Following much of the recent Facebook privacy and data scandal over the past several days, 1–4 today I deleted 169 of 184 apps which had access to all or parts of my Facebook data. Often many of them also had access to data by proxy of my family, friends, and acquaintances.

Of those apps still remaining, 7 are apps that I’ve made personally, and the remainder solely help me export data from Facebook. Short of quitting the platform altogether, this feels like a good first step to limiting the data that I leak into the platform and their partners.

For several years now I’ve been posting content to my own personal website first and syndicating it to Facebook secondarily. Few, if any, of these old apps need any legitimate access to my account anymore presuming that they ever really did.

Want to do an audit of your own app access and make a similar purge? The IndieWeb community has some resources for doing so quickly. Looking for a better place to own and better control your own data? They can help there too.

References

1.

Graham-Harrison E, Cadwalladr C. Revealed: 50 million Facebook profiles harvested for Cambridge Analytica in major data breach. the Guardian. Published March 17, 2018. Accessed March 20, 2018.

2.

Rosenberg, M, Confessore N, Cadwalladr C. How Trump Consultants Exploited the Facebook Data of Millions. The New York Times. Published March 17, 2018. Accessed March 20, 2018.

3.

Grewal P. Suspending Cambridge Analytica and SCL Group from Facebook | Facebook Newsroom. Facebook Newsroom. Published March 16, 2018. Accessed March 20, 2018.

4.

Madrigal AC. What Took Facebook So Long? The Atlantic. Published March 10, 2016. Accessed March 20, 2018.