NBC’s Kasie Hunt deleting Facebook account over privacy concerns

NBC News correspondent and MSNBC host Kasie Hunt announced Wednesday that she would be deleting her Facebook account, citing privacy concerns.
“I’ve been thinking about this for quite some time as story after story has been written about how the people who own this platform use the information we voluntarily give them in the pursuit of maintaining friendships and connections,” she wrote on her account.
“Unfortunately, I simply don’t trust them any more. I won’t be staying on the platform in 2019,” she said, adding that for now she would continue to use Facebook-owned Instagram.
I’m out. @facebook pic.twitter.com/U9LXC3D1Zj
— Kasie Hunt (@kasie) December 19, 2018
Hunt included a link in her post to a New York Times report from Tuesday night that found that Facebook granted major tech companies like Microsoft, Amazon and Netflix access to users’ personal data in ways not previously disclosed.{mosads}
The agreements between Facebook and tech companies applied to more than 150 companies, most of which are technology and online retail sites, the Times reported.
“We know we’ve got work to do to regain people’s trust,” Facebook’s director of privacy and public policy, Steve Satterfield, said in a statement to The Hill.
“Protecting people’s information requires stronger teams, better technology, and clearer policies, and that’s where we’ve been focused for most of 2018.”
The company and its embattled executives have defended the site the past two years amid broad concerns about its handling of user data and misinformation campaigns aimed at disrupting the 2016 presidential election that were prevalent on the platform.
In her post Wednesday announcing her departure from Facebook, Hunt also warned against using the platform as a resource for getting news.
“To anyone who uses this as a place to get news, I urge you: DON’T. At all,” she wrote.
“It’s bad for your brain, divides you from your neighbors, and it’s worse for democracy. Read the paper, watch the news, or read websites where people are paid to not make mistakes and hold themselves to a publisher’s higher standard.”
Facebook has frequently been called out for failing to restrict the spread of false stories and information on its site, most notably surrounding misinformation during the 2016 election.
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