Facebook is scaring me

H2 rider · Share | #1 08-17-2017, 12:27 PM

I sent a message to my friend last night using Facebook messenger. This morning he replied and I viewed the chat on my phone. I didn't know today is his birthday.

I began to reply and "Happy Birthday" was loaded in the text box. I accidentally sent the message then started typing a follow up message to say it was a mistake. Seconds later, my friend said "thank you!" Yes today is his birthday. Facebook put the message in the text box for me.

Usually I get a reminder on Facebook mentioning a friend's birthday. This time Facebook put the birthday greeting in my message. What's next?

LMD · #2 08-17-2017, 12:33 PM

How about reams of spam posts, videos and links that bloat our timelines. I'm sick that I can't turn this crap off. It seems like it's every 3 or 4 posts, then a spam post. 3 or 4 posts - then another spam post. It just keeps going on and on.

Some of this spam is disguised to look like a compelling "story", but it ends up just being a fake news story that is really an advert.

I can't stand it much more. Spam is everywhere.

H2 rider · #3 08-17-2017, 01:53 PM

I usually don't click a link that goes to another website for that reason.

KeepItSimple · #4 08-17-2017, 09:32 PM

Guys, it is just a website. You can stop using it if you don't like it.

vaguar · #5 08-17-2017, 09:48 PM

If you think that's scary - a friend of mine just talked about a trip to Thailand while his phone was around. Next day he was swamped with Thailand holiday ads on Facebook. The worst is already here. I deleted the Facebook app from my phone 2 years ago. It's stayed deleted since then.

Webmisster · #6 08-18-2017, 03:43 AM

Creepy. Your friend must have done a search though for Thailiand even if it wasn't a lot?

l0xz · #7 08-20-2017, 04:56 AM

I would stay away from Facebook. They love spying on people, and selling your data to big corporations.

vaguar · #8 08-20-2017, 08:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Webmisster

Creepy. Your friend must have done a search though for Thailiand even if it wasn't a lot?

Not in this particular case. In this instance he'd just thought of it so he hadn't searched for anything.

tyler00 · #9 09-10-2017, 01:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by H2 rider

Usually I get a reminder on Facebook mentioning a friend's birthday. This time Facebook put the birthday greeting in my message. What's next?

And welcome to their business strategy. Analyze what you and your friends are doing/saying/typed/stored and then use that to market you with ads that you might click. In this case it was benign by reading all of your friends DOB profile and then filling in a pre-made msg for you to type. This is all expected and very easy to do.

Profit Donkey · #10 09-14-2017, 05:54 AM

Sometimes getting related ads is actually useful. Let's say a website is promoting some blog post about SEO. It was shown to you because you follow SEO related pages on Facebook.

You don't have to go and buy something. Many times you will be able to find very useful content and new awesome websites this way.

LMD · #11 09-14-2017, 06:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KeepItSimple

Guys, it is just a website. You can stop using it if you don't like it.

I use it less and less every day mostly because of the junk and advertising disguised as news, which is fake BTW.

bywaterdigital · #12 09-15-2017, 05:38 AM

It's not just Facebook though, the governments are heavily in to tracking what we do. I think they probably fund a lot of the R&D for facial recognition software/hardware. Through CCTV they know where we all are when in major cities etc.

It's crazy how good facial recognition software is now. Facebook auto tags your friends in images, even if just a small obscured part of their face is visible.

Vinba · #13 10-30-2017, 10:11 PM

The power of having a lot of data... I'm more scared of google haha

Prakash Dayani · #14 11-01-2017, 05:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by H2 rider

I sent a message to my friend last night using Facebook messenger. This morning he replied and I viewed the chat on my phone. I didn't know today is his birthday.

I began to reply and "Happy Birthday" was loaded in the text box. I accidentally sent the message then started typing a follow up message to say it was a mistake. Seconds later, my friend said "thank you!" Yes today is his birthday. Facebook put the message in the text box for me.

Usually I get a reminder on Facebook mentioning a friend's birthday. This time Facebook put the birthday greeting in my message. What's next?

Sorry Dude, Didn't get you. What is so scary about this?

Lebar.123 · #15 11-01-2017, 12:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by LMD

How about reams of spam posts, videos and links that bloat our timelines. I'm sick that I can't turn this crap off. It seems like it's every 3 or 4 posts, then a spam post. 3 or 4 posts - then another spam post. It just keeps going on and on.

Some of this spam is disguised to look like a compelling "story", but it ends up just being a fake news story that is really an advert.

I can't stand it much more. Spam is everywhere.

Yes, yes it is my friend. That is why forums have lost their popularity.

bywaterdigital · #16 11-03-2017, 11:09 AM

They are all at it. Have you noticed video ads on Youtube relating to something you were talking about or searching for recently?

LMD · #17 11-03-2017, 01:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bywaterdigital

They are all at it. Have you noticed video ads on Youtube relating to something you were talking about or searching for recently?

There was a writer on Men's Health talking about a test experiment/scenario he did with a smart phone present and powered up, in a closed room, by himself, making mention of some product that he had never searched or viewed using the phone. He advised that he had no lingering cache, no urls or or any traces about the product or anything similar.

All he did was mention the product by name a few times in a closed room, by himself. And, the next time he went on FB (which was shortly after the experiment), there were adverts found in his timeline referencing the product he vocalized in the test.

I don't recall all the details of the article, but I do remember it being a very sanitized experiment. I assumed that what he wrote was all true, and nothing was faked - it really kind of freaked me out.

RonaldLCooper · #18 11-09-2017, 08:47 PM

From what I've heard its true. There were reports that Google was also doing the same.

AlexM85 · #19 11-10-2017, 02:32 AM

Here's my creepy experience with facebook. I have all my privacy settings tweaked so that nobody can find me. I always browse in incognito and even when It happes that I don't, I clear my cache and cookies and everything after I quit browsing. I login once a week at most, I don't have my account linked to anything. You get the picture. I started working in a company recently and I didn't provide the email that I have on my facebook, I always use different emails for anythng I do online. A few days ago I got an ad for one of my company's products even though I have all these settings tweaked and my generally paranoia-driven online behavior. I really can't tell how I got that ad. And another experience was uninstalling my laptop's camera driver. A few minutes after uninstall I started getting security alerts from windows defender saying that one extremely important driver is missing. I ignored these warnings and in about 30 minutes my camera driver was installed again without my knowledge. It's like we're living in George Orwell's 1984.

rafiqwatch · #20 11-14-2017, 05:11 AM

this is a not big issue please reload your facebook and than re prepossess.

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