Internet Privacy Group Organizes ‘Delete Facebook’ Protests for Zuckerberg Hearings

A group calling itself a “worldwide leader in Virtual Private Network research and statistics” organized protests on Capitol Hill, at Facebook’s headquarters in California, and at its campus in Austin, Texas, “to advocate for consumer privacy rights and online security.”

“Zuckerberg is absurd,” anti-Facebook protesters dressed as Spiderman and the Easter Bunny chanted on the grounds of the Capitol on Tuesday.

“What do we want?” “Privacy!” When do we want it?” “Now!” the protestors chanted.

Cheyenne Williams was one of the protesters who said she was taking part because she blames Zuckerberg for the data breach that led to some 87 million Facebook users’ information to be mined and for making money on that breach.

“We want that to stop now,” Williams said. “He needs to make changes.”

“We deserve the right to our privacy and our information,” Williams said.

One of the protest organizers with VPN.com distributed a press release that said, in the aftermath of the Cambridge Analytica scandal that allowed millions of Facebook users’ data to be compromised, the social media platform could not fix its problems.

It also noted some of the high-profile companies that have deleted Facebook, including Mozilla, Tesla, and WhatsUp.

On its Facebook page, VPN.com states that the social media platform may not be capable of “fully reigning in the beast they themselves created.”

Since the scandal broke Zuckerberg has said there will be new policies moving forward which will place greater restrictions on exactly how external apps collect data and where it goes once they’ve got it. Given that the company was initially made aware of the breach in 2015 and still haven’t done anything about it until now however, one can only assume that not even Facebook or its engineers are capable of fully reigning in the beast they themselves created.

Organizers said protests would take place in all three locations on Tuesday as Zuckerberg testifies in the House.

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