If something is free, you are the product. The influence of Facebook on our democracy It is difficult to estimate exactly how far Facebook will go in its hunger for personal data. Especially since the company is shady about this. Last month, Android phone number database users discovered that Facebook tracks who phone number database you're on the phone with . Rumors also keep popping up that Facebook is listening in through your own microphone , although this is systematically denied. Perhaps the worst thing is that Facebook has phone number database the power and possibilities to show us certain messages and not others.
For this, Facebook has developed an algorithm phone number database that hardly anyone knows how it works . As a result, each of us ends up in a ' filter bubble ' that narrows and directs our view of the world. But the algorithm does another remarkable thing. In recent years, Facebook has increasingly narrowed the reach of companies . This phone number database almost forces a company that wants to reach its audience to buy ads from Facebook. This puts niche media under pressure. They don't have the budgets. Consequence? Their journalistic phone number database sound is silenced by the screams of the big boys. These are all worrying developments that have a direct and indirect influence on our democratic process. I have nothing to hide! Maybe now you shrug.
Because isn't it nice to see messages and phone number database advertisements on your screen that match your personal interests? Besides, what have you got to hide? I've seen this last argument many times over the past few days. But is it phone number database also true? Have we nothing to hide? For example, let's look at one of the first questions Facebook asks new users: “Are you interested in men or women?” This seems like an phone number database innocent question, until you realize that homosexuality is punishable in almost half of the world . Some countries even impose the death penalty. Then you realize how vulnerable this kind of seemingly futile information.