Kara S Alaimo, Columnist

How Facebook Could Restore Trust

Let users sell their personal data.

May 4, 2018 at 10:00 AM UTC

Kara Alaimo is an associate professor of communication at Fairleigh Dickinson University. She is the author of “Over the Influence: Why Social Media Is Toxic for Women and Girls — and How We Can Take It Back.”

Mark Zuckerberg has some explaining to do. — Mark Zuckerberg has some explaining to do.
Photographer: Josh Edelson/AFP/Getty Images

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Facebook’s annual meeting on May 1 opened as developers were “steaming” about the social network’s efforts to fix the way user data is shared with third parties. Some vowed to boycott the conference, according to the New York Times; others planned to confront executives about policy changes that make it harder for developers to access data about Facebook users.

Under new rules announced last month, for example, developers can no longer see posts by Facebook users and can’t access data from people who haven’t used their apps over the past three months. Facebook is also investigating companies that previously used large amounts of data about their users.