Facebook Ads Reveal Users' Sexual Preferences

Facebook Privacy

First Posted: 16/01/12 11:44 GMT Updated: 17/01/12 11:00 GMT

Facebook's privacy settings have again come under fire for revealing information that users assumed was private.

Users' sexual orientations have been revealed without their permission, as the targeted Facebook ads land on their pages.

A Gawker writer fiddling with the ad's advanced targeting options, found that they could reveal how many Facebook employees are into kinky sex, by tweaking a few settings.

In the easy to use advertising system, anyone setting up a Facebook advertising campaign can target employees of any organisation, and type in any kind of interest they want to target. That could be kittens and cupcakes, or it could be kinky sex, Barely Legal magazine or the Tory party.

The ad system can dig into private details that Facebook users had no intention of sharing outside their chosen "friends" to show these preferences.

The flaws outing have major implications for employee privacy.

For instance, the RSPB could use it to dig out employees or volunteers who secretly like barbecued chicken. Coke could determine whether traitorous staff like Pepsi. Or the BNP could use it to dig out members who actually kinda like everyone.

Gawker had previously written about a researcher who revealed that Facebook's ad system can out individual users as gay.

In this case, the nature of the ad served on the user's Facebook page were targeted at gay people, despite that person never having shared their sexual orientation on their Facebook page.

This Facebook privacy flaw was recently claimed to be the cause of the unplanned outing a UK teen, who was later kicked out of home by his parents.

The youngster had made sure not to reveal his personal details for his own reasons, but his Facebook page was plastered with ads targeted at gay people.

This new privacy issue is not something you can do anything about either.

Facebook's ad system allows advertisers to target their advertising campaign to those with very specific interests, and the ads are particularly easy to set up, and open to anyone with a Facebook account.

What inconvenient or harmful Facebook ads have turned up on your page? Has your boss used Facebook to spy on you?

This article is a corrected version of a previous article.

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Facebook's privacy settings have again come under fire for revealing information that users assumed was private. Users' sexual orientations have been revealed without their permission, as the targ...
Facebook's privacy settings have again come under fire for revealing information that users assumed was private. Users' sexual orientations have been revealed without their permission, as the targ...
Filed by Melanie Hick  | 
 
 
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katertaif
My wife thinks I have one fault. Everything I do!
06:58 AM on 01/18/2012
What exactly is the problem in this day and age, as long as it is legal? Are people ashamed of their 'orientation '? I am male and straight (not that my wife would let me be anything else) and quite happy with that, (as well as with my wife) and I don't care who knows it. Not that I would ever go on facebook or twitter for other reasons.
09:44 AM on 01/17/2012
"Has your boss used Facebook to spy on you?"

He can try, but I don't exist on FB!
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sdterp
Queer, Vegetarian Atheist -- Livin' Large
01:19 AM on 01/17/2012
The more accurate term is sexual orientation. Preference suggests a choice.
Melanie Hick
Tech Editor, Huff Post UK
10:55 AM on 01/17/2012
Thanks for this, I'll amend.
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sdterp
Queer, Vegetarian Atheist -- Livin' Large
11:27 PM on 01/17/2012
Thanks greatly for your reply. :)
01:17 AM on 01/17/2012
Not minimizing the problem, but it's not hard to fix the problem of other people seeing your ads. If you use Firefox, just use the Feed Filter and Ad Block extensions.
01:12 AM on 01/17/2012
Yet another reason to use Google+... NO ADVERTISING!
01:02 AM on 01/17/2012
This is fairly misleading - while it's true that you can TARGET anybody using the ads, Advertisers cannot see some magic list of the names of the people they are targeting. There's no way for an advertiser to even see the names of the users who click on their ads either. You can do the same thing with TV too - it's demographics.
Melanie Hick
Tech Editor, Huff Post UK
10:57 AM on 01/17/2012
The article doesn't say you can see a list of names, but using the ad tool you certainly can ascertain levels above or below 20 of an interest in a certain area, or a sexual orientation.
04:28 PM on 01/17/2012
I think the greater problem would then be people going on a which hunt - general numbers are not exact science.
12:51 AM on 01/17/2012
yes, there IS something you can do about it: stop using facebook. it works like a charm.
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rockysparks
there's no law against being annoying.
04:30 PM on 01/16/2012
"... Coke could determine whether traitorous stadd like Pepsi ..."

Traitorous STADD? Aside from the fact that I'm not even sure "traitorous" is a real word --- possibly "treacherous" would be a better option? --- the fact that HP did NOT take time to proofread this article so that "STADD" would read "STAFF" is just insulting to HP's readers. Come ON, moderators! FIX this sloppily written article ...
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sdterp
Queer, Vegetarian Atheist -- Livin' Large
01:15 AM on 01/17/2012
Traitorous is indeed a word and fits better than treacherous in this context. As for the typo, unfortunate, but this news comes to you art no cost, so you're getting your money's worth and then some.
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rockysparks
there's no law against being annoying.
01:28 AM on 01/17/2012
Thank you, Arianna.
06:48 AM on 01/17/2012
True that. True that.
06:48 AM on 01/17/2012
First sentence has a grammatical error too..."Facebook's privacy setting have again come under fire for revealing information that users assumed was private." Should be "has" if setting is to remain singular. Otherwise, setting should be plural. I agree, not the best written article.
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rockysparks
there's no law against being annoying.
08:35 AM on 01/17/2012
And they think that no one notices or cares if they just let grammatical errors slip by them ...