Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak: 'Get off Facebook'
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak is advising social media users to "figure out a way to get off Facebook."
Wozniak made the comment to TMZ at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport in Virginia last week when asked about whether people should be concerned about privacy around devices like smartphones.
“I’m worried about everything,” he said. “I don’t think we can stop it … They can listen to you with a lot of devices. Who knows if my cellphone’s listening right now?”
Wozniak pointed to new technology that can be used to monitor things like a person’s heartbeat, as well as reports about conversations recorded by devices like Amazon’s Alexa. Amazon recently defended its consumer privacy practices amid inquiries from Capitol Hill.
“I worry because you have conversations that you think are private or you think are to yourself,” Wozniak said. “You’re saying words that shouldn’t be listened to because you don’t expect it, but there’s almost no way to stop it.”
Wozniak used to work for Facebook but left the company and deleted his account last year over concerns about how Facebook was using private data.
“If you post something and I like it, I check it, I ‘like’ it,” he told TMZ. But the trouble is, my like’s not going to you. In my head it is, but my like is going to the advertisers.”
He suggested that companies should give customers the option for increased privacy.
“Let me pay a certain amount and you’ll keep my data more secure and private than … handing it to advertisers,” Wozniak said.
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Facebook has been trying to move toward greater privacy for its users. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said earlier this year that it is encouraging users to rely more on groups and private messages.
Fox Business' Brittany De Lea and The Associated Press contributed to this report.