FACEBOOK’S POLITICAL LABELING
Facebook knows more about your political views than some of your so-called Facebook friends.
So don’t be surprised if Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump come knocking on your Facebook door because of your activity on the social media network. Too much Big Brother for you? If so, then stay off Facebook. On the social networking site, users should use the same principle often used in business: caveat emptor or “Let the buyer beware.”
Facebook has gathered information on you to sell to advertisers for years. You probably knew that. If you keep any kind of semi-regular presence on the network, you are aware that items you have shopped for online, causes you have checked out or vacation spots you have lusted over have a sneaky way of appearing on your Facebook feed.
That’s not by chance. And now, due to the network’s recent revamping of its ad preference page to make it easier to view, users can see how the network classifies them politically.
It’s not too hard for Facebook to figure out your political views if you have “liked” the Republican Party or the Democratic Party or Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton. Or if, in its Details About You or Describe Who You Are categories, you have painted yourself as a flaming liberal or a staunch conservative, passionately said why you believe what you believe and vowed how you will never change.
It’s a little tougher when you make sincere efforts to keep your political views off your Facebook page. Nevertheless, if you have “liked” many of the same pages as those who classify themselves as liberal or conservative, you may be classified with that label, too.
The example The New York Times gives in discussing Facebook’s recent ad preference page revamping is Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. There’s much to like — around 40 flavors at any one time — about the ice cream, but founders Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield are notoriously left-wing in their politics. People who “like” their Facebook page may be doing so because of their political views. But the chances are that if your other “likes” are the National Rifle Association, “The Dukes of Hazzard” television series and the Focus on the Family organization, your ice cream preference is not automatically going to put you in the liberal category.
The way the social network giant terms it when users check out the ad preferences it has assigned them is this: “You have this preference because we think it may be relevant to you based on what you do on Facebook.” What’s the upshot of all this? Advertising, of course. Political campaigns pay Facebook for its algorithms that are able to target their advertising to specific demographic groups. It follows that if Facebook has labeled you a liberal, you will see more advertising from Democrats. However, the ads targeted to Clinton’s loyal supporters, those who believe Benghazi, illegal email servers and pay-for-play Clinton Foundation contributors are all made-up controversies, may be different from those sent to people on the fence about her.
Indeed, according to The New York Times, Trump’s presidential campaign has paid for its advertising to be delivered to people that Facebook has labeled politically moderate.
With 204 million users in the United States, Facebook is too powerful a tool for any campaign to ignore. Candidates won’t, and we shouldn’t expect them to. They must go where the votes are, and 62.9 percent of the U.S. population use the social networking site. That’s a far greater percentage than vote in any presidential election.
“We use information from a few different sources to figure out which ads might be relevant and useful to you,” Facebook says on the page “How We Determine Your Ad Preferences.” “Things like your Facebook profile information, activity on Facebook and interactions with businesses all can influence the ads you see.”
So you may think all you do on the colossal social networking site is see how your friends in the 1989 class at East Coweta High School are doing, watch every last cute kitten video and finally make that luscious cake you watched demonstrated in 30 seconds on your feed, but Facebook — like Big Brother in the novel “1984” — and its advertisers are watching. And categorizing. And sizing you up. And tailoring ads just for you.
And serving you up to Clinton and Trump. But of course you can ignore them just like you ignore their television commercials, radio spots and junk mail solicitation — whether Facebook labeled your political affiliation correctly or not.