Do YOU know what Facebook tracks about you? Pew study finds almost 75% of users have no idea the firm tracks their online activity to sell ads
- About 75% Facebook users don’t know site tracks their interests for ad targeting
- Pew study found 27% believed the interests were ‘not very or not at all accurate’
- Over half of respondents said they were uncomfortable this data was collected
- It comes as user trust in the site wanes in the wake of a string of privacy scandals
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Facebook spent the better part of 2018 trying to educate users about how it collects vast amounts of data on them, prompted by a series of privacy scandals.
But it turns out that the vast majority of US users still have no idea the tech giant tracks their interests and activity for ad targeting, according to a new study released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center.
In a study of 963 Facebook users, approximately 74 percent of them didn’t know Facebook keeps a record of their interests for brands to show them targeted advertisements.
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Despite Facebook’s privacy scandals, the vast majority of US users still have no idea the tech giant tracks their interests and activity to show them targeted advertising, a Pew study found
Facebook has long allowed users to view and control which interests are factored into brands’ targeted ads.
To see this, users are supposed to navigate to the ‘Ad Preferences’ menu, click on ‘Your Information’ and then select ‘Your Categories.’
There, Facebook explains it has compiled the information ‘based on information you’ve provided on Facebook and other activity.’
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Participants in the Pew study were instructed to view the ‘Ad Preferences’ page, where some 88 percent of respondents said Facebook had generated some material for them.
Approximately 27 percent said the interests listed there were ‘not very or not at all accurate in describing them,’ while 59 percent said they ‘reflected their real-life interests.’
Participants in the Pew study were instructed to view the ‘Ad Preferences’ page, where some 88% of respondents said Facebook had generated some material for them
The majority, or 51 percent, of Facebook users said they were not comfortable that the company had compiled such data about them.
Of the 74 percent who didn’t know Facebook maintained a list of their interests, the vast majority of them only figured out about the practice ‘until they were directed to their page as part of this study,’ Pew explained.
Another element of the ‘Ad Preferences’ page attempts to break down the user’s political and multicultural affiliations.
According to the study, about 51 percent of Facebook users are assigned a political label
It breaks down political affiliation based on a series of rankings, including Very Conservative, Conservative, Moderate, Liberal or Very Liberal.
According to the Pew study, about 51 percent of Facebook users are assigned a political label.
Of that number, 73 percent said the classification ‘very accurately’ or ‘somewhat accurately’ describes their views.
About 27 percent who were assigned a political affiliation said the label is ‘not very’ or ‘not at all’ accurate.
Facebook ‘determines’ users’ political affiliations regardless of whether or not they have publicly shown interest in a particular candidate or party on the site.
The platform groups together users that have liked the same pages and makes assumptions about their political beliefs based on these ‘likes’.
The ‘Ad Preferences’ page also determines whether or not someone has a ‘multicultural affinity.’
Of the total respondents, about 21 percent say they’ve been linked to some kind of multicultural affinity.
HOW CAN YOU SEE HOW FACEBOOK HAS LABELED YOUR POLITICAL LEANINGS?
Facebook attempts to guess its users’ political affiliations, labeling them on a scale from ‘very liberal’ to ‘very conservative.’
To find it, go to Settings > Ads (Ad Preferences).
Then, click ‘Your information,’ and select the tab that says ‘Your categories’.
This section, which can be found on the ‘Ad Preferences’ page, shows Facebook users what the social media platform assumes about their political beliefs
About 43 percent were listed as being linked to African American culture, while 43 percent were assigned to Hispanic culture and one-in-ten were linked to Asian American culture.
‘Of those assigned a multicultural affinity, 60% said they had a “very” or “somewhat” strong affinity for the group they were assigned, compared with 37% who said they did not have a strong affinity or interest,’ Pew explained.
The study shows that while Facebook says it gives users many tools to control what data is collected on the site, many don’t know about them.
During his testimony with the Senate’s Commerce and Judiciary committees last year, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged that not many users are fine-tuning their settings on the Ad Preferences page.
During his testimony with the Senate’s Commerce and Judiciary committee, Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged that not many users are fine-tuning their settings on the Ad Preferences page
‘Some people use it,’ Zuckerberg explained. ‘It’s not the majority of people on Facebook.’
It comes as user trust in the site continues to wane in the wake of a string of privacy scandals that rocked the platform in 2018.
Last March, Facebook said 87 million users data was harvested and shared without their knowledge with Trump-affiliated research firm Cambridge Analytica.
Then, in September, Facebook announced it had been hit by its worst-ever data breach, with some 50 million users being affected by an issue with the site’s ‘View As’ feature.
FACEBOOK’S PRIVACY DISASTERS
Facebook in late September disclosed that it had been hit by its worst ever data breach, affecting 50 million users – including those of Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg.
Attackers exploited the site’s ‘View As’ feature, which lets people see what their profiles look like to other users.
The unknown attackers took advantage of a feature in the code called ‘Access Tokens,’ to take over people’s accounts, potentially giving hackers access to private messages, photos and posts – although Facebook said there was no evidence that had been done.
The hackers also tried to harvest people’s private information, including name, sex and hometown, from Facebook’s systems.
Facebook said it doesn’t yet know if information from the affected accounts has been misused or accessed, and is working with the FBI to conduct further investigations.
However, Mark Zuckerberg assured users that passwords and credit card information was not accessed.
Facebook says it has found no evidence ‘so far’ that hackers broke into third-party apps after a data breach exposed 50 million users (stock image)
As a result of the breach, the firm logged roughly 90 million people out of their accounts earlier today as a security measure.
Facebook made headlines earlier this year after the data of 87 million users was improperly accessed by Cambridge Analytica, a political consultancy.
The disclosure has prompted government inquiries into the company’s privacy practices across the world, and fueled a ‘#deleteFacebook’ movement among consumers.
Communications firm Cambridge Analytica had offices in London, New York, Washington, as well as Brazil and Malaysia.
The company boasts it can ‘find your voters and move them to action’ through data-driven campaigns and a team that includes data scientists and behavioural psychologists.
‘Within the United States alone, we have played a pivotal role in winning presidential races as well as congressional and state elections,’ with data on more than 230 million American voters, Cambridge Analytica claims on its website.
The company profited from a feature that meant apps could ask for permission to access your own data as well as the data of all your Facebook friends.
The data firm suspended its chief executive, Alexander Nix (pictured), after recordings emerged of him making a series of controversial claims, including boasts that Cambridge Analytica had a pivotal role in the election of Donald Trump
This meant the company was able to mine the information of 87 million Facebook users even though just 270,000 people gave them permission to do so.
This was designed to help them create software that can predict and influence voters’ choices at the ballot box.
The data firm suspended its chief executive, Alexander Nix, after recordings emerged of him making a series of controversial claims, including boasts that Cambridge Analytica had a pivotal role in the election of Donald Trump.
This information is said to have been used to help the Brexit campaign in the UK.
It has also suffered several previous issues.
2013, Facebook disclosed a software flaw that exposed 6 million users’ phone numbers and email addresses to unauthorized viewers for a year, while a technical glitch in 2008 revealed confidential birth-dates on 80 million Facebook users’ profiles.
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