Thursday Thirteen

Today I'm offering up a public service.

If you go to this:

https://www.facebook.com/ads/preferences

You will see a long list of things that Facebook has gathered about you. There are 13 different topics. They are:

News and Entertainment

Business and Industry

People

Hobbies and Activities

Travel, Places, and Events

Education

Technology

Shopping and Fashion

Food and Drink

Sports and Outdoors

Fitness and Wellness

Family and Relationships

Lifestyle and Culture

This is how Facebook "targets" you for the advertisements and other things you see on your Facebook page. I revisited this issue this morning when I found an ad from ProPublica:

I don't follow conservative-leaning pages on Facebook. However, as a writer, a journalist, and a human being with a lot of curiosity, I read a great deal of different things, including conservative articles that my friends post. I want to understand different types of thinking. So I am not surprised that I turned up in this algorithm. However, a great many comments under this ad indicate a LOT of people who think they have never read anything conservative-leaning in their life were surprised to be seeing this advertisement.

I'm betting ProPublica ran this same ad for liberal folks, and it is showing up in conservative newsfeeds this morning. Because people are complex and most of us live in the gray areas of life where things overlap.

When I went to the Facebook preference pages to see the things they said I had clicked on, I was surprised. Remember, they keep a record of EVERYTHING. Even after you remove the preference, there is another category for . . . removed preferences. So even if you remove it, you really haven't removed it. You simply stuck it in another category.

Go through and check your preferences. You will be surprised, too.

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Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here if you want to read other Thursday Thirteens and/or play along. I've been playing for a while and this is my 571st time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday. Or so sayth the Blogger counter, anyway.