As you’re probably well aware, Facebook tracks its users all over the internet, building up a profile of their behavior so that advertisers can target them with a higher degree of precision. While sometimes the assumptions Facebook makes about your profile are accurate, other times it results in some very bizarre conclusions about what you are interested in.
If you’re logged into Facebook, go to http://ift.tt/1W9C6Bf and click the various categories listed on that page to see what the social media site really has deduced based on your behavior.
A cursory check around Consumerist HQ resulted in such out-of-nowhere interests as the “vibraphone,” “mohair,” “harvest,” and everyone’s favorite pastime “month.”
Drilling down even further didn’t help. Trying to figure out why Facebook listed one of our interests as “Autonomy,” (which we suppose is not incorrect, but not exactly something you’d put on an “About Me” page), it explained that this staffer had clicked on things related to Autonomy like “Free Will” and “Virtue,” which makes sense, but “Barbecue grill” does not.
And so we’re encouraging our readers to not only check out their Facebook ad preferences, but to send us screengrabs of the most out-of-left-field things that Facebook mistakenly thinks you’re really into.
Just send us those screengrabs at tips@consumerist.com with “Facebook is Odd” in the subject line. As always, we will not reveal any personally identifying info from anything submitted by our readers.
by Chris Morran via Consumerist