All The Hidden Ways Facebook Ads Target You

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Facebook executives often talk about their mission as “bringing the world closer together.”

With more than 2 billion users, it’s true that the platform does connect people. But one thing that Mark Zuckerberg’s two days of congressional testimony highlighted is that simply connecting people is not how Facebook reached a market cap of nearly $500 billion.

At its core, Facebook is an advertising company. In 2017, 98 percent of its $40 billion in revenue came from advertising. It’s not your data that Facebook is selling, it’s your attention.

Facebook’s ad platform translates your clicks and posts into “user attributes,” and places you in certain categories for advertisers. For example, your activity could suggest an that you recently had a child, that you’re a Bernie Sanders fan, or that you have an “affinity” for certain racial groups.

One of the most powerful features is called “Custom Audiences,” which allows an advertiser to target individuals based on offline information such as email address or phone numbers. An advertiser can upload that data to Facebook, which will match them with its user base to find who they belong to. Then there are so-called “dark posts,” a feature Facebook is in the process of changing, which only show up in the news feeds of specific audiences and are completely hidden to everyone else.

These tools can be used by anyone who wants to advertise on Facebook, and critics say that’s an open invitation for malicious actors. Watch this video to learn more about how Facebook’s ad targeting works, and why it’s so effective.

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It’s not your data that Facebook is selling, it’s your attention.

VICENews

Mark is the real terminator and facebook is the real skynet

glenn

Am I the only person who completely ignores ads? I rarely use Facebook but all that add space is dead to me. Even in search engines I tend to skip the first several hits sometimes pages.

kahner

Don't install apps that you don't trust. Simple. Use a web browser with ublock origin. Or at least disable certain permissions if you have to have it.

shadowdrift

I love how apparently targeting an advertisement towards a certain race/religion can be counted as 'discrimination' when that's basically what marketing is. You have an advertisement and you have a target audience, there's nothing inherently discriminatory about it. -_-

legoguy

I'm so glad I don't have Facebook period

Playtrack

everyone just go and like a bunch of random crap

daniel-fdih

This really shouldn't be a surprise... being a business owner, this is a great tool. And for all of y'all complaining, you probably post more information YOURSELF on your timeline to help us grow. So you only have yourself to blame

jacksondrake

In zucks testimony he said that they don't give data to the advertisers but the advertisers tell facebook the group of people to target and facebook makes the ad placements. No data is given out unless in an illegal breach

Felix-dxqw

As a small business manager i found that advertising via preferred location option is the most effective in sales and engagement... Some of my ads are not approved by facebook.. And they are not telling why such post can or cannot be advertised..

John-nbri

I’ve been dealing with kidney stones for a few months and I’ve only ever googled things about it or texted people about it. Last week I got an add post on Facebook about kidney stone pills. That freaked me out

samanthakwait

Zuckerburg looks like he's in a constant state of fear. Like he's afraid of slipping and saying the wrong thing

rageagainstthebeast

Advertising is everywhere, you can't run away from it!

jeannelatour

Facebook's profiling is not perfect. I checked it recently and everything was wrong. Also you can disable targeted ads if you go into your settings.

generalakbarr