Yahoo Finance Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak is quitting Facebook over data scandal
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak is quitting Facebook saying the social network treats its users a little more than products.
He said he’d rather pay for Facebook than have his personal information exploited for advertising.
In an interview with USA Today, Wozniak said: “Users provide every detail of their life to Facebook and … Facebook makes a lot of advertising money off this.
“The profits are all based on the user’s info, but the users get none of the profits back.”
MORE: Has your data been leaked by Facebook? You’re about to find out
Facebook has been dogged by accusations it has been careless, at best, with how it handles users’ information.
It is facing a huge backlash over the Cambridge Analytica scandal, where the British-based political consultancy was able to harvest details of tens of millions of users behind their backs.
Wozniak told the newspaper that he had deactivated his account, but did not delete it in order to keep control over his “SteveWoz” screen name.
MORE: Data academic says he’s being made a ‘scapegoat’ by Facebook and Cambridge Analytica
He added: “Apple makes its money off of good products, not off of you. As they say, with Facebook, you are the product.”
In a goodbye message, he wrote: “It’s brought me more negatives than positives.”
He is the latest high profile Silicon Valley figure to take aim at Mark Zuckerberg’s social media giant.
Current Apple boss Tim Cook had a dig at Facebook last month, saying: “We don’t subscribe to the view that you have to let everybody in that wants to, or if you don’t, you don’t believe in free speech. We don’t believe that.”
MORE: Explainer – What are the links between Cambridge Analytica and a Brexit campaign group?
Also last month, Tesla CEO Elon Musk not only quit Facebook, he also pulled the pages for Tesla, SpaceX and SolarCity.
And Brian Acton, a co-founder of WhatsApp, bought by Facebook for £16m in 2014, urged people to delete Facebook in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica revelations.
For his part, Zuckerberg has apologised to users for not taking greater care of how their details were protected and where they were shared, and with whom.
He has indicated he is willing to front up to US Congress but has snubbed British MPs, instead sending a senior Facebook executive to answer a questions from a Parliamentary committee.
An estimated 87 million users, including about 1 million in the UK, will learn today if their information was hoovered up by Cambridge Analytica.
