Photographer Nick Winke from the Pacific Northwest was browsing online forums when he saw a complaint that worried him: Users of some Samsung Electronics Co. cellphones are unable to remove the Facebook app.
When the Samsung Galaxy S8, an Android smartphone with Facebook’s social network pre-installed, was released in 2017, Winke purchased it. He wanted to avoid being stuck with Facebook, but he has used it to stay in touch with old acquaintances and post photos of his Siamese cat and the outdoors. He attempted to delete the app from his phone, but the buzz indicated that it could not be removed. All he could see was the option to “disable,” but he had no idea what that meant.
“It just absolutely baffles me that if I wanted to completely get rid of Facebook that it essentially would still be on my phone, which brings up more questions,” Winke said in an interview. “Can they still track your information, your location, or whatever else they do? We the consumer should have say in what we want and don’t want on our products.”
After Facebook’s information-sharing practices were made public and regulators increased their scrutiny of online data collecting, consumers have become more aware of their digital rights and more watchful of their privacy in the past year. In protest of Facebook’s shortcomings, some users have deactivated their accounts, while others merely want to ensure that they have the choice to do so. Samsung’s agreement to sell phones with a permanent version of Facebook has drawn criticism from many Android phone customers, some of whom are venting on social media.
