Has anyone found anything interesting that Facebook has been tracking about them?
Asked by
Zaku (
30354
)
March 25th, 2018
I read this article on how to see what data Facebook admits it has tracked about you and tried it out and shared it to Facebook a day or two ago. Today I got a Facebook message saying it had been removed because it looked like “spam” to them… (yeah, right.)
(Their lame attempt to stifle a useful article about their own data tracking inspired me to share about it here. Edit: I challenged the removal and they did at least restore the post right away.)
I wonder if anyone else has (or would like to) check out what Facebook has stored about them (that they share this way – you go to Facebook Settings and click on “Download a copy of your Facebook data” and after a few minutes it sends you a zip file containing local HTML content that will show you a view of what they have collected about you, though I doubt it’s really complete.
According to the article, there can be a lot of surprising information in the Contact Info section if you use the Facebook app, including tracking of people you talk to on the phone, but I don’t use that app and I didn’t see anything in that section.
Anyway, I thought it might be interesting to see if anyone here found anything interesting in the data that they might like to share?
The most interesting thing I found was a couple of messages I hadn’t noticed people sent me in the past.
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I’ll try it later if you remind me how to unzip a file.
I just tried it. It was a lot of boring stuff. instant messages, photos from instant messages…basically stuff from instant messages. But I use a desktop, not a phone or any apps. so, I am not surprised they would have info from my instant messages.
Thanks guys. I’m sort of wondering if anyone who uses the FB app will find anything interesting in their Contact Info section, or if maybe they stopped including as much in it after this article was posted, as they are clearly aware of the article. (My partner also tried posting another article (about how to reduce what Facebook tracks) to her FB feed, and had problems getting it to post.)
I tried it. I’m going to check for the contact info because I use messenger but it has every photo, message, friend I’ve made/removed, etc. A bit creepy but boring.
Update: Contact info was blank. Creepy thing is the “Peer group: Established adult life” Most of my friends are adults so creepy..
@Zaku I’ve read two articles in the past couple of weeks posted by friends about how to check for data mining apps and delete them. They weren’t taken down.
Curious to see if the “secret” conversation I just started actually is secret.
It keeps track of all the ads you’ve clicked, what ads they have targeted towards you, and which ads have your contact info.
Oh yeah, I noticed that too. Also all the sites you have ever given permission to see your Facebook account.
I did notice that all my phone contacts were stored. I guess if I ever need a backup I know where to look.
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