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Facebook users are wishing they could hit the “dislike” button on Mark Zuckerberg after discovering their personal data was scraped by a third-party analyst for the past three years.
Initial reports revealed more than 50 million Facebook profiles were inappropriately accessed by Cambridge Analytica, a political data firm that collected things like user identities, friend networks and political preferences. Ahead of Zuckerberg’s congressional testimony over Facebook’s mishandling of user data, the number of compromised accounts rose to 87 million profiles.
As some individuals consider deleting their accounts once and for all, one particular subset of Facebook users have barely reacted to the Cambridge Analytica scandal — small businesses.
Owners have proven they are not concerned about the data leak because Facebook is the last platform they would use to share or store proprietary information about their business or their customers. While some business pages may see followers leaving out of fear of future data leaks, the Cambridge Analytica scandal has little to no impact on a company’s business operations. Here’s why:
1. Businesses are publishing content meant for public consumption.
For small businesses, Facebook represents a free opportunity to grow their customer base and to boost their brand’s visibility. Small businesses use Facebook to show off the size of their community, fishing for as many likes and shares as they can to boost their page’s presence in customer newsfeeds. A whopping 80 percent of small businesses use Facebook to market their products and engage with consumers, unconcerned that their content is subject to third-party data mining.
Compare a small retailer’s business page to the average college student’s account. A college student might share what university she goes to, where…
