FaceApp Is Everyone’s Problem
When you’re mad at “the man,” it’s easier to direct your anger at an actual person: parents, bankers, lawyers, and so on. When you’re heartbroken at how systemic inequality leaves people clinging to the edges of society lest they fall off forever, you may donate a few dollars to a homeless person. And when you’re mad about the tightening noose of surveillance capitalism, fastened so snugly around daily life that even our toilets are hackable and walking outside means you risk appearing in a database, you get mad at FaceApp.
The backlash against FaceApp, which uses artificial intelligence to apply a filter that, journalists and researchers were noting that Wireless Lab, FaceApp’s maker, is in St. Petersburg, Russia. As millions shared their photos to Facebook and Instagram, researchers continued to ring alarm bells about how the app’s privacy policy grants “perpetual” access to photos, including photo uploads of friends or family, regardless of whether these people agreed to the app’s terms of use. And by the time Wireless Lab CEO Yaroslav Goncharov in , Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer was calling for into its data-usage policies.
