The data #Facebook collects and ascertains about you, unexpectedly #DeleteFacebook

The data #Facebook collects and ascertains about you, unexpectedly #DeleteFacebook

The following list is adapted from a Gizmodo article which deserves credit for the work. I have re-written their items into a different and shorter format. (Note – its not plagiarism when you make this clear – that’s called citing your references.)
The Hidden Things that Facebook Records About You

  • Your location, your travels, which individual stores you go in to and often combines this with offline purchase data.
  • Every web site that features a Facebook Login, a Facebook Share button or advertising provided by Facebook (probably most web sites with ads) is tracking your web site visit and which page on the web site you have visited and this is logged at Facebook. You can minimize this by using Mozilla Firefox and Privacy Badger, Ghostery, Cookie AutoDelete and Ad blocking plug ins. Never use a Facebook Login or Share button on third party sites.
  • Facebook combines your travel and location data, the demographics of the neighborhood where you live, your on and offline purchase data and uses this to estimate your household income and wealth.
  • Facebook logs information about the posts you did not make. Ever started to type a post or comment and then decide to skip it, or stay out of a potentially controversial comment thread? Facebook detects this and logs information about the posts you never made.
  • When you install a Facebook app on your device, Facebook logs a list of all applications you have installed on this device. There is no reason that Facebook needs this information.
  • By default, Facebook allows apps used by your Friends to collect your personal information. You must go into Settings | Apps and disable all apps, and the separate list of information categories that apps used by others can record.
  • Facebook uses natural language processing to scan everything you write. This is the machine equivalent of someone looking over your shoulder and taking notes. Facebook attempts to determine your psychological state of mind – are you happy? sad? depressed? Facebook records their interpretation of your mental health. Facebook has acknowledged doing this as a feature to benefit users in that they would like to be able to identify people who may be suicidal. However, this also has benefits to Facebook. Propaganda research shows that people who are in a heightened emotional state (positive or negative) are more susceptible propaganda messaging (advertising is a subset of propaganda messaging).
  • Other apps, such as Messenger and Instagram harvest data similar to Facebook’s apps. It is recommended that you not install any Facebook app on any device.
  • We know that a primary way Facebook collects data on each of us is through the use of “Likes”. How often have we “Liked” a friends post simply because we wanted to let a friend know that we noticed the post? Facebook certainly also records posts we did Not Like. Facebook knows what posts we have seen, and if we did not Like the post, then that is useful information to Facebook as well. Facebook also uses our “Hide post” or “Snooze 30 days” options to further refine their model about us.
  • That last sentence is key: Facebook is creating a machine generated model of us. This model attempts to define us in terms of our interests, our behaviors, our mental health, our income, our wealth, and who we are friends with, and where we travel to and from.
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