One phenomena I've run up against in talking about #Threads and #Bluesky the last few weeks is that people generally don't understand how, or underestimate how much, companies like #Meta use the data they collect to strip away any privacy we might reserve for ourselves.
So here's a thread. Feel free to mute me for a hour. For shorthand, DATA COLLECTORS will mean companies whose business model hinges on gathering as much data as possible about users, and COMSOC refers to commercial social media.
Important fact #1: Most ComSoc platforms are owned and operated by data collectors.
It's misleading to think of these companies as facilitating communication first, and collecting user data only secondarily. They'll make certain concessions (e.g. moderation) to keep users plugged in, but to see their services from the POV of the ComSoc business model, it's necessary to see them first and foremost as elaborate systems for capturing data and pinning it back to an actual person out in the world.
So important fact #2 is: Their platforms are not the only place ComSoc companies serve ads, nor are they the only source data collectors draw on for data about you.
Websites are constantly passing data to advertisers so that they can match ads to users, and the company keeps that data and uses it to build out your profile. In fact, Meta has profiles on people who've never signed up for a Meta service: https://www.vox.com/2018/4/20/17254312/facebook-shadow-profiles-data-collection-non-users-mark-zuckerberg
One of the more interesting takeaways to come out of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s multi-day congressional testimony last week was confirmation that the social giant collects data from people online even if they don’t have a Facebook account. And there’s little you can do about it.
Which leads us to important fact #3: Data security is not just about data collected, but also the inferences that can be made from that data.
Pulling in data from a variety of sources increases the size of the profile a data collector can keep on you, but some of the most alarming privacy violations come from juxtaposing different data points in order to draw reasonable conclusions about things the person might not have volunteered to a data collector otherwise. Say… an unannounced pregnancy.
Which is why important fact #4 is maybe one of the most important: Your data is not just about YOUR privacy.
One of the most basic forms of data ComSoc companies have about you are your connections to other people. The "social graph" builds that right into social media. And those connections allow them to use your data to infer things about the people in your social graph. Some of those are basic associational guesses: If you like hockey, your friends might, too. Some are not so casual.
⁂ L. Rhodes
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