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posted by takyon on Saturday January 19 2019, @10:15PM   Printer-friendly
from the advertising-yourself dept.

Ignorance may be bliss for Facebook's users. About 74 percent of adults in the US who use Facebook didn't know the social network keeps a list of their interests and traits for ad targeting, says a study released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center.

About half of Facebook users said they weren't comfortable that the company compiled this information.

The world's largest social network came under fire in 2018 for a series of scandals over data privacy and security. The episodes caused concern about whether Facebook does enough to let users know what information it tracks and how it uses the data.

Facebook knows your age, gender and location, along with what you post, the pages you like and the businesses you check into on the social network. All that information helps the company determine what ads to show its 2.3 billion users.

Facebook users can view their "ad preferences" page to see what the social network thinks their interests are and why they're seeing a given ad. This list can include users' political leanings, hobbies and even the type of smartphone they use. Facebook users can also remove an interest from that list to change the type of ads they see on the social network.


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  • (Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday January 20 2019, @03:20AM

    by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Sunday January 20 2019, @03:20AM (#788888) Homepage

    Simple: If they don't want to hire you on account of not having a Facebook account, then don't pursue the job (with exceptions - If you are a big-shot or are applying for a public-facing job, then bite the bullet).

    If you feel you must, then adapt: Use the strictest privacy controls and generate some fake friends to have normal, healthy conversations with your public persona. I'm a bad person to ask, but there are plenty of experts elsewhere who could provide guidance in this matter.

    Real nerds have an easy way out of this if the job is highly technical: Just say that you are familiar with security and have a lack of faith considering data-breaches. Data-breaches are all figured in to the cost-benefit analysis and you'd rather not be one of the dumb ones, of course you will not say that all to their face. If a technical manage is dumb enough to challenge you in this matter, chances are that they've been hacked before and should understand.