“to be is to share,” has resulted in a data set and targeting tools that
make grocery store scanners, focus groups, panels, and surveys look
like a cross between smoke signals and semaphore. That data collector
behind the two-way mirror, at that focus group that gave you a $75
voucher to Old Navy for participating, is about to lose her job. Simple
surveys (and they must be simple, because people today don’t have the
time for long questionnaires) are near-meaningless in the digital age—
when you can measure how people actually behave in their private
lives, instead of what they report (“I always use a condom”).
This immense learning engine goes well beyond targeting soccer
moms on the Nike Page. When you have the Facebook app open on
your phone in the United States, Facebook is listening... and
analyzing. That’s right: Anything you do involving Facebook is likely to
be gathered and stored.^15 The firm claims it’s not using the data to
tailor ads, but to better serve up content you may be interested in, or
want to share, based on what you are doing (shopping at Target,
watching Game of Thrones).
What we do know is that Facebook can indeed eavesdrop on
ambient noise, picked up on your phone’s microphone.^16 That means
Facebook can feed this noise into AI-augmented listening software and
determine whom you are with, and what you are doing—and even
what the people around you are talking about. The targeting isn’t any
creepier than what happens on the wider web when you have a pixel
dropped on your browser and get retargeted ads. That pair of shoes
that’s following you around the internet? You’ve been targeted. What’s
creepy is how good Facebook is getting at it and the number of
platforms it can gather and share data across. Double-tap a Vans
image on Instagram, and you may find an ad for those same Vans in
your Facebook feed the next day. “Creepy” is correlated to relevance.
I don’t need to dive too far into the privacy implications here. That
discussion is raging on dozens of other channels. But in general, a cold
war between privacy and relevance is being waged in our society. No
real shots fired yet (like banning Facebook), but both sides
(supporting privacy or relevance) don’t trust the other, and it could
easily escalate. We knowingly feed corporate-run machines a great
deal of information about our lives—daily movements, emails, phone