Facebook uses you and makes your friends hate you

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Whether you know or not, Facebook uses all of us! Constantly:)

Sometimes this fact is obvious: whenever you click “Like” on a page or press “Share,” Facebook benefits from it. Moreover, he can make you become an intolerable annoyance to your friends. The most unpleasant thing in this situation is that you may not even know about it. In this article, we'll describe how this clever Facebook scheme works and also show you how to hack it.

When it comes to Facebook's use of your personal information, the main thing is to understand how the social network tracks your activity and what needs to be done to protect your privacy. In this case, we'll talk about how Facebook uses your habits - with or without your knowledge - to annoy your friends with constant messages that are somehow related to you. This is a very cunning beast, but it can be stopped. Here's what you need to know.

Facebook uses your likes for advertising purposes

Are you seeing more and more messages in your feed that [your friend] likes the link [page name] with a photo and text of a post, even though he just liked that page?

Surely you've noticed the sponsored posts that say that another [your friend] likes [page name] with a call to like this page and you too? Of course, this fact cannot but annoy.

But remember that your friends do not specifically advertise the pages - these are all the machinations of Facebook, using our habits and interests for their own purposes - in order to collect more likes and a share.

Facebook's algorithm for issuing updates in the news feed - EdgeRank - still remains a mystery. If everyone knew how it works, then advertisers would not have to pay to advertise posts, and users could easily filter their feeds and ad blocks and remove content of little interest from them.

EdgeRank serves two purposes. For people who work with corporate pages and present their brand on Facebook pages, this is an algorithm that decides how many of your readers will see a published post. For users, this is the possibility that someone else, even someone unfamiliar, will like or share posts from your chronicle. It is by following this pattern that your news feed does not line up in real chronological order, even after you set the news to be sorted by "most recent".

We're not talking about your status updates, photos, or anything else that you post in your timeline right now. And about how you interact with other pages, groups and Facebook users. It's one thing if your feed is jam-packed with childhood or wedding photos of your former classmates. And another thing is when every post that you like appears in the feeds of all your friends. This happens without your knowledge and you also cannot control who this message will be shown to.

Facebook uses you to get brand pages to reach your friends

Problem: When you see a message in your feed from a group you've never heard of, urging to like a cute photo or the page / group itself, you can assume that your friend decided to share it with all his friends by clicking the Share button. In fact, this is not the case. Most likely, he just clicked "Like" under some post. But that's all. The fastest way to dispel your doubts is to visit your personal profile: if there is no repost in the chronicle, then Facebook itself decided that you will also like this publication.

Of course this is annoying! But the situation becomes especially problematic when you click "Like" on something that may not be safe for you. Like - it seems like not a ball, who will see it ?!

For example, one of my friends is a model: she is attractive, but her photo shoots are too shocking. Therefore, it will not be very convenient if my boss accidentally looks over my shoulder and sees my "work" … Like her photoshoot, I can inadvertently share these photos with my friends, substituting them in front of the boss. Oil painting: the boss finds his subordinates watching, to put it mildly, obscene pictures with a half-naked girl. And isn't that a problem?

Unfortunately, there is no way to solve it. Facebook does not allow you to independently regulate the level of privacy of what you like. If the post you like is in the public domain, then your like also becomes public. Remember, if you are a fan of a Facebook page or group, its posts can be shown in the feed of your friends too.

This is how EdgeRank works. Facebook thinks that you and your friends have similar interests, so they might like what you like. Disadvantage: Your feed is flooded with photos and page updates that neither you nor your friends care about at all. How can you clean your own and other people's feeds from cluttering up with unnecessary information?

Solution: First of all, think before clicking "Like". It is impossible to determine which posts you like will end up in your friends' feed. Therefore, before you like any picture in your favorite group, be aware that this photo can get to every friend of yours. Here are some more practical tips:

Hide the pages you like from your friends, in your profile, unchecking the box "Available to all" and setting it opposite "Only me". After this operation, what you like should no longer appear in your friends' feeds. Try to do this, but no one can give a guarantee that it will work 100%.

