Apple's Wozniak Dumps Facebook: 'More Negatives Than Positives'

Apple co-founder has deactivated his account over data commotion
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted Apr 9, 2018 6:01 AM CDT
Apple's Wozniak Dumps Facebook: 'More Negatives Than Positives'
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak attends a conference in Milan, Italy, on July 3, 2017.   (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

One of the biggest names in tech says he's defecting from one of tech's biggest platforms. Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak told USA Today in an email Sunday he's leaving Facebook due to privacy concerns in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica data-mining scandal. "Users provide every detail of their life to Facebook and … Facebook makes a lot of advertising money off this," he noted. "The profits are all based on the user's info, but the users get none of the profits back." He said his own experience with his Facebook account, which he deactivated (not deleted) Sunday night, gave him "more negatives than positives." Fortune notes Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg's recent words in which she said that if users want more assurances of privacy, they might have to pay in the future for a Facebook account—something Wozniak says he'd gladly do.

He made sure to push Apple while he was at it, a company he says "makes its money off of good products, not off of you. As they say, with Facebook, you are the product." The rebuke from Wozniak, who says he's fine going "old school" and back to using just texts and emails, comes a week after a tiff between Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg and Apple CEO Tim Cook over the data scandal. So why didn't Wozniak completely wipe his Facebook account with a full deletion? He says he doesn't want anyone else scooping up his "stevewoz" screen name—"even another Steve Wozniak." (Facebook is set to start sending notices to the 87 million or so whose data may have been compromised.)

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