Meta owns some of the largest social media platforms in the world. While it has long been established that platforms such as Facebook and Instagram collect data from their user base, you might not realise the extent of the data harvesting taking place which is largely undetectable.
While Meta may have gained considerable attention in the last few years, its history and current identity remain unfamiliar to many. Meta, formerly known as Facebook, is a technology conglomerate founded by Mark Zuckerberg in 2004.
The company launched its first product, Facebook, back in 2004 which revolutionized the way people interact with one another and the advertising industry forever (please read: ‘Meta-Morphosis: the Evolution of Data Protection’). Since its incorporation, Facebook has steadily expanded its product range over time by acquiring and developing alternative social media platforms, including:
In late 2021, Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook was changing its name to Meta. The re-brand was to reflect Facebook’s evolution as a technology conglomerate. Mr Zuckerburg stated in his announcement live stream that the new name, which means “beyond” or “transcending” in Greek, represents the company’s ambition to build a future where people can connect with each other in new immersive ways. It also signifies the fact that “Facebook” does not represent the company’s scope and depth of products of its current offerings.
Meta collects user data in a variety of ways across all its platforms. Subject to applicable laws, Meta has access to its users’:
Not only can Meta map all of the above data points across all of its platforms (i.e. Facebook , Instagram, Whatsapp and Messenger), but it can also track user data outside its own ecosystem through various technologies such as cookies and pixels. This allows Meta to access more information about users’ online behaviours and interests, even when they are not actively using Meta’s apps or websites.
For example, don’t be surprised if you make an Instagram account, agree to the terms and conditions, start shopping for a new winter coat on your device on an external internet browser, and ads for coats start cropping up across all of Meta’s social media accounts.
Now it is worth mentioning that Meta cannot access the content of your Whatsapp messages as this is protected by end-to-end encryption technology. However, Meta is still in the process of rolling out end-to-end encryption on Facebook Messenger and Instagram, meaning that users currently must opt-in to this service if they do not want to give Meta the content of their private messages.
Meta uses all this data for various purposes, including improving Meta’s services, developing new products and features, and serving targeted ads to its users.
The company uses machine learning algorithms to analyse users’ data and gain insights into their interests, preferences and behaviour which is then used to personalize the content and ads users see on their various social media platforms.
Additionally, Meta uses the data to measure the effectiveness of its ads and to provide advertisers with tools to target specific audiences.
With this technology, Meta is an extremely powerful tool for anyone who is trying to influence specific cross-sections of society – whether this is businesses trying to reach new customers or politicians trying to spread their message to a particular income group or region.
The main concern for users is: “Do I want Meta to obtain all of this information about me?” And, if the answer is no, “Can I exercise this preference not to share this data?”.
Meta knows us more than we know ourselves. The sheer amount of data Meta receives from each device we use means that Meta’s algorithm knows at any given time where we are, where we are likely to be next, what we might have for dinner, who we are likely to meet for dinner, and which restaurant we might pick.
Meta has tried to make an effort to increase transparency and give users more control over their data. However, Meta’s controversial consenting practices make it difficult for users to exercise any real control over how the tech company can harvest and use your data on their platforms.
For more information on Meta’s controversial data use consenting practices, click here: Meta beware: fresh EU privacy ruling causing headaches for advertising giant”.
As you will see in our next article, these concerns are reciprocated by Google’s data-centred business model. Granting, we should perhaps be even more cautious of Google’s data collection practices due to the sheer amount of data accessible to Google.
Please click here to read the next article: ‘The Cost of Clicks: How Google makes Money from your Searches’.
