Privacy experts say numerous Canadians are taking to other social media platforms to join in on the #DeleteFacebook hashtag in the wake of recent revelations about the potential for their personal information to be mined for political gain. You’re being manipulated.”University of Toronto marketing professor David Soberman said there has been increasing awareness about the risk of political operatives using social media tactics to sway elections. In an increasingly interconnected world, he said, what happens in one jurisdiction can signal what will happen in another, so all Canadians have to do is look to their southern neighbours to understand that social media meddling can have sweeping political consequences. But as the potential loopholes in Facebook’s privacy measures become harder to ignore, those seemingly abstract privacy concerns have come to feel more concrete for many social media users, Smit said. The newspaper reports said Facebook first learned of the leak more than two years ago, but didn’t disclose it until now.

Source: National Post March 21, 2018 22:52 UTC