It’s Your Data: A Blockchain Solution to Facebook’s Data Stewardship Problem

Abstract. Social Media has quickly become a worldwide phenomenon, acting as a repository for capturing the most intimate levels of human behavior. Many social media companies have discovered ways to exploit users’ desire and willingness to share information, by not only mining, analyzing, profiling and selling user’s data, but also exposing user’s data to malicious cyber-attacks via inadequate and/or antiquated data security protocols. As the line between consent and abuse continues to thin, individuals’ right to privacy has become an important topic for lawmakers in many developed nations. As stewards of user’s data, social media companies have a responsibility to properly use and adequately protect the data entrusted to them by their user communities. In this paper, we examine the impact of Facebook’s irresponsible practices of collecting and sharing user’s data with third-parties and quantify the impact caused by its latest data breaches. Lastly, we propose a blockchain solution, which requires consent and release by users, to circumvent the abuse of data for Facebook’s own purposes