Social media sites that the people once had trust in are proving time and time again that the people should not trust them. Facebook has been in the heat of the public since the 2016 election. The social media site that has been used by a big portion of the population to keep in touch with old friends, was guilty of meddling in the 2016 election. Facebook is not the only social media platform that was involved in scandals. Google is a trusty search engine that answers any question in less than a second. In 2017, an engineer for Google sent out a sexist memo and was therefore fired immediately.

​

Facebook and Google are now in the headlines for secret location tracking. Both social media platforms have lawsuits filed against them for secretly storing location while the users have no knowledge. Both Facebook and Google have deceived people into thinking their location services were off while they were still collecting data.

​

After the 2016 election scandal, Facebook has been advertising they are not misusing their users’ information all over the world. Most users see these advertisements and become more confident in using Facebook again. Meanwhile, Facebook was secretly tracking all users’ locations. By switching the switch from gather location information to stop gathering location on Facebook, most users would think their location is not being recorded even though it still was. Facebook deliberately created the option to stop sharing location to create the assumption that the users had a choice when in reality they did not. Facebook was tracking everyone’s location in the “Location History” which kept a record of where the users went. Facebook then used this information to help advertise to their audience.

​

Facebook is not the only social media site to deceive their audience, as mentioned before. Like Facebook, Google too had a lawsuit filed against the corporation for deceiving the public into thinking their locations are not being recorded. Google gives the option to “pause” location tracking but records locations in “Location History” regardless. After users “pause” their location tracking, Google Search and Google Maps both still continue to record location information. Unlike Facebook, there is an option to actually turn location services off on Google. The setting to actually turn location services off is under “Web and App Activity”. Google never points their users to actually turning their location off, deliberately secretly tracking their users’ locations.

​

Facebook and Google are facing the consequences for misleading their users into believing their locations were not being recorded. In this world of technology, it is not easy to be a ghost online and not be tracked. Most websites are tracking everything their users do, and most people do not know how to turn those settings off. Facebook and Google have deliberately been tracking locations with no intent on telling their users they are doing such. These lawsuits were filed not because they are tracking their audiences’ locations, but because they were misleading their users into believing they weren’t.