Facebook is a platform with millions of people and millions of uses. This is all easy and useful, but nothing is all good. There are many limitations and also many cons to Facebook. Recently, Facebook has been under the spotlight for reason they may want to hide from the public. The data and personal information of millions of users has been sold to Cambridge Analytica. A British data collecting company. Also it has been said that it altered the presidential election of president Donald Trump. Facebook’s creator and major share-holder, Mark Zuckerburg stands trial today in order to try and save Facebook about 3.3 billion dollars. Although this all sounds very bad, the pros out weighs the cons.

Pros

It’s easy to use and very helpful for many teens

Many teens use social media in order to post pictures about their lifestyle or share information with their friends. Facebook is very simple and easy way for teens to be able to share their memories with loved ones and their peers.

It’s more than just social media

Facebook allows users to see their friends and peer’s birthdays and it allows them to see where their friends are to plan meetings and social events.

It keeps teens updated on news and provides a lot of information

Facebook is good for sharing information, but it also good for being updated on news and information on their passions (ex: sports, arts, politics…etc). Facebook has started many movements and raised millions of dollars for people in need.

Meeting new people

Meeting new people on social media is a good way to make friends in a new area or for dating. Facebook is the perfect platform in order to do so. It has millions of users and tons of potential friends and maybe even future husband and wife.

Promoting products for many businesses

Many businesses use Facebook to promote products and also to make money within the platform itself. Often times, this is their ONLY source of promoting products for the companies who can’t afford adds.

Cons

Fake Accounts

On any social media platform there is usually the problem of fake accounts to create an identity which is not the one of the person’s creating the account. Fake accounts could be used to ruin someone else’s image, stalk others, get data from people who wouldn’t share the data with the persons personal account. Like most social media companies, Facebook also has this problem. Only, they have the press and the government snapping at their heels, while ignoring the fact that almost every social media platform has this same problem. Mark Zuckerberg needs to address that many other companies have this same problem and there is almost no way around it because you can never tell who is real or not. Also, as security increases, hacking technology advances and becomes more capable.

Verbal Abuse

Verbal abuse is something looked down upon be society and in Facebook’s case, the government. Unfortunately, there is simply no way around it. People disagree with one another. There simply isn’t a way to moniter every single person’s conversations. There are too many.

There is no way that Facebook should be fined for insecure data. Well, definitely not 3.3 billion. This is the responsibility of the people who are using their accounts because they created it and they choose whether their information is publicized.

<Josh Kim St. Francis HS 9th Grade>