This post was made on 10/12/2018.
Google announced that it’s shutting down it’s social network Google+ in the next 10 months. Google also conveniently announced right after this that there was a security flaw that revealed the data of over 500,000 users.
The security flaw allowed third-party app developers to access your data. But not only can these third-party developers access your data, they can access all of your friends data on Google+.
The reason Google is shutting down Google+ is because of low user activity. Google really had a big push for Google+, after the launch in 2011, by forcing people who wanted to make a Gmail account to make Google+ account as well. They removed having to sign in to Google+ to make a Gmail in 2014 after many users complained about needing a Google+ account to even make an email. Google always tried to force Google+ down peoples throat by forcing users to sign in to it to use some of their other products. They tried to integrate Google+ into: YouTube, Google Maps, Google Photos, Google search, and many more Google services. These we’re attempts to get people to use their social media service more and be a liable competitor to other social media platforms like; Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, etc.
It’s no surprise that Google+ is shutting down because of the low user engagement, but announcing that they had a major security flaw after this, is just scummy. Google+ was a failure of a social media platform, the people who made it knew that, the users knew that and even Google knew that, so it was only inevitable that Google+ would eventually shut down. But Google essentially announcing “Hey we’re shutting down Goggle+, also there was a major security flaw that may or may not have revealed your data. Bye!” is not a good way of announcing this! If there was a major security flaw in your platform, the users should know about this as soon as possible, not as your shutting down your platform.
Google likely did this after seeing what happened to Facebook over the 2016 presidential elections and figured it would be best to kill it’s dying platform in order to try and limit the bad public relations they are going to get for this. Google and other social media giants, should be held more accountable with what they decide to do with our data and where it goes. We should not have to worry if our data is being misused to trick or manipulate us into whatever these third-parties please. Social media companies are going to have to be strict with who they give our data to if they don’t want another scandal like the Facebook 2016 presidential election scandal to happen again.
Sources:
Cyberleech 