Even Stephen King Finds Facebook Horrific

Stephen King, the author of legendary horror books such as The Shining and It, has officially announced his abandonment of Facebook and the reasons for his decision to ditch the social media. For those who are unaware of Stephen King’s iconic Twitter account, he is known to approach important topics with a blunt, yet easy tone, often causing a positive reception in interactions. With over 5.7 million followers on his Twitter account, basically anything he posts is bound to go viral and that is just what happened when he announced that he was deleting his Facebook. While the idea of Stephen King making a skeptical of deleting his Facebook is comical on the surface, especially due to the irony of telling this to the world on a completely different social media, he presents even more proof towards Facebook’s terrible ethics and how they mistreat their users. 

Why Stephen King is Done With Facebook

In his Twitter post about deleting his Facebook, Stephen King writes, “I'm quitting Facebook. Not comfortable with the flood of false information that's allowed in its political advertising, nor am I confident in its ability to protect its users'  privacy. Follow me (and Molly, aka The Thing of Evil) on Twitter, if you like (@StephenKing)”. Although his post was blunt and matter of fact, it spread around the social media like wildfire and even caught a few different news platform attention. There have been many cases of users announcing their distrust and resentment towards Facebook, but this was one of the first cases that a major public figure spoke on the matter. This announcement caught so much attention not only because celebrities normally do not take the time to randomly discuss their issues with social media, but it also brings the spotlight back to Mark Zuckerberg’s recent hearings with the United States Government regarding Facebook’s misuse of user’s private data. With so many current world issues, it seems as if everyone has forgotten about Facebook’s unethical history, and there has not been an update on the subject since the last hearing. 

For those who are unaware, Facebook has been questioned over the many different ways they gather user information and analytics. Since 2018, there have been endless controversies regarding Facebook’s distribution of user’s private data and how they are able to obtain it in the first place. With Mark Zuckerberg’s hearings on Capitol Hill, he answered questions concerning data breaches, Facebook Messenger’s voice recognition, and even facial recognition with a cool exterior and blasé attitude. Many users have developed a newfound mistrust for the company since these discoveries and have deleted their accounts, while the younger generation on social media abandoned the app due to its inability to keep up with modern and popular social media developments. Celebrities announcing their own distrust for the company may represent Facebook’s official demise, because they reach a gigantic audience of people who look up to them and tend to believe everything they said. 

With many social medias like Instagram and Twitter depending on their celebrity profiles and influencers, this trend demonstrates how people follow those that they look up to. Stephen King is not the first celebrity to publicly bash Facebook and announce the deletion of a giant account. Huge names like Cher, Mark Hamill, and Will Ferrell have also declared their own problems with the social media. While Stephen King’s tweet quickly bashing Facebook and its terrible ethics may be humorous, it also represents the major decline in the social’s relationship with its users. 

 Sierra Joan

@Sierra Swanson

@sierrajoan

@sierrajoan_

@sierrajoan_