What's Going on with Facebook?
Besides the incredibly uncomfortable videos and awkward memes of Mark Zuckerberg testifying before the Senate, there actually rests an important case in the wake of the Facebook scandal that you might personally be interested in.
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Maybe you've been keeping up with the hearing, maybe you've seen that notification pop up on your news feed about revoking access to apps. In case you don't know what's been happening - I don't blame you, it's a lot - here is a really helpful article that describes the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Basically, third-parties that you might not have wanted to access your information from Facebook had unauthorized access to it. Was Trump involved? Maybe. Was your information surrendered? Maybe...
This creates the scare that we all find undesirable, but too confusing to understand. Ttrust me, the slew of questions Senators have been asking Zuckerberg show the level of perplexity that people can have about the topic. People do know what they want though: privacy protection.
Has anything changed since?
Sort of.
Facebook is now being a little more transparent and accessible about features such as face recognition technology and targeted ad algorithms, giving users the choice of enabling and disabling such features. Furthermore, Facebook is making sure all users agree to its new Privacy Policy, though I'm not sure anyone is actually going to read that.
All of this seems a little scary, right? Or not? It's hard to understand exactly what a digital footprint can really mean, especially when you consider the amount of activity we indulge in online.
I wanted to know just what and how much Facebook knew about me, so with the help of a friend, we scoured Facebook's ad analytics and found some scary things. If you go to >Settings and >Ads for your Facebook account, you'll be greeted with ad preferences as well as your interests and your profile.
Here's a sample of what mine looked like.
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It's a little scary to see how accurate this is - and perhaps how openly willing I am to share this with the public. It's information that's oddly specific but also general; anyone that sees this can easily tell you these descriptors are true. Zuckerberg noted in his testimony that we hate ads, but we hate ads that aren't relevant. Facebook knows I'm an "engaged shopper," which explains why it pops up those Topshop and Sephora items I was looking at but didn't commit to. This concerns me, knowing that cookies can track all of my activity for the purposes of an internet identity. Imagine what third-parties can do with this information. Sure, targeted ads seem harmless, but when mixing that in with political agenda and the potential for political priming? It's a large monster in disguise, and that's what people are wary of.
So what are we giving up by giving into Facebook, its wide network, and the consequences of its free-information nature?
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