Nah. In a week all of this will be forgotten (do you still remember the helicopter in the river, and the bridge that collapsed?). You and me and a few more people will remember, but we all already know that everything that is posted privately on Facebook will be leaked sooner or later.
I even expect to see a few angry post from people that decided to delete their account now, and when they tried to undelete the account after a few weeks they surprisingly discover that all the old information was missing and Facebook can't recover it because it is deleted.
fake quote > If they used Windows instead of Linux, they could have send the account to the Recycler Bin, and recover it now.
I thought the same a week ago. Nearly bought some FB calls even. But this controversy has surprised me with its staying power.
The real sizzle comes not from the emotional outrage but the calls for government inquiry and potential regulation, which would do structural damage to all of Silicon Valley. This has been a stunningly bipartisan effort, the left supporting it ostensibly because they like regulating big businesses, and the right supporting it because they (perhaps correctly) see Silicon Valley megacorps as adversaries.
I don't think anybody expects this surge of anti-Facebook articles to continue indefinitely. Personally I'm just hoping that all of this makes people dislike the company just enough to shatter the illusion of usefulness. Plenty of people will still heavily use Facebook, but if we can pull even 5% of the technologically-aware, that's a smidgen of influence that Facebook no longer has and a chunk of people who no longer serve as lures for others to join.
It's not going to happen quickly, but if this awareness gains momentum a much more healthy (federated, preferably open source) social media site could have a higher chance of survival. I think that's worth something.
