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4 percent to 73 percent.” Similarly, the proportion of households that said privacy concerns stopped them from doing certain activities online dropped from 45 percent to 33 percent.

Trust among Americans can also be inferred from user response to Facebook in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. In March of 2018, Facebook estimated that Cambridge Analytica was able to leverage its “academic” research into data on more than 87 million Americans. However, the Cambridge Analytica scandal veered from the traditional data leak narrative in which a hacker illegally obtains information directly from a data controller without their knowledge. Here, victims were shocked to find out that the data they had given their affirmative consent to have taken by a third-party app provider through Facebook had been subsequently provided to an outside third-party to target and create strategies in political campaigns.

Despite the media’s efforts to perpetuate user distrust in Facebook, daily active users (DAU) on Facebook in the U.S has held steady. It seems millions of U.S. Facebook users are either completely oblivious to Facebook’s recent mishaps, or they are simply not concerned. Overall, the platform has gained over five million DAU since the 2016 election. Further, a recent poll reports that more than half of Americans under the age of 53 are either against the regulation of tech companies or believe that any attempts at regulation would make no difference. Many regulatory advocates have responded to this data by arguing that Facebook users are suffering from a “privacy paradox” – understanding the value of privacy but failing to advocate for devices—such as legislation—that would better protect them. However, these regulatory advocates fail to understand the value that users derive from Facebook; they like having their family and friends, photo albums, and messaging all in one place. Most reasonable consumers understand that Facebook is a for-profit enterprise—one that has a legal obligation to maximize value for its shareholders. They understand that data collection and targeted advertising serve as the main drivers of profit whic