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Social Data

Categories: Ethics/Morals

With the digital age and our online vanities (all of our digital profiles of our digital selves to maintain), we’ve got social data. Data that companies can use to target you with ads. Silicon Valley makes big bucks from these ads: Facebook, Google, the big boys. They’re all about using your social data to make you addicted to their platforms, so you view more ads, so they get paid more $.

Social data includes everything about you that you put online: your face, your preferences, your location and language, your check-ins and posts and tweets and political leanings...it’s all out there if you’re on social media.

Try it for yourself. Change your Facebook status to married, and watch the ads change. Hey, you might even get some coupons for scent-free goods in the mail...if you’re preggers. Why else would you have such a sudden wedding without letting the platform know ahead of time? It’s all in the data.



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