For those people that were leery of Facebook and then became even more skeptical about their privacy as Mark Z sat in front of congress, there were a few other social media platforms available. Google+ attempted to take over the FB Fear Frenzy, but failed in multiple ways, including a data breach that was not reported, and user numbers that would not reach the expected.
The giant is finally closing Google+, the social network it set up in an ill-fated attempt to take on Facebook, the company has confirmed. Google+ will be shut down for good on April 2, 2019 with all profiles and pages to be deleted on that day.
The announcement has caused confusion among some Google users; the company made it easy for people to create a Google+ page by accident, leaving many unaware they had joined the social network in the first place. Below are some questions and answers that might be useful for you:
What is being deleted?
Any Google+ pages you created, as well as photos and videos stored in your Google+ album archive. The deletion does not affect other Google services. Photos and videos stored in Google Photos, for instance, will not be affected. Your Google account, which is linked to services such as Gmail, YouTube and Maps, will continue to work, but your Google+ account, which was only used for the social network, will be deleted.
How can I tell if I have a Google+ account?
Google should have emailed you telling you that “your personal Google+ account is going away on 2 April 2019”.
If you are still unsure, you can check at plus.google.com. When you log in using your Google account details and still have a button on the left side of the screen that says “Join Google+”, then you are not a member of the social network and nothing will be deleted.
Why is Google doing this?
The company’s official explanation is that it decided to shutter the site “due to low usage and challenges involved in maintaining a successful product that meets consumers’ expectations”. Those “challenges” probably include a data leak in the social network that it discovered in March 2018 but did not disclose 6 months.
That leak “potentially affected up to 500,000 accounts”, allowing third-party applications to access information marked as private, although Google said it had found “no evidence that any profile data was misused”.
I don’t care about Google+. What do I need to do?
Nothing. If you have a Google+ account but have never used it – which is easy, because for many years Google all but forced users to create an account to access common functions such as the ability to comment on YouTube videos – then you can sit back and let it be deleted in two months’ time.
I use Google+. How can I save my uploaded content?
First, I don’t believe you. Second, Google has a page you can visit to download all your data from Google+. Other social media platforms allow for import of your Google+ download; visit those sites for more information.
Replacing Google+
So now that you have your Google+ download, where can you move your data to? There are a number of Social Media platforms besides Facebook. My next article will be discussing the top Social Media platforms for you!
