Every advertisement you see on the internet says something about you, gleaned from your online habits. You can find out what – and do something about it

Facebook says all I want is babies and caviar. What else does it think it knows about me?

Why does Facebook keep pushing pregnancy tests on me? Who do they think I am?

Are you a woman in your mid-20s, perchance?

As a daily Facebook user at the peak of my fertility (well, I assume; its data-gathering hasn’t got that specific – yet), my feed is full of advertisements for Clearblue and its competitors. One called Natural Cycles appeared a few days ago because it sought to “reach women aged 18 to 45 who live, or have recently been, in the United Kingdom”. You might say it’s casting a wide net.

Keely (@JustKeels) You turn 26 and all of a sudden the first ad that comes up on Facebook is for a pregnancy test. pic.twitter.com/h7x04xdg6B

Advertising is one of those areas in which the internet, and Facebook in particular, wears its unsettling insights on its sleeve. Just about every ad you see online says something about you, your habits, interests and desires, as gleaned from the hours you spend pootling around the world wide web. They’re so bespoke as to be utterly unobtrusive – until you see how someone else’s feed differs from yours.

A few months ago, I was complaining to a friend about how Facebook had joined the chorus of “have your babies young” that I sparked by turning 26. In terms of demographics, he is 19, lives in Melbourne, and prints his own bootleg T-shirts with Liz Phair and Lana Del Rey on them. He looked completely bemused – then a light of recognition dawned: “Oh, I get a lot of ads for flotation tanks,” he said.

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“Instagram either thinks I’m gay, or it’s just a theory it’s testing out,” said another friend (32, male, keen cyclist and REM fan). “I keep getting ads for gay package holidays.”

😾 Rowan 🐅 (@RowanKaiser) my god, the first facebook ad made directly for me. pic.twitter.com/nJNeeOyPU1

Whatever Facebook’s pushing, it’s possible to find out why by clicking on the arrow on the top-right of any sponsored or “suggested” post, and then then “why am I seeing this?”

The same data is displayed at Facebook.com/ads/preferences, painted in brush strokes so broad as to be comical – think proper, Picasso-tries-a-face Cubist. Mine suggests I am interested in entrepreneurship, beaches, smoking as a treatment of meat, watercolour painting, women’s rights, Royal Caribbean International cruises, parties, and something called “botargo” that I understand to be a sort of salted relish made of fish eggs and pressed into rolls. (Correct me in the comments, my fellow botargo-lords!)

The REM fan’s were even further off the mark, though he is admittedly a less invested Facebook user. His interests in food, in their entirety: Food. Takeout. Salt. Among those in lifestyle and culture: wildfires, televisions (plural), toxicology, day, wonder (emotion) and Don (honorific).

Stephen Jeffery (@stephenejeffery) So in Facebook's advert settings, their algorithms logged these for me under 'hobbies and interests' pic.twitter.com/RJIZ4vt5PJ

At first I found the crudeness of these approximations somewhat comforting, given how much is made of tech companies’ precise and nefarious data-mining. What dirt could Zuckerburg have on me if I’m defined in his eyes by my interest in ichthyology?

Twitter and Google’s insights were more accurate but also more generic, flagging me as a fan of all kinds of culture, news and “general info”. I did not see myself reflected back at me in my 75 “Interests From Twitter” (accessible under Settings, and Your Twitter Data), nor in the PDF document I was sent listing the handles of the advertisers marketing to me – all 23 pages of them.

If I had a rather laissez-faire approach towards my personal data, it was because I was given the sense I had control over it. That same Ad Preferences page on Facebook presents you with the ads you’ve interacted with, the information that’s informed them, and whether or not your engagements with brands are served up to your friends as a vote of confidence (“Elle Hunt likes botargo”).

There’s even an option, currently in testing, to hide advertisements that relate to two topics: alcohol and parenting.

The requests for permission and the potential for personalisation may give you a sense of agency, but the reality is it’s so piecemeal as to be negligible. Even giving you the option to review your data is a bit self-serving of the platform: by correcting its understanding of your interests (“are you still interested in ichthyology?”), you’re making yourself an easier target.

Burton not Button⚜️ (@revbburton) Bought a hammock this week and now every Facebook ad is for another hammock.

Facebook’s and Google’s user guides are the friendly face of their advertising services, specifically simplistic so as to be accessible to people of all levels of tech-savvy. Whether or not it’s by design, the effect is reassuring. The apparent transparency gives you the illusion of control over your data and what companies do with it – the true extent of which no one really knows except them.



In May it was revealed that Facebook had touted its ability to identify teenagers at low moments to advertisers, reminiscent of its infamous 2012 experiment in manipulating its users’ emotions. The same month, it was fined €110m (£94m) by the EU for misleading the commission over what it was able to do with WhatsApp users’ data once it took over the messaging service in 2014.

When Facebook has appeared disingenuous about its intentions in the past, it’s no wonder we might not take it at its word. A Huffington Post/YouGov poll of 1000 US adults, conducted early last year, found that 28% did not trust Facebook with their data “at all”; 34% said they did not trust it “much”. A 2014 Pew Research Center survey found that 45% were “not at all confident” that social media sites’ records of their activity would remain private and secure.

But nothing screams “breakdown in trust” like a public denial of spying. In June, Facebook felt moved to formally reject an academic’s speculation in the Independent that it was listening in on users’ conversations through their smartphones’ microphones so as to show them relevant ads.

Of course, Facebook can access the microphone, but only for specific purposes, and only if it’s been granted permission – but the wherewithal seems enough for the theory to be floated on social media whenever an ad seems a little on-the-nose.

Avril Clinton-Forde (@ClintonForde) Is Facebook listening? I talked about Thomas land today and 2 hours later a sponsored ad appeared. I've never searched for it online at all. pic.twitter.com/sCbIlRyV59

One Twitter user referred to “the toothpaste test”: mentioning it in conversation with groups of friends, then asking them to look for ads about it. “All saw ads.” (If none of us ever see an online ad for toothpaste again, you know who to thank.)

The coincidences across Facebook and Instagram, like being swamped with ads for probiotics after a passing mention of them on chat, are easier to explain: Facebook owns Instagram. I get pregnancy tests there, too.

But the platform’s eye of Sauron extends far beyond its own stable. For as long as you’re logged on – and quite possibly when you’ve logged out, too – Facebook can see virtually every other website you visit. This 2016 list of the 98 personal data points it uses to target ads to you is eye-opening reading.

Evan J. Berkowitz (@TheEndOfMyWitz) Facebook fed me an ad for grad school so apparently I need to post more about hating school and never wanting more of it.

It’s hard to overestimate just how significantly advances in targeting have changed the game of digital marketing, and even electioneering. I won’t begrudge you for having better things to do, but it is edifying to read material geared for the other end of the equation: advertisers.

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Facebook’s how-to guide for businesses explains how one might market to a “person who likes cooking but doesn’t own a home and/or isn’t a parent”; so put into practice, that ropy list of stock images suddenly points to a powerful tool.

When social media is so often experienced as a mundanity, a distraction, or back-to-back photos of strangers’ dogs, it can be easy to forget that we’re the product being sold. But why should any thinly-disguised marketplace need to know something so personal as your relationship status, or favourite honorific?

We’re able to access only the tip of the iceberg of our personal data, but we might as well do what we can. Review your privacy settings. Turn off every option and refuse every permission you can.

Facebook calls it “managing ad preferences”. On Twitter, it’s “personalisation”. It might be presented as being for your benefit, but make no mistake, it’s a token gesture – no one benefits more from this exchange than they do.