And here I thought Google was the ultimate stalker. There’s the basic information Facebook tells you to input like age, relationship status, where you work or school, however this is only a fraction of what the social media platform knows about you. Facebook is very good at pin pointing ads that would tempt you to click, and to do that it needs to learn as much as it can about you. It does this by gathering extensive data from posts you like, share, or groups you join, among other activities you engage in on the platform. Your interests, political opinions, location, or family members, are all relevant information used to make ads that show up on your feed a little more relatable to you.
Facebook literally tries to group your interests, likes and basically who you are into little accurate boxes or categories, and it basically looks like this;
This is still just a brief of what Facebook knows about you, yet it’s enough to give a perfect stranger a general idea about who you are. While viewing my profile I learned that I’m more interested in business and industry than lifestyle and culture topics, something that I never realized about myself up until now. Before today I’d swear to you that I live and breathe lifestyle and culture. Facebook taught me a little something about myself. A look into my profile would reveal that I’m a 20 year old, law student and blogger living in Kenya, who is single, with a rather unhealthy obsession with the Daily Show. A little too much information, considering most people close to me don’t even know the Daily Show part.
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It’s amazingly accurate, which is somewhat eerie. You can check your ad profile here, to find the information that best describes you. It should be fairly precise, but if it isn’t you can delete ad groups you don’t believe you fit in. Do don’t however, delete the ad groups assuming you won’t receive any more adverts, you still will, they’ll just be a little more random and much less to your liking.
