BetterHelp and Facebook

[davidthecoder]

When I first sought help for my Generalized Anxiety Disorder, I bought into the marketing hype of BetterHelp (they advertise everywhere since 2020).

I mentioned to my therapist on there how much I dislike Facebook because they collect far to much data on its users, so that they can generate more targeted advertisements. It is creepy.

I stopped using BetterHelp because their introductory discount expired and it wasn't really doing much for me.

Then I find out a few months later that BetterHelp was fined $7.3 million dollars by the FTC for selling sensitive health information to, you guessed it, Facebook.

Here is the official source on that: ftc.gov/news-events/news/pr...

That is right, Facebook seeks to buy your very private information from 3rd parties. I noticed that I started receiving advertisements on there regarding my anxiety.

So I deleted my Facebook account, and now people barely talk to me. Also, when I mentioned this before leaving, I was gaslighted and treated like it didn't matter. The post received no engagement and was buried by pictures of people smiling at the beach, living perfect lives. I think their algorithm detected that I was speaking negatively about their service, so they likely reduced the visibility of my post. Sneaky.

[Thankfulforhelp22]

Wow. Thanks for the heads up.

[davidthecoder in reply to Thankfulforhelp22]

You are welcome. I will always spread the word about this, because I still see them aggressively promoting themselves. While they are no longer able to legally do this, it is clear to me that the business people that are running that company only saw those that were suffering as an opportunity make money.

Also worth mentioning that if you delete your Facebook account, they are able to retain all data that they have collected on a person for 6 months. It is in their terms of service. But after those six months expire, they must delete it all. I left around 8 months ago now, so I feel some relief knowing that the years of private information that they had should be off their servers.

[Arymretep]

Facebook is scary, I’ve keep away from it 👍

[PourSomeSugarOnMe]

I first heard about these "therapists" from instahuns and I have to say, I didn’t think too highly off them especially hearing other people who have sought help from them but that is shocking to read. It’s great that you’ve made others aware so thank you