Link: https://www.theverge.com/tech/946744/meta-website-activity-personalize-feeds

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.”

In the process of Felivelize people around me and de-Zukerberg friends and family

it's gonna be a lot of 'fuck Facebook and fuckerburg' activity then

Meta? That company still exists?

Alas.

Unfortunately. And unfortunately, everyone around me uses it too.

I thought they had been doing that for like..15+ years.

They definitely have. They definitely also DNGAF whether anyone opts out.

I was under the impression that they were reading whatever other cookies they could to more or less do this for like decades now. Only difference is they get the info on what made it into the cart I guess.

They won't be doing that if you just don't use their site tho 🤷

Yup, rotting new generations. They’ll never experience the glory of learning on MySpace.

no meta here but... you know what would make ppl participate more? stop hiding their friends and family. when i left meta that's what i remember. what is the point if im not seeing fam?

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.

They've been using that 3rd site info to target ads for many years. But this change is to alter what FB's algorithm shows ppl. Before that, FB's feed algorithm was driven only by data you generated on their site, not data they buy about you.

So, it isn't new that they buy data about you. But this is a new thing they will be doing with that data.

Like most things, it'll default to opt-in.

One day, I logged into FB and it was suggesting my co-workers as friends.

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.

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.

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.

is this new news

I'm pretty sure that has always been the case and they're just openly advertising it as a marketing attempt now because antitrust is dead

In my case it will not, for sure.

Which app is this?

Portmaster (OpenSource, Windows, Linux), maybe the best per app Firewall, DNScrypt, traffic monitor/blocking, privacy filters, Optional (paid OpenSource) an SPN service (Multi-channel VPN), easy and intuitive settings. the Big Tech blocking is strong, with it their services are inaccessible for you and you for the service.

It's unprovable that revoking consent does anything. I like how they frame it too:

“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.”

What am I doing wrong? Why aren't businesses just gifting me cash? Businesses just funnel data to Facebook for free which Facebook uses for profitable ventures? Jeez. Facebook's revenue is in the billions. Boy are those businesses being fleeced! just sending free data to Facebook. Imagine if users were spending money on mobile-computers, electricity and data-connections to send data to Facebook for free too! Everyone must be chumps!

That unknowable consent revocation is pretty important. Australia is mulling over law that forces social-media companies to disable algorithmic feeds. Unless you have agents embedded in those companies it's impossible to discern whether or not your feed has not been modified by an 'algorithm'. This looks like Facebook trying to get ahead of these sort of implications: "Look you have a toggle! Toggle it! No further questions! You've turned it off; you pressed the toggle! What more do you want from us?! We'll meddle in democracies to ensure you win! Let's be friends!"

To be able to plug ads into meta platforms businesses probably also have to agree to share data for free.