Posted on 01/14/2021 4:31:26 PM PST by GardenerForLife
I used to visit this forum years ago and I recently felt impressed that I should come back and share some info.
I am a software engineer by trade. I write code. I've worked for many big tech companies over the years. Last year I worked for a well known big tech company on a year long contract. I worked on the software that searches all social media platforms and collects the data on you.
Facebook, Twitter, et all, have back doors called APIs that allow authorized entities to request data. And that data is then packed up and sent to the requestor. This is done using the Elastic Search technology. And I don't mean a little data, I mean all of it, terabytes worth.
If you post a message about your dream vacation to Detroit, it's scanned. If words in your post match the criteria they are looking for, all your info is packed and passed to the requestor.It gets worse. The technology is now available to scan photos and pick out images that match as well. If you post a picture that has some where in the image, let's say a logo on your shirt, the software can find it. I haven't been on Facebook in a year and I deleted my account. I asked my boss if he was "ok" with what we were doing. He said to me, "Look, I just keep my head down, it's a job."
This is not hear-say. I was a SDET or Software Developer in Test. It was my job to write automation code that tested the search algorithm. In other words, if 50k people "Liked" a video or an image, that we would get back all that data as expected.
Part of that testing was posting images FB, Twitter, etc, that contained an item. Then making sure the code found that item, the image was flagged and the data on it was returned to me as expected. So if you have a picture that contains a Christian cross some where in the image and they want to put you on a list, they can find it that quick. Or anything else they want to find.
Stay off social media platforms. I deleted all my accounts, you should too.
-Gardener
I have two sons in their 50’s who don’t do social media, and don’t upload family photos anywhere. No reason to. Neither of them has any kids, so no grandchildren here, which is fine, because I’d probably end up having to raise them. They saved me a shitload of problems by not procreating. And the rest of my family is dead. I’m the last one left. The only photo ID I have is my NY State Driver’s License, and if Andrew Cuomo uploads that without my permission, I’ll sue his ass off.
Scary that. I applied as an Oculus VR coder with Facebook. Things were going do great until the social media check. Passed all the tech interviews.
Think I was auto-banned from most tech companies due to my former postings on Facebook, Twitter, and other sites with accounts I no longer have.
I am simplifying my life...
Guessing they found an H1B Indian to replace you.
The new NSA data center in Bluffdale, Utah has everything that everyone has ever done online, phones both Cell & Landline, Radio, Banking and more. Nothing is Private anymore.
wi all the crime going on, kinda makes ya wonder what they’re saving it for...
Well, welcome back to FR.
There is an option on FB to download your entire account. I can’t remember how to do it, but I know it’s there. I used it when I got off of it a few years ago.
Thank you and I will check it out.
Poor little guy. Give him something new for his tastebuds.
Curt Schilling was “himself” on social media and garnered attention because of his name. AIG didn’t have to buy data to find that out.
Look, I know they collect data. They tell you they do.
You allege that it is something more than they tell you.
Prove it.
“Hi, my name’s gardenerforlife, I like to make wild accusations I’m not able to back up. And if I’m questioned about it, I’ll just claim you missed the point and ignore you.”
Did I get that right?
You started this entire thread about the ‘what’, not the how. You provided no ‘what’ in your post, just vague accusations. I merely asked for some, and now I’m just ‘rainbows and unicorns’ ignorant.
I have long suspected that Facebook has the ability to data mine everything on the internet including email correspondences.
I had a legitimate Facebook account associated with my primary email address with a number of "friends" added to it. In the early days of my sign up, I was getting notifications to friend somebody who was a friend of a friend on my list. I figured, ok, they know that Bob is my friend so lets send Bob's friends to Hot Tabasco and hopefully he will link up to them.
Because I am active in leaving comments on various internet news sources, I created a second fictitious Facebook account using my secondary email address to use as my ID when leaving comments. After a while, I started getting notifications from Facebook to "friend" somebody who had a Facebook account and just happened to be on my email list and corresponded with me on both my email addresses.......
That's when I realized that the only way Facebook could connect my fictitious Facebook account to somebody I know is if they are mining email correspondences from the internet............
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