According to some confidential documents obtained by The Intercept, Facebook has the ability to predict your online activity.
While it's well-known that Zuckerberg's advertising company — which bills itself as a social media company committed to connecting people — uses your past and current actions to better serve its advertising purposes, the revelation may come as a surprise to many.
The documents suggest that Facebook is offering advertisers the ability to target users based on how they might think and act in the near future. This AI technology, called “FBLearner Flow,” was first developed in 2016.
The company calls this service: Loyalty Prediction. As part of this service, the advertiser gains the power to bombard your feed with ads and change the natural course of your activities.
This may sound like a very specific way for a company to target users, but think about its potential effects.
With the massive amount of data from 2 billion users, Facebook can effectively train its AI and make this predictive model even smarter. This will further help advertisers manipulate your purchasing habits.
It's worth noting that Facebook says all data is anonymous and aggregated. However, it uses this data to gain useful insights and make billions of dollars.
This revelation will undoubtedly raise some ethical questions. You can read the full report here.
