The Adventure of the Daunting Data
I discovered this week that you can download all the information Facebook keeps on you. Given what we know about the social network these days, it seems likely plenty of other people have this information too. Through this data you can see everything you've ever shared on Facebook as well as every comment, every like and every message. This is not really too surprising seeing as though we can scroll through and see this most of this stuff for ourselves.
Some of the Facebook history seems a bit weird. One page gives you what you've answered to polls. I can't resist answering a poll when I see one and you can see every answer you've given. What's a little weird is it doesn't give you the question or the other options, it just lists who posed the question and what you answered. This makes for strange reading with some of my answers being '7th Doctor's umbrella', '36 metres (118 feet), 'I switch mine off every night' and the really quite disturbing 'Kill them. They're already gone.'
Another section lists your entire search history. You can see what you've recently searched for but this page gives a complete history and I was able to see every search term right back to 2012. This made for particularly depressing reading as the majority of the search terms were girl's names, demonstrating that I have far too often looked up girls I fancy on Facebook to see if they are single. I knew I do it occasionally but eight years of search history gave far more names than I would have thought.
Not all the sections are things we normally get to see. Take 'ads interests' for example. This section lists every single thing it thinks you are interested and advertisers can then target users with specific interests. It doesn't explain how it knows these things but the suggestion is that Facebook is tracking everything you click on and gathering data about it. My ads interests felt like a particularly geeky list. Doctor Who gets a good showing with 'Doctor Who', 'Doctor Who Magazine', 'Tenth Doctor', 'The Day of the Doctor' and 'Time Lord' all appearing. Similarly there's a lot of Marvel stuff in there including the actors Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Colbie Smulders, Jeremy Renner, Mark Ruffalo, Samuel L. Jackson, Scarlet Johansson and Tom Hiddleston. For some reason Robert Downey Jr isn't listed which seems odd given that he is one of Marvel's main guys.
There are plenty of other interests that Facebook has somehow correctly picked up on like 'Academy Awards, 'Books', 'Bournemouth', 'Special needs education' and 'equal pay for equal work'. I really can't help but wonder what I clicked in order to Facebook to make these conclusions. It also thinks I am utterly obsessed with Harry Potter with thirteen search terms originating from the franchise- sure, I like it but not that much. There's also an unexpectedly high amount of mythology including the heroes 'Achilles', 'Odysseus', 'Orpheus', 'Perseus' and the god 'Zeus'. I do have an interest in mythology but how does Facebook know that?
There are plenty of things in the ads interests list that make no sense. For example, there are no less than six terms related to the Canadian province of Alberta, a place I have never been and frankly never intend to go. There are several celebrities listed that I don't have an interest in and Justin Beiber, who I actively dislike, somehow made the list. There's also a strange number of films and TV series I've never seen: Clue, Community, Dreams, Epic, Frozen, Getaway, Home, Peaky Blinders, Thank You, The Challenge, The Crocodile Hunter and Touch. Weirdly 'God' is also listed as an interest despite the fact my religion is stated as atheist on Facebook.
What's unsettling is the fact that Facebook has worked out many of these interests without you telling it. It's one thing if I specifically liked a page but the majority of things on here have been created through algorithms which have mostly correctly determined what I like.
When I think about it though, I don't really mind. There's endless talk of companies misusing our data and collecting all sorts of things about us. It feels a bit uncomfortable that Facebook can use an algorithm to conclude what you're interested in but only because you can't really explain how they did. If one your friends had the time they could scroll through your entire Facebook history and likely come up with a fairly similar list. So Facebook has all this data on me, so what? The media like to install fear into us that other people having information about you is bad.
My view is that it doesn't really matter. Ultimately, companies having this data doesn't really affect my life. Sure, I don't want it to be used for criminal purposes but as far as I know it isn't. As sinister as the idea of companies trying to rig elections using this data is, I'm not sure that it really works. Sure, they might advertise to people with certain interests and a small proportion of them may change their votes. But I struggle to believe that adverts can change political views enough to influence an election result.
That's all they are really doing with this data- trying to advertise things I might actually be interested in. That doesn't seem that bad to me- indeed, I think I'd prefer to see an advert related to my interests. I've never bought anything because of a Facebook advert anyway so it feels like they are wasting their time with the algorithm stuff anyway. My point is that don't accept what the media tells you about people storing information. Consider what they are storing and how that might affect you and in 99% of times it will make no difference to you whatsoever.
Right, I'm off to sign up for a Greek mythology course in Alberta. See you soon.
