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Most Facebook Users Don't Know That it Records a List of Their Interests, New Study Finds (theverge.com)
Seventy-four percent of Facebook users are unaware that Facebook records a list of their interests for ad-targeting purposes, according to a new study from the Pew Institute. From a report: Participants in the study were first pointed to Facebook's ad preferences page, which lists out a person's interests. Nearly 60 percent of participants admitted that Facebook's lists of interests were very or somewhat accurate to their actual interests, and 51 percent said they were uncomfortable with Facebook creating the list.
They know I am a man that likes women! I have heard that is incredibly unpopular these days.
This link should take you to your Ad Preferences. Be sure to click on both "Interests" and "Advertisers" - and check the sub-tabs.
The shit that shows up there is bizarre. Today FB decided one of my interests was "brake shoes". And in the Advertisers section, I see a significant (literally hundreds) of non-local real estate agents and car dealers. Not sure why I'd be interested in either a car dealer or a realtor several thousand miles from where I actually live. But then, FB decided a couple months ago I live near Fargo ND. (If they really had their shit together, it would be obvious which county I live in NH, given some of the groups I subscribe to.)
I'm interested in kicking little puppies, reminding orphans that they have no parents, and sneaking around sports bars with a TV-B-Gone switching off sets just as a major play is about to complete (everyone needs some danger in their lives)
Signed,
I. P. Freelie
Film at 11. -_-
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
This link should take you to your Ad Preferences
I'm assuming you somehow messed up the syntax for https://www.facebook.com/ads/preferences, I thought a direct link was a good idea so I thought I'd provide it...
Some sections seemed alright, but under travel it thought I was interested in the "Entire Rios Province", somewhere in Argentina - bizarre.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I remember Facebook ad preferences thinking that I was of African-American ancestry even though I wasn't (to my knowledge, anyway).
They all did sign themelves over to a heartless multi-national corporation who's goal is to make money in all ways possible. Do I feel sorry for them? NO. If they aren't aware at this point of what Facebook is really all about, then they are just hopelessly clueless.
That's OK. Resume posting those pictures that you ruin with stupid pseudo-anime cat face filters and challenging each other to IRL fights.
... the worse Facebook looks.
Half of the population has an IQ below 100 and 100 is pretty stupid already. Quelle surprise.
They've been bombarding me with penis enhancement ads. Graphic ones. If they knew I read Slashdot, they probably wouldn't bother, but it's strange that they ban users for showing skin, but not advertisers for showing foreskin.
ok everyone has to post pics of either a penis or pussy all day .....let the fuckers start seeing that all day and how they love it
You can actually download a file of all of the things that facebook has on you(messages, voice messages, videos, pictures, personal details..etc). It was quite a shocking discovery for me after I downloaded it. You can find it by going to settings - your facebook information - download your information. And then you can check what types of info you want. It takes some time for them to compile it all, but that's pretty creepy.
And just what precisely did these sub-morons think was going to happen?
Clearly the "shallow end of the gene pool" is considerably shallower and quite a bit larger than previously imagined ...
It's downright hilarious that all these tech companies have "all this data" and "all this technology" like "AI" or whatever else. Yet their algorithms are absolute fucking garbage.
Facebook probably knows what I had for my "3 squares" today and the amount of "output" that will deliver when I get up tomorrow morning! Of course FB know things like your interests, Jeez it's not hard to scan the number of times an activity is written in your posts or appears in the images you post. They know what you do, who you do it with and probably the last dozen or so times you did it down to the nearest hour! They need it so they can target you with crappy ads for the equipment you need to do your activity, sports gear, photography kit, S&M gear, etc! Whatever you do, they need to know so the ads can flog you stuff to do it with.
Most Facebook users have the attention span of a ferret on bad biker meth, can't be bothered to read (let alone understand) EULAs and Privacy Agreements, and likely doesn't even know what the 'Ad Preferences' page is let alone what's on it. Facebook depends on this ignorance to preserve their salable data stream.
Most people's interests aren't really a secret (except for the ones they might want to hide, and those shouldn't be on FaceBook). People need to stop seeing everything as an opportunity to rant.
Regardless of what things FaceBook may be guilty of, not everything in FB, or in life is out to take advantage of us in some sort of zero-sum game. There are win-win situations being sought as well. I've received ads for books on several occasions that were targeted at me based on other books I had liked. I've found some good ones that way and I'd rather see ads for those than for cookbooks or Harlequin romances.
When I advertised my own books, written for a niche genre, I knew what books had inspired me most, and that people that had enjoyed them were the most likely to enjoy mine. With FB I was able to direct my ads to those people. I got a good response for the money I spent, and got several good reviews (without any negative ones). It seems to me those people were happy they had learned of my books and were pleased with their purchases.
What would be served for anyone in my paying far more just to blindly send a lot more ads to people who wouldn't be the least bit interested? That's not a win for them or for me.
What the study actually found was that 74% of Facebook users are idiots.
Sign in so we can show you ads better targeted at You!
No shit, Facebook thinks people care about that. Extremely curious when the whipper-snappers will wake up and just talk to their friends.
I regularly visit my ad preferences to remove and even add things that make sense. This way, I get advertisements for things that I actually want, like new book releases, offers from cloud computing companies, and sales on education classes.
Sure, they're 'advertisements' from those companies, but if I'm going to see ads, I'd rather see ads for things that actually interest me and keep me informed about new products that I can research more information about later.
I would argue that people who still use Facebook don't know much at all...about anything.
The headline is not suggesting otherwise, is it?
is going to do ads and needs your profile to do ads.
Social media is free as you are the product getting sold and used.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
A simple browser extension called "FB Purity" will make it so you never see another ad on Facebook. So I don't really care that Facebook knows that I like 1930's gypsy jazz and 1970s auteur films, because any ad they target me with is gonna be vaporized long before I see it, so fuck them. And it does a lot more than that to make Facebook more useful, too.
Seriously, try this extension.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Remember, Facebook wants to monetize you whether you use them or not. They still collect information on people who have deleted their FB accounts or never ever had one in the first place. Not all of it is public information, as they trade or buy from their "partners". Someday I would like to see a full list of all these "partners" to see what percentage of the Fortune 500 are there, let alone the Russell 2000.
I didn't know there was anyone here still on Facebook!
Good work keeping your powder dry for those non-issues.
"Most Facebook Users Don't Know That it Records a List of Their Interests, New Study Finds "
TRANSLATION:
"Most Facebook Users Are Clueless Morons, New Study Finds "
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
How's the weather in Kiev today, Sasha?