I bet most ppl here do not use Meta products. But some may have to for w/e reason. Or you may know ppl who do. Also in the bigger world, it sitll has billions of users, 2.1B every day. This is Meta improving your experience unless you know how to opt out.
I just threw up in my mouth a little bit writing that.
Meta is planning to use the data shared by other businesses to personalize your feed and its AI responses. In a blog post on Tuesday, Meta explains that it already uses your off-platform activity, like the games you play or your purchases on other websites, to serve you ads. But now it’s expanding the scope of the content it personalizes across Facebook and Instagram.
For example, Meta says if you bought a tent online recently, you might see camping-related videos in your Reels feed. “We aren’t collecting any new data as part of this update,” the blog post says. “This is about using information that businesses already send to us to further improve your experience.”
I have a bare bones FB profile. No friends, no photos, no pic. I only use it for my neighborhood’s page. I used to use a work profile on my phone for my remote job and my work uses the usual stuff like Outlook and Teams. One day, I logged into FB and it was suggesting my co-workers as friends. These are people who live hundreds of miles away but somehow FB was able to connect them to me even though all that work stuff is on my work profile and I access FB on my personal profile which is supposed to be completely separate.
Yah… they do that. B/c they are sleaze weasels. FB has… (pinky to mouth) one meeellllion ways to figure out your social graph.
You ever got lunch with a co-worker? Your phone and theirs were at the same table in the same restaurant. Boom. You know that person. Or a 3rd person adds both you as friends? Boom. Or someone took a photo and you and other person were both in it? Boom. Or they buy phone call data from a data broker? Your phone called their phone. Boom.
It’s all but impossible to stop it. I never, NEVER, had a FB account in my whole life. I never have even loaded their page, and I block all their 3rd party scripts. I have a friend who also never had. I’m 100% sure FB knows we are friends. It maintains “shadow profiles” for ppl without accounts. Our mutual friends have linked us, and FB knows that. It still gathers enough data to link us. Despite we both did everything we could.
Related but different platform.
I use to give my phone number to guys I found on hookup apps and had 1-2 sexual encounters with. LinkedIn is adamant that I should connect with these people 8+ years later.
I’m a remote worker, I’ve never been anywhere near my co-workers.
Ok… but that is one of many, many ways they have tho.
The prob is, you have to be right every time. They only have to be right once.