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comment by veen
veen  ·  2108 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Cal Newport on Why We'll Look Back at Our Smartphones Like Cigarettes

Replace "Messenger" with "Whatsapp", and you have about half the globe with the same problem. Literally all my communication since like 2015 has gone through WhatsApp for me and everyone I know, replacing texts swiftly. And since Facebook bought WhatsApp, it's effectively also Messenger. Potato potato - effectively, there's no escape from Facebooks grasp. Even if you don't have an account, Facebook profiles you.





ffatty  ·  2107 days ago  ·  link  ·  

What does everyone think of rumors that messenger targets advertisements based on private conversations?

Facebook denies it but there's a lot of anecdotes (my own included) and experiments on YouTube that say otherwise

veen  ·  2107 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I think it very often looks that way because lookalike audiences have gotten really good. The real issue is that many, many websites have some analytics connection to Facebook, so ads have a lot of data to target you with.