Frances Haugen, notorious Facebook whistleblower, has said that Meta’s guarantees towards users’ privacy are misstated.
Facebook, now rebranded as Meta, has huge plans for it’s Metaverse and related augmented reality products and services. As one of the leading multinational technology companies, Meta has marketed virtual reality as the next major growth play in the world. Along with decentralized P2E games and other blockchain-based apps that have a cryptocurrency driven economy, the Metaverse has now emerged as a pioneer in shifting every known business to a virtual world. Be it popular fast-food chains or sports associations, the who’s who of mostly every conglomerate, corporation and establishment has been looking to expand their businesses in the Metaverse, or even Web3 on a much larger scope.
Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen has taken a shot at the mega-corporation, saying there would be a “repeat” of all the damages Facebook has caused so far with relation to user security and privacy. She says Meta has made “grandiose promises” of sophisticated security structures present in the Metaverse, but unless they commit to “transparency and access and other accountability measures”, Meta is bound to wreak the same havoc again as they did with Facebook. Millions of users will suffer the hands of the social media giant with their privacy hanging at the balance.
As Meta starts to grow its influence over AR, Haugen assures users that their concerns over weak security measures are not ill-founded. With recent security breaches in decentralized games like Axie Infinity and popular open-source blockchain Solana, anxious users are looking for measures that not only protect private consumption but also push towards more innovative growth in Web3. The Metaverse ecosystem will be no less insecure, now with the sheer number of sensors the company is building into their VR equipment, namely the Meta Quest headsets. Threats to personal privacy are increasing and companies are now requiring people to hand over their private information to be able to participate in this newfangled virtual reality based society.
“You don’t really have a choice now on whether or not you want Facebook spying on you at home. We just have to trust the company to do the right thing,” Haugen told Politico.
