Playboy deletes Facebook page over handling of users’ data

Adult magazine Playboy has deleted all of its Facebook accounts amid an ongoing national backlash against the social media company, which is accused of allowing a data firm to access the profiles of millions of users without their permission.

In a press release Wednesday, the magazine ripped Facebook for stifling its content while seemingly allowing other companies to exploit user data on a whim.

{mosads}”For years, it has been difficult for Playboy to express our values on Facebook due to its strict content and policy guidelines. We have been faced with the only alternative being to alter Playboy’s voice in order to meet Facebook’s views of what is and is not appropriate on its platform,” a statement from the magazine reads.

“While that has challenged our business objectives and the ability to reach our audience in an authentic way, the recent news about Facebook’s alleged mismanagement of users’ data has solidified our decision to suspend our activity on the platform at this time,” the statement continues.

Playboy’s accounts, which the release claims totaled more than 25 million unique users across Facebook, were deleted early Wednesday morning as the company joins Tesla CEO Elon Musk and others in striking their presence from the world’s most popular social network.

Fury has grown across the site’s estimated 1.8 billion users after it was revealed that Cambridge Analyitica, the Trump campaign’s data firm during the 2016 presidential race, used a third-party app to obtain private data from more than 50 million Facebook users, most without their consent.

The Federal Trade Commission announced on Monday that it would investigate the social media company over the site’s data privacy practices.