falls on a lot of deaf ears when you're one of the most powerful companies in the history of the universe yeah this this is you know something that happens with insecurity a lot when a company gets breached the the idea is you know hey we were like hit by a criminal and you're saying that this is our fault like I don't write but you know in Equifax this scenario the idea is yeah but you didn't do enough to secure your system to begin with right I think that's the debate going on with Facebook right now it's right it was like we were like lied to and deceived right but if you're like a company that's enriched yourself yeah yes astronomically and you have incredible power if you're not wielding it with responsibility then then that's on you that I think is a valid counterpoint to the but we were deceived argument so we got a great comment from Matthew dacher am I the only one scared about how Facebook has changed the way I communicate let's think about that let's really think about that for a second has Facebook reformatted how you communicate at large the way you think about how to interact with people interpersonal communication I think it's been really interesting in the last year is the number of early stage Facebook executives and investors that have come out saying just those concerns like like Shawn Parker as a main as a major one who said like What did he say probably don't use yeah he says he calls himself a Facebook conscientious objector Rodger McNamee he was an investor who he wrote an op-ed and then this guy whose name I can't pronounce but he went to Stanford and he I'm sure a lot of people saw it he had this like whole talk about how he doesn't let his own children use Facebook how it's ripping apart society it's one thing for you know users to have grudges against Facebook before the people that actually create it himself I think it's interesting it's great that they've chosen to you know after their sailors after making billions of dollars off of it I feel it it like really feels like to me like drug dealers just saying like don't get high on your own supply kind of thing I don't know if they've changed the way that I communicate but I feel like maybe it's because the change has been so gradual that like you don't notice it like a frog in boiling water like I don't like I can't like specify any specific ways that they've changed how I communicate but at the same time I'm like I'm sure there is yeah and it might not even be a communication I think a lot of the research that has shown that Facebook changes the way we feel has to do with self-worth and identity more so than with as a communication I think as a communication tool Facebook has been isn't that that foundationally changing but in terms of like yourself worth how you present yourself to the world how you structure your life in order to present it to the world of Facebook and Facebook as the biggest social network has had a big influence I've done that for me at all because I my self-worth is at a peak I'm the greatest yeah I don't think that you've been influenced by by try again Facebook so is Zuckerberg currently selling off his stocks is that some writing on the wall yes he had sold it in like January or so he's actually did a new boat that could be it he's a he's actually supposed to finally make a public announcement today you know he's been kind of hidden for the last like five days or so and so there's no confusion there's a very there's a different stock structure at Facebook even if he does sell off some shares he has what are known as super voting shares and so without getting into the details of it partly because I can't remember box off my head basically if Mark Zuckerberg is is entrenched as the leader of Facebook for the till the end of time unless something catastrophic or he becomes president basically there are a lot of people in the chat who have left Facebook a long time ago a lot of people who are on that increasing incline right this very second for those of us out there who have hesitated because of the reason that we are interested in interpersonal communication like literally I've gotten away from interfacing with it as much can you use Facebook Messenger and maintain those communication direct lines without having to have a public profile I looked into it I actually looked into this like over the last two weeks before even before like this whole thing broke out just because I was very annoyed by being on Facebook the answer is no you need a Facebook profile to use that but you can largely disable a lot of the profile functionalities you can stop people from posting stuff you cannot go to dot-com yeah you can just use yeah messenger don't have to put your name out there there was actually a Chrome extension that is that makes it so that whenever you go on like facebook.com it's only messenger and event which is what I would assume most people use it for now anyway well yeah I've tried I've tried just messenger and that's the only thing I use like I mean I don't for my own interactions with friends and family I don't use Facebook very much but I use whatsapp constantly I mean we have to consider that it's not just Facebook and not just messenger a Facebook branded product there's also whatsapp and Instagram Instagram being the second biggest and yeah I've used I've used Instagram a lot as a chatting app instead to that and like group me which is not owned by Facebook also snapchat like group chats so there are ways to communicate outside of Facebook and whatsapp but I think it's like them it's like the lowest common denominator for like online like chatter so a lot of people there there are gajillion and a half different interfaces you could possibly utilize to supplement for Facebook we can talk about some of them but the benefits to something like a Facebook where you're using your data plan instead of SMS to me it's an appealing free quick easy fairly efficient and organized method of communication I have only poked at whatsapp tell me a little more about what's happened how that could be used as a Facebook alternative well I use it all the time but the great thing about what's up is that there are very robust competitors to it like signal offered yes but mostly to communicate with sources right yeah so the thing about whatsapp is it's basically just like instead of using your text messages it's like that except in a different program except Ivy started using it because I didn't it was before the days of unlimited texting and it was a way to text with friends in an unlimited way without having to worry about you can also make calls through