INQUISITR.COM / News & Politics

Playboy’s Cooper Hefner Unfriends Facebook: Deletes FB Page Citing Data Breach Scandal

By Samantha Chang
Published on: 21:47 PST, Mar 27, 2018

Playboy chief creative officer Cooper Hefner said the company deleted its Facebook page amid the ongoing data-breach scandal, saying the platform’s “sexually repressive” policies have long contradicted its values.

“Facebook’s content guidelines and corporate policies continue to contradict our values,” the son of the late Playboy founder Hugh Hefner announced on Twitter and Instagram.

“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 US 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 that we must leave the platform.”

Playboy joins a growing chorus of corporations and individuals that are part of the mushrooming #DeleteFacebook movement.

Billionaire Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, deleted his Facebook pages last week, saying he distrusts how the social media platform handles consumer data.

Facebook is accused of improperly allowing data analysis firm Cambridge Analytica to access personal data on 50 million users without their consent. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is investigating, as are authorities in the U.K., where Cambridge Analytica is based.

Facebook could be fined $40,000 a day per violation if the FTC determines that it breached a 2011 consent decree under which FB agreed to obtain permission and notify users before sharing their data with third parties.

In deleting the Facebook pages of his companies Tesla and SpaceX, Elon Musk said he simply doesn’t like Facebook because it gives him the creeps.

“It’s not a political statement and I didn’t do this because someone dared me to do it,” Musk tweeted. “Just don’t like Facebook. Gives me the willies. Sorry.”

Besides, Musk said his companies never advertised on Facebook, saying a product or service should succeed or fail based on its merits and not depend on expensive marketing campaigns.

“We’ve never advertised with FB,” Musk pointed out. “None of my companies buy advertising or pay famous people to fake endorse. Product lives or dies on its own merits.”

Actor Will Ferrell also deleted his account, saying “I can no longer, in good conscience” continue to use Facebook after it breached the public’s trust.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been under fire in recent weeks as the Cambridge Analytica scandal has widened. Zuckerberg recently took out full-page ads in several major newspapers, apologizing for the data breach.

However, the backlash has been fierce, as longtime Facebook users expressed outrage that the social media giant had basically sold their personal data to third parties for profit. Also raising eyebrows are reports that Zuckerberg has been rabidly selling off Facebook stock.

Since the start of 2018, Zuckerberg has dumped 4.9 million Facebook shares. “That was the most insider selling for any public company, going back as far as three months,” according to Argus Research’s Vickers Weekly Insider.

Share this article: Playboy’s Cooper Hefner Unfriends Facebook: Deletes FB Page Citing Data Breach Scandal
More from Inquisitr