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Facebook Knows Your Political Preferences (businessinsider.com)

Posted by msmash on from the social-brother dept.

Facebook knows a lot more about its users than they think. For instance, the New York Times reports, the company is categorizing its users as liberal, conservative, or moderate. These details are valuable for advertisers and campaign managers, especially ahead of the election season. From a BusinessInsider report: For some, Facebook is able to come to conclusions about your political leanings easily, if you mention a political party on your page. For those that are less open about politics on social media, Facebook makes assumptions based on pages you like. As The New York Times explained, if you like Ben and Jerry's Facebook page and most of the other people that like that page identify as liberal, Facebook might assume you too are liberal.

3 of 183 comments (clear)

  1. Correction by HaaPoo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Facebook THINKS it Knows Your Political Preferences , i can promise you it is getting it wrong for my preference.

  2. Of course by 31415926535897 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    These days, your political preference is easier to tell than your gender. That's not even factoring into account that they seem to categorize politics into three buckets and gender into over 70.

  3. Re:I wonder how much Facebook knows... by SeaFox · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I wonder how much Facebook knows... about it's non-Users.

    I'm sure Facebook doesn't have any "non-users" in its mind.
    You're either a willing (registered) user or an unwilling (shadow profile) one.