How to make Facebook collect less information about you

Clean up your profile

By posting information about where you studied and where you work, you will make it easier for yourself to find new acquaintances. But in this case, the social network will be able to use this data for its own purposes.

Your profile says a lot about you, but it's easy to fix. Open your Facebook page on your computer and click "Edit Profile". Opposite each item with the filled-in information, you will see a pencil: click on it, then on "Options", then select "Delete". Scroll down to get rid of places, interests, and likes.

After deleting this data, Facebook will not stop using it - you will have to delete your account to do this. However, applications that you connect to your account in the future will no longer be able to access your information. Therefore, ignore the offers of the service to fill out your profile.

Keep your activity to a minimum

Almost everything you do on Facebook ends up in your shadow profile: likes, comments, clicks on links, and even "Interested" marks on event pages. Therefore, in order not to let the service follow you, you just need to try to perform as few actions as possible.

To view your activity, go to your profile and click View Activity Log. All these actions can be canceled there.

Remove Facebook apps from phones and tablets because this is how you reveal your location. Instead, use a mobile site. On the notifications page, you can make it so that news from the feed comes to your mail - so you don't have to go to Facebook every time.

Leave unnecessary groups, remove unnecessary friends, and do not post any posts. In the chronicle and tags settings, you can prevent other people from leaving entries in your chronicle.

Disable third party apps

Cambridge Analytica, mentioned at the beginning of the article, collected user data precisely through the application on Facebook - it was an ordinary personality test. The more apps and sites connected to your account, the more vulnerable your data is.

Go to application settings and click on the cross next to all unnecessary items, and then on the blue "Delete" button. Leave only those that are vital to you and which you completely trust.

This does not mean that your already collected data will disappear from the databases of these applications, but this way you will protect yourself for the future. You should also edit the section "Applications used by others" by removing all the checkmarks from it. Thanks to this, friends with access to your information will not be able to share it with a third party.

Track your privacy settings

Facebook also monitors you outside of the social network, but this tracking can be limited. To do this, go to the advertising preferences page, find the item "Advertising based on your use of sites and applications" in the "Advertising settings" category and put "No". In the same place, it will not hurt to clean the category "Your interests".

Now head over to YourAdChoices, developed by the Digital Advertising Alliance. Find Facebook (and others you want to limit), check the Opt Out box and click Submit Your Choices. This will have to be done in every browser you use.