Influential tech writer Walt Mossberg quits Facebook

NEW YORK (FOX 5 NY) - Walt Mossberg, the elder statesman of tech columnists, sent shock waves Monday when he announced he is quitting Facebook.

"Because my own values and the policies and actions of Facebook have diverged to the point where I'm no longer comfortable there," he tweeted.

The highly influential Mossberg's unfriending of Facebook surprised many people. But not Tom's Guide editor-in-chief Mark Spoonauer.

"I think there's a lot of people who are just fed up with Facebook and all the scandals," Spoonauer said. "It seems like there's one every other day."

The team at Tom's Guide is preparing its annual Worst Tech Fails edition. At the top for 2018 is Facebook for reasons that include two consecutive data breaches where hackers accessed the personal information of tens of millions of Facebook users.

"And then just this week we found out there was over 6.8 million people—their photos were exposed," Spoonauer said. "So at this point, I think people are becoming numb to all the issues that Facebook."

The company also came under fire for not doing enough to prevent voter suppression attempts, fake news and other intimidation tactics to influence voters leading up to the midterm elections.

Some critics are wondering if Mark Zuckerberg should remain at the helm.

"Every time he's in front of the camera it seems like it's a deer-in-the-headlights effect, where he doesn't necessarily seem to understand the impact of what's happening with user trust," Spoonauer said. "It would be wise to install someone else at the top who really understands users and, frankly, just better interacting with us."