Facebook Monitoring Your Reactions To Serve You Ads, Warn Belgian Police (independent.co.uk)

An anonymous reader writes: Belgian police have asked citizens to shun Facebook's "Reactions" buttons to protect their privacy. In February, five new "Reaction" buttons were added next to the "Like" button to allow people to display responses such as sad, wow, angry, love and haha. According to reports, police said Facebook is able to use the tool to tell when people are likely to be in a good mood -- and then decide when is the best time to show them ads. "The icons help not only express your feelings, they also help Facebook assess the effectiveness of the ads on your profile," a post on Belgian's official police website read.The Independent reports: "By limiting the number of icons to six, Facebook is counting on you to express your thoughts more easily so that the algorithms that run in the background are more effective," the post continues. "By mouse clicks you can let them know what makes you happy. "So that will help Facebook find the perfect location, on your profile, allowing it to display content that will arouse your curiosity but also to choose the time you present it. If it appears that you are in a good mood, it can deduce that you are more receptive and able to sell spaces explaining advertisers that they will have more chance to see you react."

Comments

Duh.

[MightyYar]

It doesn't get any less news than this.

Re:Duh.

[geekmux]

It doesn't get any less news than this.

Actually, the news here isn't what, it's who, as in the Belgian Police.

Can anyone explain to me how analyzing Facebook algorithms that drive ad tactics is part of their overall charter to serve and protect?

While Facebook discerns when you're in a good mood about a particular topic or subject in order to serve ads, the Thought Police appear to be involved in this so they know when you're in a bad mood about specific topics or subjects.

Is there a more logical explanation...

Re:Duh.

[Racemaniac]

the Belgian government is a bit at war with Facebook atm. They started an lawsuit against facebook since it was also tracking non users via its plugins everywhere, which of course is not allowed. In return you now can't see any facebook page anymore from a belgian ip address unless you are logged in.
So this is another step in the fight of the governement against the privacy breaches of facebook.

Privacy is taken serious here :).

Re:Duh.

[SilenceBE]

Can anyone explain to me how analyzing Facebook algorithms that drive ad tactics is part of their overall charter to serve and protect?

Their computer crime unit regularly post things regarding privacy, IT scam's, etc. People tend to listen more to them then when some random nerd says something. Also some European countries do try to PROTECT people's privacy and aren't completely run by corporations.

Because it's safer and easier than actually going outside and catching criminals or, heaven forbid, terrorists.

Seeing that it is their computer crime departement that handles these things that may be not the best idea. What are they going to do ? Catch terrorist by throwing their Magic Mouse's to them ?

Re:Duh.

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Can anyone explain to me how analyzing Facebook algorithms that drive ad tactics is part of their overall charter to serve and protect?

Protecting citizens from powerful forces is kinda the point of a police. Motorcycle gang or Facebook, they are supposed to protect you.

Captain Obvious

[GrooveNeedle]

I see Captain Obvious is in charge of the Belgian police.

Everything Facebook does is to support its ad-based revenue model. "More options for users" is not the same as "more options for the customer", since the users with profiles are not the customer, the ad agencies are.

STOP USING FACEBOOK

[kheldan]

Haven't you people got the message yet? Go back to email lists or (gasp!) telephone calls to stay in touch with people. After you exclude the fake online-only friends, most people will be down to about a dozen anyway, easy enough to manage.

I do not fear ads

[allo]

I do not fear ads. Even without adblocker. Let them tailor the ads.

I fear their control over me and me losing control.
First just the usability. I fear, that they optimize my timeline and stuff so i miss things, which i wanted to see (because i want to see what i subscribed for, not what facebook thinks which is relevant to me)
Seconds, the control. Serve me more of the one side, less of the other one. You may be able to manipulate me that way. Hide stuff, make it harder to find ... and people will read it less. Emphasise it and more people will click, read and notice.

Optimizing ads is a business model i could accept. Even using my content and feeding it into the systems of the advertisers would be okay in a perfect world, where i can be sure it is never used out of scope. There would be no problem with data collections, even ones which are never deleted, if it would be clear, that they never leak, get abused or change scope. An advertiser with a whole dossier about me would be no danger, if i could be sure he won't cooperate with the next facebook to lead me to the "correct" political articles.

But in the real world, data is collected, then it's minded and used for whatever idea somebody has. It's sold and bought and the ToS said they are allowed to do so. The new startup buys it as soon as it has enough money and they know you even before you sign up. And they use it to make you sign up, not just to tailor ads to you. They use it to sell you things (you would not have bought otherwise) or make you pay in other ways.
And finally there are political actors, which make companies use the data in their sense. If it's just telling them which policial claim will get them popularity or if it's serving you the correct content to form your opinion ... you do not know.