Facebook Can See What You Type, Even if You Don’t Post It
According to a story published this week in the Los Angeles Times, Facebook can see what users type on the site even if they don’t post it. The social media giant had to confirm this feature after two Facebook researchers revealed that they had tracked the activity of 5 million random Facebook users while they analyzed self-censorship on the site.
Facebook told the Times that the only reason for this research was to look into self-censorship, which they described as cases in which users would type something without publishing it within ten minutes. The site said that they could not see what exact words or letters the users had written, and that they only looked at whether users had written anything at all. Facebook said it has no plans to continue tracking this kind of data, though the implications are disturbing.
In Facebook’s Data Use Policy, which every user agrees to when they sign up, the site spells out the full access Facebook will have to a user’s data and browsing habits once they register. Of course, most people don’t read this fine print. Still, concerned users can hide themselves from this kind of snooping by using a web browser that has Javascript turned off.
This article was originally published
by our friends at Facecrooks.
