Everyone makes so much fuzz about their data being exploited beyond damnation! How right are they, really?
Let's say you want to make a trip and Facebook picks up on it, so you're constantly shown ads for flight companies. Has your privacy been violated? Uh, no. You haven't become an assassination target, you're being shown ads. Advertisers don't know who you are. Your name and location aren't being randomly dispatched. Your profile is not being compromised. That's not how it works.
You have a profile on Facebook, which has places for ads. It has to understand what ad to show you to maximize profit. They track you and realize you might be going to Las Vegas soon enough, maybe because you said that to your best friend over FB's messenger. That's when it's algorithm decides to serve flight company ads.
After coming to this conclusion, it will look up all of the available advertisements related to FB's needs, pick some of the best fitting rectangular offers and send them to your screen. That's how the magic happened, and this is when you realize the advertisers themselves never even heard of you. They have an ad, which FB takes and pops up.
Your privacy hasn't been broken. But that doesn't mean everything is perfectly safe. If someone's a moron who wanted to group up with, say, jew haters, Facebook post boosting might just be the thing they need. A tool can be used for ill intents, and it's our responsibility to demand workarounds to prevent such misusage.
I encourage everyone who wants to let them know you feel insecure with because of how their tools can be misused. Let them know what you think: https://www.facebook.com/help/contact/268228883256323
Thank you for reading!
