News and Commentary

Playboy Explains Why It’s Deleting Facebook

   DailyWire.com

​Playboy has officially decided to #DeleteFacebook, joining the ranks of a few other high-profile companies to do the same, including Tesla, SpaceX, and WhatsApp. While other corporations are citing concerns about the security of user data for their decision to get off the social media platform, Playboy has a slightly more scandalous rationale.

Since The Guardian published its largely overblown “bombshell” exposé providing the account of a former Cambridge Analytica employee-turned-whistleblower who detailed what he described as unethically attained and utilized Facebook user data by the firm that eventually partnered for a time with the Trump campaign, Facebook has been under increased pressure over how it handles user data. Though Mark Zuckerberg has pledged his company’s commitment to clamping down on data mining, the fallout continues, Playboy being the latest to join the #DeleteFacebook movement.

But while Playboy cited its concerns with “exposing” its 25 million fans to potential data mining, it also made clear that its years-long battle with the platform over its ability to express its “values” is a major factor in its decision to “leave the platform.”

“Facebook’s content guidelines and corporate policies continue contradicting our values,” Cooper Hefner announced in a statement posted Wednesday. “We’ve tried to craft our voice for the platform, which in our opinion continues to be sexually repressive. Learning of the recent meddling in a free U.S. election further demonstrates another concern we have of how they handle users’ data — more than 25 million of which are Playboy fans — making it clear to us we must leave the platform.”

Among the “values” Playboy is attempting to promote, of course, is nudity, which Facebook bans. Playboy briefly toyed with actually rejecting its own pro-nudity “value,” ceasing to publish fully nude images starting in 2015, but in 2017 Hefner reversed course and brought the full nudes back.

Related: Mark Zuckerberg: Here’s What Really Happened With Cambridge Analytica, And How We’re Responding

H/T Bloomberg

Got a tip worth investigating?

Your information could be the missing piece to an important story. Submit your tip today and make a difference.

Submit Tip
The Daily Wire   >  Read   >  Playboy Explains Why It’s Deleting Facebook