Facebook is no doubt a revolutionary product but over the past years it keeps on getting accused of violating so many of its policies and despite so many scandals this social network still manages to top them all.
Recently, a bunch of media outlets including AFP, CNBC, and The Hill reported that Facebook told the US senators in a letter that it tracks users even after they’ve turned off their location settings within the app.
Well, this isn’t something new to be shocked, is it? Because this was revealed exactly a year ago.
On December 18, 2018, in story by a journalist Kashmir Hill we learned about the misuse of location services by Facebook and if you take a look at the coincidence, these new reports from news organizations came exactly around the anniversary of Kashmir Hill’s story reminding the people how Facebook is doing business and nothing is going to change about that at all.
Facebook’s chief privacy deputy officer Rob Sherman yesterday explained to the media behind sharing the company policies on location tracking to the senators Christopher Coons (D-Del) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.).
According to Sherman, the social network uses IP address, check-ins and photos of the tagged users to learn about the location of its users and later on shares that information with marketers to target the users with relevant ads and content in their News Feed.
Facebook is a free social media platform and helping marketers reach potential consumers is how the social platform makes money.
The target audience data provided by Facebook based on location helps marketers reach exactly the sort of people they want to advertise their services and products to.
If you want to completely turn off your location services, simply go to your phone settings and turn off the option of location services completely.
To turn off location for Facebook, Go to your phone setting option and open location services, click on the Facebook app and select among the options of allowing location access to ‘Never’ ‘Ask Next Time’ and ‘While Using the App’.
Within the Facebook app, you can also review your location history and can also delete the record of the places you don’t want to be saved in Facebook’s location history.
The background location option in the Android phone can enable the users to allow Facebook to track location even if the user isn’t using the app. So you can turn this option off if you don’t want to share your location information with Facebook.
These are just some of the features that can help prevent the misuse of your data but even with all these settings if you still fear about Facebook tracking your location and sharing among others then the best option is to stop using these apps altogether so that you don’t have to worry about being tracked all the time.
These reports from news organizations reveal why Facebook shouldn’t be trusted but there’s nothing we can do about it other than just completely stop using the platform.
Photo: REUTERS/Johanna Geron
Read next: Facebook, Netflix, Subway Surfers: These Are the 10 Best Apps and Games of the Decade (Based on iOS and Android Stores Data)
Recently, a bunch of media outlets including AFP, CNBC, and The Hill reported that Facebook told the US senators in a letter that it tracks users even after they’ve turned off their location settings within the app.
Well, this isn’t something new to be shocked, is it? Because this was revealed exactly a year ago.
On December 18, 2018, in story by a journalist Kashmir Hill we learned about the misuse of location services by Facebook and if you take a look at the coincidence, these new reports from news organizations came exactly around the anniversary of Kashmir Hill’s story reminding the people how Facebook is doing business and nothing is going to change about that at all.
Facebook’s chief privacy deputy officer Rob Sherman yesterday explained to the media behind sharing the company policies on location tracking to the senators Christopher Coons (D-Del) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.).
According to Sherman, the social network uses IP address, check-ins and photos of the tagged users to learn about the location of its users and later on shares that information with marketers to target the users with relevant ads and content in their News Feed.
Facebook is a free social media platform and helping marketers reach potential consumers is how the social platform makes money.
The target audience data provided by Facebook based on location helps marketers reach exactly the sort of people they want to advertise their services and products to.
If you want to completely turn off your location services, simply go to your phone settings and turn off the option of location services completely.
- Also read: Study Shows That Despite Being Tech-Savvy, Millennials Are More Likely To Sell Their Personal Data!
To turn off location for Facebook, Go to your phone setting option and open location services, click on the Facebook app and select among the options of allowing location access to ‘Never’ ‘Ask Next Time’ and ‘While Using the App’.
Within the Facebook app, you can also review your location history and can also delete the record of the places you don’t want to be saved in Facebook’s location history.
The background location option in the Android phone can enable the users to allow Facebook to track location even if the user isn’t using the app. So you can turn this option off if you don’t want to share your location information with Facebook.
These are just some of the features that can help prevent the misuse of your data but even with all these settings if you still fear about Facebook tracking your location and sharing among others then the best option is to stop using these apps altogether so that you don’t have to worry about being tracked all the time.
These reports from news organizations reveal why Facebook shouldn’t be trusted but there’s nothing we can do about it other than just completely stop using the platform.
Photo: REUTERS/Johanna Geron
Read next: Facebook, Netflix, Subway Surfers: These Are the 10 Best Apps and Games of the Decade (Based on iOS and Android Stores Data)