whatsapp and it's encrypted which is also helpful signal as well yeah that's why Channel and whatsapp they're like the biggest rivals with each other right if you have a confidential confidential 'ti issue that you want to take care of it's a good alternative for that reason that's why I use it I use it so that I can communicate with my family and my friends on a one-to-one basis yeah my parents are one too many yeah my parents use it but I'm specifically not on it so I don't have to talk so you have to be a signed up user of whatsapp - yeah that's with another what's happens yeah automatically integrated being that it's owned by Facebook No yeah so you don't have to have a Facebook as far as I know you don't have to have a Facebook account because I actually I signed up for what's up before it was bought by Facebook but and so I don't know if I was just grandfathered in but I there's no there's no like it's an impermeable barrier between my facebook and my whatsapp there's no inter connection except for the fact that both owned by the same company shut up shut up the syringe oi that a IM miss a comeback on this one oh man i really possible let's talk about some more alternatives people are curious what is signal I've never heard of that one myself it's a secure chatting app a lot of security like researchers use it and you know a lot of like political activists and journalists use it because it's one of the most secure ways you can chat with sources it's encrypted end-to-end which means that like it's encrypted like when it gets to your phone while it's being transmitted and then while it like the other person receives it as well and it's not like other encryption messages where you have to give them this whole like PGP key key kind of thing like you can really just give them a phone number for it and you don't have to use your own phone number for it like you can set it up with like a Google Voice number or some kind of other phone number for it mine I use my company phone number on it but I also have a separate one with like a Google Voice number on it as well mm-hm so yeah it's one of the many secure messenger apps that are out that's out there and it uses data instead of like your mobile line and the reason why it's so highly regarded even though there's so many of them out there you know there's like telegram and then what's happening their signal is that it's lying I don't think it might be but not as like signal is right but yeah the reason why it's like so heavily like touted or is you know it hasn't like suffered and like any like security issues that some of the other ones have had telegram was making headlines yesterday because they lost a bid to like have to give up some of their code to like Russian when the Prussian government they're still fighting it but there was like some like decision yesterday I said like you yeah you have to hand this over to us so signal has avoided that issue of like mostly yeah let's talk about some more alternatives what about viber mix Alice wants to know about viber I've never heard of that one myself I've heard of it I've never used it yeah I can't mix Alice tell us about if you have an experience with that we'd love to learn more is this an opportunity for Google Plus to shine Michael Brown is a big proponent of the Google interface I've used it myself it was many ago I found it taxing to try to maintain both the Facebook and the Google+ and ended up defaulting once again to the one where I had the most interactions with people in my inner circle where we can share our jokes and crap and where I can filter out bad political stuff I would say the most useful thing with Google+ is it would be most useful to replace Facebook as a authentication login so yeah what the the Cambridge analytical whistleblower was complaining about say oh I can't log into tinder anymore because I need to use Facebook as like a Authenticator on that you know how like some websites you don't want to create an account for but it's like oh you can write them with Google+ and Facebook would you another reason a lot of people are resistant to the idea of dropping it but there's always options that's a thing I've seen one that's restricted to one never used Facebook as an authentication for that because when you do that you give that app permission to login like on your Facebook account which is how this whole Cambridge analytic and got like all the permission issues so I just did I did show after all this news book I did go through my personal Facebook and I like deleted all the third-party apps next to my account and it was amazing how some of them that I haven't used in years like a bizarre little game that had jellyfish in it like how they acts because you know and use your grievance you don't pay any attention when they ask you for permission they like wanted ever they had access to everything so Facebook actually has like almost no info on me you know how like you can check like how they target advertisements towards you yeah they have like almost no information on me because 13-year old Alfred thought it'd be edgy to not like anything just like I'm gonna like anything I'll keep my page empty and look cool I'll be like mysterious and stuff and now I'm looking back at like 10 years later and you're a prophet hell yeah not only was I edgy and mysterious I also kept my privacy on there so there you go I mean it's kind of a shame I did like the aggregation aspect of Facebook granted it got infiltrated it's been compromised to say the least but I mean I can go there and it is a single place because I was using a lot of things like Google Reader and feedly and event the Facebook rendered all of them fairly obsolete because I got that and I got the direct line to the people that I was like oh Alex would love this recipe or you know look at the Avengers trailer do I really need to share that everyone already saw it it's all kind of self-serving anymore I'm definitely interested personally in finding alternative these days from Facebook itself yeah I mostly just go my group chat to talk with my friends now yeah I think the rise of snapchat that it's not a like one de Mike you're not published isin publishing your life to the entire world on snapchat I think that's the the rise of Facebook and sort of a reaction to it is why snapchat had an appeal from miksa list he says definitely try viber out end-to-end encryption good PC version it only needs your phone number doesn't have stories props to that it's just for messaging and calling and video calling also wicker me is pretty cool I've never heard of that one either so definitely worth