Skip to content
Join our Newsletter

Three-quarters of users say data mining scandal has changed their Facebook habits

Angus Reid survey finds 10 per cent of Canadian Facebook users plan on abandoning the platform altogether
facebook fallout
Recent news of Facebook’s ties to U.K. data firm Cambridge Analytica have users rethinking their relationship with the social media giant.

Recent revelations that a U.K. data firm surreptitiously gathered data from 50 million Facebook users has changed how many Canadians view the social media giant.

According to a recent survey by the Angus Reid Institute, nearly three-quarters of Facebook users in Canada say they’ll make at least some changes to how they interact with the ubiquitous social media platform, which also owns Instagram and among other companies, 27 per cent say they’ll keep using Facebook as usual, and 10 per cent say they plan on abandoning the platform altogether.

Fifty per cent of British Columbians use Facebook on a daily basis but despite a high usage rate, the company isn’t leaving a positive impression on many. Survey results show that in B.C. 44 per cent said that the company has a negative influence on public discourse, slightly higher than the nation-wide rate of 35 per cent.

And while almost half of survey respondents from this province, 45 per cent, said the news in the last month has worsened their opinion of Facebook, 52 per cent said their opinion had stayed the same and only three per cent said it had improved.

Earlier this month, Victoria native 28-year-old Christopher Wylie blew the whistle on Facebook and U.K. data firm Cambridge Analytica who, according to a Times Colonist report, has been quoted as saying the company “took fake news to the next level” by using personal data to build psychological profiles of people, then bombarding them with information crafted to change their idea of reality.

Canada’s privacy commissioners has launched an investigation into the matter, an investigation that B.C.’s acting information and privacy commissioner, Drew McArthur, has said he will monitor.

The news has put the majority of Facebook users in B.C. on alert with more than half saying they will make changes to how they use the social media platform — 37 per cent said they will keep using Facebook but check and/or change their privacy settings, 27 per cent say they will use it less in the future, seven per cent said they will suspend their account or take a break from Facebook and five per cent said they plan on deleting their Facebook account.

@JessicaEKerr

jkerr@vancourier.com