Facebook 10yr challenge...

It was nice to watch some comp surfing here the other day without having to use Facebook.

Well Facebook has been trying for quite a few years to get more buy in from an option you can switch on and off called facial recognition. It's where if a pic of you appears on Facebook that you've not been tagged in, Facebook will send you a notification alert. No big deal I guess. The thing is, for reasons of privacy and/or security a lot of people aren't too keen on this idea and have opted out. The 10 year challenge is something that has just popped up, which seem quite harmless at face value, where millions of users have now voluntarily posted selfies of themselves side by side of pics taken 10 years apart. Taking into account some of the creepy things Facebook do around profiling users and specific ad targeting of individual users, will this treasure trove of up close images of people and how they've aged/changed over 10 years be too much for them to resist scooping up and using to refine the facial recognition algorithm that they're desperate for more users to opt into? Have a look at your account settings on Facebook messenger (if you have it) go into settings and check out ad preferences. Have a look and see what Facebook have deduced, from everything you've liked etc on Facebook or your web browsing in general, are your "Interests" Then have a look at "advertisers you've interacted with" I guarantee you'll be blown away. The facial recognition is designed to get you online and tagged more. See where you are and who you're hanging around with which generates a clearer picture of who you are and the things that blow your hair back, which is then sold off in great chunks to advertisers who can almost get to know you so well they can target advertising specifically to users when they're at their most receptive.

I know this shit sounds totally crazy and half the time I think I'm going completely nuts even thinking about it so it was quite a relief to read a piece about this in the NY Times just now which is pretty much saying the same thing. It's also nice to anonymously lob these things out to the swellnet community, which I'd like to think are a "jury of my peers", if you will, to see what your average bloke thinks about this, or at all.

Anyway, sorry about the rant, I'll cut it off now as I have imaginary helicopters to hear flying overhead and venetian blinds to peek through!

And seriously, check those settings in your Facebook messenger app, for interests sake if nothing else.