checking out we're all on the hunt these days I think from the watchful hunter is there a way to remove Congress from media control over the election process we took it we took a turn here is there a way to remove Congress from media control over the election process listen I'm embracing conspiracy theory Thursday's here ah getting ready for it Wednesday my dude I just had to bring it up let's talk to sir enjoy do you think that an actual breach proportional to the mass of yahoo breach would be hurtful enough for Facebook because I don't think the issue would even budge the users well what would it take to push you off Facebook essentially I feel like they'd have to have a like there has to be in another competitor that could offer all of it and then also everybody just happens to jump on it at the same time cuz that's kind of what happened with MySpace they're their myspace really sucked but there were like a lot of people still on it and then Facebook comes along as like oh here's all the things that like we hate about MySpace that aren't on it myspace is just ugly and clunky yeah I'm dangerous times early yeah but the idea was that you know they made a better website and then it offered all the features that myspace did so people decided eh let me just go on that instead and then people just started leaving it one by one yeah I feel like I'd have to take something like that but Facebook has gone like so ingrained with like people's like lives and you know their culture and all this stuff that you know it's that's that's like a massive shift that would have to happen I don't think a breach of Yahoo's sighs I think there would be hammered toward in the news and it would cause like a large migration or like people leaving but I don't think that it would like essentially kill Facebook in the same way that you know Yahoo's still going on right now and you know people still use Yahoo even after that like every single user was breached and people still use it so I don't I don't think that a breach interesting is if Facebook has to change itself either regulation or through public pressure has to change some of the things that have made that have spurred its rise to begin with like MIT like even just the fact that they're focusing on this time well-spent thing and they've shown so far that's shown that that has caused a reduction in amount of time spent on Facebook and be interesting to see if there is regulation that forces Facebook to back off on some of the addictive elements of it some of the divisive elements of it yeah which are the things that make people get like sucked into the begin effect so most of the proposed regulations have been on average political ads yeah but they so the FTC is reportedly like looking into Facebook now for its violation I'm an agreement that I made in 2011 which was mostly on like privacy issues but that's not regulated that's more like an FTC like agreement that they had so they are looking into that but like all the addictive stuff that you were talking about all like the psychological tricks that they use to like keep you on Facebook there's never really been much chatter on that so I'd be interested if if they you know if that was like a part of it maybe interesting I never thought I'd agree with somebody over this but from i-tech you out he says man I miss my space and I do too at this point why I don't know the security features because I was you know such simpler days man oh yeah full house Ian days and and Lincoln aider says Facebook used to be so simple I don't know what happened Mike Shaw followed it up says you should have just banned third party apps business happened investments happened corruption happened yeah they get they make a ton of money off of the third party apps because it takes in all this information that you can use for advertising so yeah that's probably not going away unfortunately but yeah money happened that's a half Facebook found a way to normalize and centralize a lot of the communication and efficiently organize it I'll give them that much a lot of people say hangouts is a great alternative hangouts is a fantastic platform but my mom doesn't use hangouts my mom's on Facebook I also have everybody's text and I'm number but I don't want to use my SMS with dollars I want to use data that is easier for me I don't know it's that's that's why I'm stuck in Facebook yeah maybe the downfall of Facebook will be just because that's where all our moms are maybe that I can't wait for us to all be on some social network that like our children are stuck on because right there's like man I really want to leave pooper Nupur but my mom's on it so I can't Cooper Newport yeah that's my social network joined pooper Nupur yeah I I think I myself and personally quite ready to just stop embracing the website Facebook I'll exists on it but I don't want to interface with anybody except the direct messages to the people that I care to share that inside joke with anymore I think I'm ready to embrace that I can old I don't care about stuff anymore I don't know if it's just age though I mean I don't know it's hard to say because I'm also getting old we're all getting old but I mean I pulled back on how much time a nice personally spend I made a conscious decision to spend less time on Facebook and I was happier for it just because it's like I mean and I'm not talking about anything that Facebook has done or anything but just the fact that it's inherently something that's based on getting you know getting self worth and self gratification off of these things that are ultimate I mean that's a really philosophical way to start looking at it yeah the last post on my wall was from CES like I like almost never post on Facebook anymore all right it's bad times not very bragging now is that yeah yeah I don't post on Facebook good he's mysterious I think we are just about out of time this has been a really fantastic discussion everybody and thank you for all your suggestions I myself as a social media user will embrace and research these for my own personal exploits and we're interested to see go ahead and tweet at us if you do come up with any other better alternatives because Facebook seems to be just poison these days yeah we'll say bye to you if you're out there in the snow be safe be well be warm and we'll be back tomorrow unless the entire building is encased in an ice castle Alfred you want to take us out yeah if you liked what you heard check us out on cnet.com the 359 podcast is also available on iTunes TuneIn stitcher Feedburner google play music and the amazon echo thanks everyone take care of yourselves