With the recent bombshell that the personal information of more than 50 million Facebook profiles was obtained by a political data firm, users are feeling more nervous than ever about their cyber security. Thankfully, Facebook is not taking this troubling development lightly and has leaped to action: The social media company is adding a “Protect My Data” button to users’ profiles that does nothing but feels good to press.
Right on! This is a big step in the right direction.
Starting today, Facebook users can press the “Protect My Data” button to hear an incredibly satisfying ding and see an animation of a lock securing on their screen that has absolutely zero effect on anything, but really feels like you’re stopping third-party data harvesters dead in their tracks. While no message is actually sent to Facebook requesting increased security measures on users’ account, they can click the comforting “Protect My Data” button hundreds or thousands of times if needed, until they feel safe enough to continue using Facebook with the exact same porous security settings they’ve always had.
“Facebook wants all 1.9 billion of our users to feel confident that their personal information is being safeguarded, so hopefully this new ‘Protect My Data’ button, which is essentially a glorified GIF, will give people an unfounded sense of protection from hackers,” explained Mark Zuckerberg in a Facebook post this morning. “And for users who want to feel absolutely certain that their data is safe even though it still won’t be, after 10 straight clicks, a message will pop up with a very deep voice announcing, ‘LOCKDOWN. ULTRA SECURE.’”
Amazing. While cyber security continues to be a major area of concern for Facebook users, it looks like the site is stepping up in a major way to make sure users feel good about using the site. Take note, other websites that store user data, because this is how you make users feel secure!
