Facebook has launched payment systems before that didn’t take off as anticipated, and now it’s pitching Facebook Pay.
The social media giant wants you to give it your private credit card information and connect your credit card or PayPal to your Facebook account. If you agree to connect a credit card to Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram, you can conveniently send and receive money from any of those platforms, anywhere in the world.
Responses on Twitter suggest that many aren’t buying Facebook Pay. There are just too many trust issues based on the Cambridge Analytica data-sharing scandal, security breaches and persistently broken promises by Facebook to do better next time.
“I don’t even trust them enough to have their app on my phone. Imagine connecting my bank account to Zuckerberg…,” one person responded.
“So the Russians can have access to all of our financial info, too,” another tweeted. And this: “Can’t wait to never use it”
Facebook Pay is the logical extension of Facebook’s plan to unify the infrastructure powering its various networks, Engadget reported. Assuming it will fizzle out the way its predecessor, Messenger Payments, did, would be a mistake.
“Advertisers, especially online-only businesses that use Instagram as a storefront, are going to love this,” Daniel Cooper wrote for Engadget. “If you see something on your feed that you like, you could buy it with a single push of a button from inside the same app.”
Facebook reasons that people already use payments across its apps to shop, donate to causes and send money to each other. “Facebook Pay will make these transactions easier while continuing to ensure your payment information is secure and protected,” Facebook said.
It’s the “secure and protected” part that brought Zuckerberg to testify before Congress in 2018 and 2019.
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Facebook has promised to not store or share your payment information with third parties, but it will still be able to examine your transaction history with Facebook Pay.
Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., wants Facebook to hit pause on implementing its global libra cryptocurrency until it resolves other controversies surrounding its impact on consumers and the U.S. political system. The California Democrat has suggested that the company is too big and powerful for the country’s good.
In a 2004 instant message exchange between Mark Zuckerberg and a friend, the Facebook CEO expressed disbelief that so many people would willingly hand over their information to him, as reported by Business Insider. This was in the early days when Facebook had 4,000 members. Here’s part of how the conversation went:
Zuckerberg: Yeah so if you ever need info about anyone at Harvard
Zuckerberg: Just ask.
Zuckerberg: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS
(Redacted Friend’s Name): What? How’d you manage that one?
Zuckerberg: People just submitted it.
Zuckerberg: I don’t know why.
Zuckerberg: They “trust me”
Zuckerberg: Dumb fucks.
Facebook now has 2.41 billion monthly active users as of the second quarter of 2019, making it the world’s biggest social network.
