Facebook’s Libra project is about combining online shopping and making other online financial transactions right on the Facebook platform, whilst using only a single digital currency as acceptable mode of payment. Facebook would call its own kind of cryptocurrency as Libra.
The mechanics looks appealing as it will make Facebook a one-stop-shop environment where people can communicate, meet, shop and transact at the same time. However, there is just one important problem that Facebook will find difficult to hurdle: lack of trust among Facebook users.
The general perception is that the social media site lacks the capability and diligence to prevent the certain forces in the Internet from gaining access to FB-Libra user’s financial information and activities if ever.
Why Many Consider the Facebook Libra Project as Untrustworthy
When Facebook revealed its “Project Libra” sometime in June, it instantly projected a picture in which people living ordinary lives will finally have a chance to dip its hands into the growing world of cryptocurrency. The project looked appealing because it made the process of dealing with cryptocurrency so convenient and at the same time not so complicated.
Yet that is exactly the problem, Project Libra seems all too easy, which if handled by a social media site like Facebook is too risky. After all, not a few million users have had the experience of getting their FB accounts hacked, or the security of their personal information breached.
Technology websites like Tech Republic can present a decade-long list of privacy information breach that the Facebook platform allowed to transpire through the years.
The worst and the most recent was the one carried out by a political consulting and strategic communications company called Cambridge Analytica. The firm was able to gather personally identifiable information from 87 million users who were enticed to take a personality quiz called “This is Your Life.”
The U.S. Congress, through the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs held a hearing in which FB Messenger Exec David Marcus and supposed head of the Libra project launch, was grilled on all sides. The hearing ended with Committee Chairman, Senator Maxine Waters, requesting the social media company not to go ahead with the Libra launch until such time that proper legislation governing cryptocurrency operations are in place.
Recent Poll Shows Only 2% of People Surveyed Trust Facebook’s Project Libra
A recent survey conducted by US-based CivicScience involving 1,799 American adults showed that 77% do not trust Facebook with their personal information, while only 2% put a lot of trust on Facebook.
The survey also revealed that when it comes to trusting Facebook’s Libra Project, at least 40% of those who responded say they had less trust in Libra over whatever trust they have for cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.