Check your action log … This is the only way to know which of your likes are in the public domain and which are not. You will see the whole story: status updates, liked photos, posts and reposts. Opposite each element on the right is an icon - available to everyone or only to a certain circle of people. Facebook does not allow you to change the visibility of these posts, but you can remove your like from some of them (put “Dislike”). Sometimes walking through your history is very useful and can open up a lot of new things for you:)

Use special programs to put things in order in your news feed. You can install a utility to remove obtrusive messages from your feed with an offer to like a post or page that one of your friends liked. She will clean your news from the slag, but your friends will remain uninsured from receiving your alleged invitation to like the group or picture under which you clicked "Like".

Facebook uses your likes for selfish purposes of brand pages, cluttering up your friends' feeds

Problem: You've probably seen this kind of ad in your feed: one, second and third friend likes a certain brand with a like button. Sometimes there are two or three such messages in a row in a large ad unit. This is very annoying, especially when you don't care about this brand. Protect your friends from unnecessary hassle, revise the list of brands that you "like".

Solution: Click "Dislike" on those pages of brands that interest you little, and henceforth, do not like new groups that you do not want to have anything to do with.

There are companies that offer excellent service, all sorts of bonuses and discounts, as well as other "goodies", for which they cannot but adore. For example, what should you like to click on our cozy Facebook page?:)

We often like the pages of the brands we choose. Because we want to keep abreast of the latest company news, current promotions and special offers. But we do not receive material benefits from them on a daily basis. How to be?

Follow your favorite company on Twitter. Twitter, unlike Facebook, will not constantly bother you or your friends with annoying advertisements from brands. You don't even have to read the account of the company you like, but simply add it to a specially created list (for example, only for stores or contests), and you will be aware of all the promotions and offers.

Create a separate account for likes. Create a second account specifically for tracking promotions and discounts. It can also be used to control what personal information of yours is shared on Facebook without your permission. Note: It is Facebook policy that one person has only one account. By creating a second profile, you seem to be violating the terms of use of the social network. Just keep this in mind.

Adjust ad options. You can prevent Facebook from using your name and activities for advertising purposes. You also have the ability to customize how the social network turns the posts, pages and groups you like into promotional messages that annoy your friends so much. Go to the ad settings page and check the box next to "Nobody".

Facebook is not going to stop …

Hopefully Facebook will stop using our names and likes to create annoying ads anytime soon. What's more, Zuckerberg introduced "graphical search" - an individual web search that displays unique results for each user. Everything would be fine. But! This search gives advertisers a great way to cross-link from one like to another. In turn, this allows them to understand who should see the advertised brand or product and which friends would be best suited for the role of "promoters".

So far, graphical search is available only to a narrow circle of users (you can sign up for a waiting list) and does not violate the confidentiality of personal data. If you are an advanced user and know how to hide your personal information on Facebook, you don't have to worry about graphical searches. It is possible that advertisers already have access to custom searches, but this is not yet clear.

Social readers on Facebook are guided by a similar philosophy - applications that allow you to show your friends what articles you have read in online publications. While it's too early to talk about the future of graphical search, social readers, positioned as a new social function, have failed miserably. Users, to put it mildly, are not happy to share with hundreds of friends information about whose photos they have seen and what gossip they read, moreover, do it against their will. It is not surprising that many media outlets, including Russian ones, abandoned the introduction of readers as separate applications, since they only contributed to the churn of users.

How to be and what to do?

The sad truth is that Facebook is a free service for users. Therefore, he somehow needs to earn a living. Facebook makes money from our personal data. The only question is: is it only Facebook uses our data or transfers it to someone else, and also what happens with this information.

Summing up, we can say:

1. Be on the lookout every time you click "Like", because spreading this information will not be limited to your friends' news feeds, but may well go beyond them.

2. Since you cannot see in your profile what was shared on your behalf, you do not realize this until someone pings you why you like so many photos of the same group or spam with pictures of some page. Regularly check your privacy settings, in particular, the display settings for applications and pages (your faithful friend is "Only me"). Also keep track of what you have shared.

3. And one more thing: every time Facebook conducts secret manipulations to change the order of the news, or simply implements some kind of social innovation, do not forget to update all your privacy settings.