PS: If you want to download your Facebook data, find 'settings' (it may be in a drop down arrow) then click 'Your Facebook information' and find where it says download. You should be able to access data on other social networks in a similar way too.
Some of the Facebook history seems a bit weird. One page gives you what you've answered to polls. I can't resist answering a poll when I see one and you can see every answer you've given. What's a little weird is it doesn't give you the question or the other options, it just lists who posed the question and what you answered. This makes for strange reading with some of my answers being '7th Doctor's umbrella', '36 metres (118 feet), 'I switch mine off every night' and the really quite disturbing 'Kill them. They're already gone.'
Another section lists your entire search history. You can see what you've recently searched for but this page gives a complete history and I was able to see every search term right back to 2012. This made for particularly depressing reading as the majority of the search terms were girl's names, demonstrating that I have far too often looked up girls I fancy on Facebook to see if they are single. I knew I do it occasionally but eight years of search history gave far more names than I would have thought.
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| For the first time ever, I couldn't find an appropriate 'Peanuts' picture. This is a picture of Woodstock, just because. |
Not all the sections are things we normally get to see. Take 'ads interests' for example. This section lists every single thing it thinks you are interested and advertisers can then target users with specific interests. It doesn't explain how it knows these things but the suggestion is that Facebook is tracking everything you click on and gathering data about it. My ads interests felt like a particularly geeky list. Doctor Who gets a good showing with 'Doctor Who', 'Doctor Who Magazine', 'Tenth Doctor', 'The Day of the Doctor' and 'Time Lord' all appearing. Similarly there's a lot of Marvel stuff in there including the actors Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Colbie Smulders, Jeremy Renner, Mark Ruffalo, Samuel L. Jackson, Scarlet Johansson and Tom Hiddleston. For some reason Robert Downey Jr isn't listed which seems odd given that he is one of Marvel's main guys.
There are plenty of other interests that Facebook has somehow correctly picked up on like 'Academy Awards, 'Books', 'Bournemouth', 'Special needs education' and 'equal pay for equal work'. I really can't help but wonder what I clicked in order to Facebook to make these conclusions. It also thinks I am utterly obsessed with Harry Potter with thirteen search terms originating from the franchise- sure, I like it but not that much. There's also an unexpectedly high amount of mythology including the heroes 'Achilles', 'Odysseus', 'Orpheus', 'Perseus' and the god 'Zeus'. I do have an interest in mythology but how does Facebook know that?
There are plenty of things in the ads interests list that make no sense. For example, there are no less than six terms related to the Canadian province of Alberta, a place I have never been and frankly never intend to go. There are several celebrities listed that I don't have an interest in and Justin Beiber, who I actively dislike, somehow made the list. There's also a strange number of films and TV series I've never seen: Clue, Community, Dreams, Epic, Frozen, Getaway, Home, Peaky Blinders, Thank You, The Challenge, The Crocodile Hunter and Touch. Weirdly 'God' is also listed as an interest despite the fact my religion is stated as atheist on Facebook.
What's unsettling is the fact that Facebook has worked out many of these interests without you telling it. It's one thing if I specifically liked a page but the majority of things on here have been created through algorithms which have mostly correctly determined what I like.
When I think about it though, I don't really mind. There's endless talk of companies misusing our data and collecting all sorts of things about us. It feels a bit uncomfortable that Facebook can use an algorithm to conclude what you're interested in but only because you can't really explain how they did. If one your friends had the time they could scroll through your entire Facebook history and likely come up with a fairly similar list. So Facebook has all this data on me, so what? The media like to install fear into us that other people having information about you is bad.
My view is that it doesn't really matter. Ultimately, companies having this data doesn't really affect my life. Sure, I don't want it to be used for criminal purposes but as far as I know it isn't. As sinister as the idea of companies trying to rig elections using this data is, I'm not sure that it really works. Sure, they might advertise to people with certain interests and a small proportion of them may change their votes. But I struggle to believe that adverts can change political views enough to influence an election result.
That's all they are really doing with this data- trying to advertise things I might actually be interested in. That doesn't seem that bad to me- indeed, I think I'd prefer to see an advert related to my interests. I've never bought anything because of a Facebook advert anyway so it feels like they are wasting their time with the algorithm stuff anyway. My point is that don't accept what the media tells you about people storing information. Consider what they are storing and how that might affect you and in 99% of times it will make no difference to you whatsoever.
Right, I'm off to sign up for a Greek mythology course in Alberta. See you soon.
PS: If you want to download your Facebook data, find 'settings' (it may be in a drop down arrow) then click 'Your Facebook information' and find where it says download. You should be able to access data on other social networks in a similar way too.
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