Facebook has a new “feature” that is a privacy nightmare. Their “Link History” feature stores all the links you opened in Facebook so you can reference them later. But it also uses that data to sell you ads. And, of course, it opts you in automatically — you need to hunt through the settings to turn it off. This really should not be allowed.
People do not benefit from these kinds of privacy invasions. Targeted ads are not worth giving your personal information over to a company that makes a habit of manipulating people without their consent. Human beings need privacy — we are wired to keep some things secret. No one should be forced to go through life having everything about them known to everyone under all conditions, especially when people have an incentive to use that information against you or to make money.
It is far too easy to take things out of context and make someone look bad. It is easy for a company like Facebook to take private information and use it to manipulate people. And targeted ads are mainly bad for society. You should be personally exposed to ad manipulation for, say, depression medicine. That should be between you and your doctor, not between you and your doctor and propaganda designed specifically to punch your specific buttons. The same applies to something as anodyne as car ads.
More importantly, human beings need privacy to be human. They need to be able to vent, to be curious about subjects that are not necessarily reflective of who they think society wants them to be, to explore identities until they discover who they are. Putting everyone under a data microscope inhibits that sense of possibility and exploration and makes it harder to be fully human.
I don’t want to hear about the money we will lose. Companies advertised for decades without personal advertisements — Facebook et.al. can do the same. And the idea that opt-out is informed consent is insane. Facebook uses generic terms and does not tell you everyone who has access to that data or how the ads use the data in any level of detail. You are no more making in informed decision than you are flying without an airplane.
Storing this data should not be legal. Using this data for ads or anything else should not be legal. We don’t need to expose every bit of our lives to admen and corporate “engagement” experts to have a functioning internet or market. Privacy is more important than Zuckerberg being able to buy another yacht or ten.
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