Most Facebook users still unclear how the hell-targeted ads work: Pew Survey

There are many good reasons Facebook users should be extremely skeptical about the information that the social media platform gathers in the following years with data and privacy scandals. However, although the company continues to push its "transparency" story, many of the users still do not understand how their information is being used by the company, and especially with regard to targeted advertising, a survey by the Pew Research Center has found. [1[ads1]9659003] A survey of American adult Facebook users found that 74 percent were unaware of an "ad setting" page that shows "interests" the site has gathered to advertise them, Pew reported in its analysis published Wednesday. Polling 963 Facebook users aged 18 and up September 4 and October 1 last year, the survey found that slightly more than half of respondents reported being "not very or not at all comfortable" with how the company gathered the list over apparent interest categories. (The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.) Per report:

[E] Friend with a majority of users who notice that Facebook at least something accurately assesses their interests, say about half of the users (51%) they are Not very or not at all comfortable with Facebook to make this list about their interests and characteristics. This means that 58% of those who categorize Facebook are not generally comfortable with that process. Conversely, 5% of Facebook users say they are very comfortable with the company that makes this list, and another 31% say they are a little comfortable.

Facebook uses a variety of methods to target ads to individual users, including pages similar to users and their friends, sharing location data, and more vaguely, "information from Facebook and your Instagram profile," on Facebook's ad policy site. Apps and websites can also share information about users with social media, using "like" and "share" buttons or via a Facebook pixel, a piece of code that allows Facebook to collect user activity information on other sites that implement it

Rob Goldman, Facebook's VP for Ad Products claimed in a blog post in 2017 that "[p] rotates people's privacy is central to how we designed our ad system" (the requirement is also plastered properly on Facebook's ad policy page). Furthermore, he wrote that users "should easily understand who is displaying ads to you and see which other ads the advertiser is running."

But Pew's survey indicates that despite all the noise Zuckerberg and other corporate heads have done about Facebook that has the best of intentions, many of the users remain largely in the dark about how the company collects information about them. And in addition to learning these practices, people are not super-minded about them.

In response to the survey, Facebook told Verge in a statement that it "will [people] understand how our ad settings and controls work." Facebook has obviously a hell of a lot of work to do if it intends to do well that requirement.

[Pew Research Center via the Verge]