Nick Winke, a photographer in the Pacific Northwest, was perusing internet forums when he came across a complaint that alarmed him: On certain Samsung Electronics Co. smartphones, users aren't allowed to delete the Facebook app.
Winke bought his Samsung Galaxy S8, an Android-based device that comes with Facebook's social network already installed, when it was introduced in 2017. He has used the Facebook app to connect with old friends and to share pictures of natural landscapes and his Siamese cat — but he didn't want to be stuck with it. He tried to remove the program from his phone, but the chatter proved true — it was undeletable. He found only an option to "disable," and he wasn't sure what that meant.
"It just absolutely baffles me that if I wanted to completely get rid of Facebook that it essentially would still be on my phone, which brings up more questions," Winke said in an interview. "Can they still track your information, your location, or whatever else they do? We the consumer should have say in what we want and don't want on our products."
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.