What Facebook Knows About Us: 7 Intimidating Social Media Patents

The New York Times columnist Sahil Chinoy became interested in how the largest social network in the world, Facebook, monitors the mood and lives of its users. He analyzed hundreds of patent applications filed by the company in recent years, and seven that prove that personal life and personal secrets on the Internet no longer exist.

Here's what Facebook has the ability to know about you. If he wants to.

1. When your loved ones die

Predicting the future? Yes, this is it. The patent is called a little differently - "", but the essence remains the same. This patent application describes a mechanism that allows you to use your posts, comments, private messages, as well as transactions and the physical location of your bank card to predict major life events. For example, the death of a loved one, the birth of a child, or, for example, a final exam that will turn your fate around.

2. Who do you spend time with and how

The life hacker has already written about how Facebook is able to keep track of your friends and acquaintances - even those with whom you are not in the official "friends" within the social network. But the patent called "" greatly expands the capabilities of Big Brother. The document offers to compare the physical location of your phone with the location of the smartphones of your acquaintances and friends. If your mobile phones are nearby, it means that you are spending time in each other's company.

It is also suggested to record where and when your phone is stationary. Based on this, you can draw a conclusion about where you, for example, work or are used to dining.

3. Where do you live and when you break your habits

At night, your stationary phone tells Facebook where you sleep. If you sleep in the same place every night, the social network can easily figure out where your house is.

And Big Brother, tracking all the same your smartphone, will be aware if you suddenly change your habits and go to spend the night somewhere (to someone) else. A patent application called "" suggests that such pranks of yours will also be tracked. Moreover, the social network will be able to send information that you are performing some unusual actions for you to other users.

4. Who are you romantically involved with (and are you)

The patent received by Facebook is called "". To calculate your “everything is complicated”, the social network analyzes a huge amount of information: for example, how often you visit the pages of certain users, with whom you correspond, where and in whose society you spend your free time, how many friends you have of the opposite sex, and so on.

Based on this, Facebook gets the opportunity to quite unambiguously classify you as "married", "in a relationship", "single" or, let's say, "has."

5. Who are you as a person

Extrovert or introvert? Excited or emotionally stable? Tea or coffee lover? Fan of cats or dogs? A patent called "" gives social networks the ability to compose your psychological profile. More than accurate.

The life hacker is already what this information can be used for. Reread - you won't like it.

Facebook has repeatedly stated that its patents are just patents that the social network does not plan to apply in practice. However, it is almost impossible to verify this.

6. Who do you photograph and who photographs you

You can turn on paranoia, turn off the geolocation function on your smartphone and Facebook, hide from everyone where and with whom you were, but if the social network "sees" the pictures taken with your smartphone's camera, paranoia will be useless.

The patent "" assumes that all the characteristics of the camera of your smartphone (or other gadget with which you go to Facebook) will be carefully analyzed. Broken pixels, tiny scratches and other defects on the lenses - all this will allow the social network to create a unique "fingerprint" of your camera.

If you have photographed someone with your camera, Facebook will establish a connection between you. If you and someone else (whose camera also has its own unique "fingerprint") photograph an object at the same time and from a similar angle, Facebook will reconnect you. The more such threads, the more detailed information about your social contacts. Even the ones you would rather hide.

7. What do you watch and hear

The "" patent describes the mechanism by which your gadget's microphone casts your multimedia addictions with giblets.

What TV show you are watching and whether you turn off advertising at the same time, what radio do you prefer, what advertising messages you hear while walking around the supermarket or the city - this information allows the social network to calculate the content that is acceptable to you. So that, of course, you will be more effective in the future.