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Ryan and brother Jason reunite for a timely, eye-opening episode diving into the top 10 most unsettling things Facebook knows about you, revealing how the platform gleans deeply personal insights from your activity, even if you think you've kept them privat
Fun, candid banter mixes laughs, nostalgia, and caution—perfect for anyone pondering their digital footprint.
Creators and Guests
What is The Worst of the Best Podcast?
Join host Ryan Rebalkin and his rotating guest hosts on The Worst of the Best Podcast, where they dive into the flaws of the best in pop culture and more. Covering genres like films, music, food, true crime, historical events, celebrity culture, and quirky societal trends, this podcast delivers a humorous, irreverent critique of the finest’s shortcomings.
0:00
ready yeah all right welcome to the worst of the best
0:06
podcast you wanted the best well they didn't freaking make it so here's what
0:12
you get from Canada Ryan and Jason [Applause]
0:22
[Music]
0:29
[Applause]
0:36
welcome to the worst of the best podcast I am your host Ryan and with me today
0:42
again guest host still my brother Jason how you doing I appreciate being here
0:47
Ryan I'm doing well thank you very much uh it's good to be back on your show yeah it's good to have you back you know
0:53
I have rotating guest hosts which is always fun but I I will admit obviously doing with you and Ruben the OG host
1:00
there it's easier to do with family just because you know your family there's no like awkwardness so to speak maybe it's
1:06
a less engaging conversation for our listeners maybe better podcasters have gone on before you Reuben who worked
1:12
with me but you guys as far as I'm concerned I get to hang with my brother so that's cool it is a good opportunity
1:17
to catch up hang out for sure talk about things that are usually interesting or entertaining so I discovered this is
1:24
just a little side note for our tens and tens of listeners uh a little side note here I Google as I sometimes do I Google
1:31
my podcast just to see where I might show up on the interwebs and there is
1:36
another podcast that just started in like November called the worst of the best podcasts verbatim and they have a
1:43
black and white lettering like we have on our podcast as well wow that's not
1:49
cool and guess what their premise is they focus just on music but they pick
1:54
artists and pick the worst song from that artist this is not coincidental no
2:00
it sucks completely they're probably getting better numbers than we are which is the irony or not or not who knows but it's
2:07
legitimately the same name as our podcast and the same concept but focused just on music right well hopefully they
2:13
get bored of the uh we only release once every two weeks anyways sometimes once every week but for the most part we're
2:19
once every two weeks and looks like they're once a month is and they haven't released anything since the beginning of December already so it's already been a
2:25
month so I'm hoping they die out see I've been pumping out this show for no bu for a long time so I'm I can do this
2:32
forever you know what I mean if they can't handle getting not very many listeners they're already bow out of the
2:38
program well that's why we'll stick around for the long hole better for better for worse this show is going to be around for a while I really like this
2:45
format well they did too apparently I don't know why you don't have more than 10 listeners I don't know I I think the
2:53
concept is great so I guess it's just we that suck the host yeah probably maybe
2:58
the host were better you'd have a better uh audience that would be the crazy irony is they've taken our concept ran
3:04
with it and maybe they're doing a better job that's fair all right we're the beta cassette taped with their VHS you know
3:09
what I mean they uh took the same program but just made it more accessible better I don't know easier to operate who knows I don't have the heart to
3:16
listen I'm kind of curious I'm kind of curious I'm almost tempted to listen to the show and break it down on our show a
3:22
little bit take an episode you know what you should do is uh you should contact them and be a guest host with them no I
3:27
actually already wrote on their one of their one of their podcast walls I just said hey you literally took our logo
3:34
format name of our show I said either it's an accident or it's not but do some research it's not cool the first thing I
3:41
did when I did my Rocky podcast and when we did this podcast the first thing we did the literally the any podcaster
3:46
knows the first thing you do is Google or search on iTune podcast does anyone
3:52
have your freaking title yeah so if you're like a rock band the first thing you do is search the internet to see if
3:57
anybody has the name the band if you're a company the first thing you do is like does anybody have the name of this you
4:03
want to be unique in your own it's just common sense to do that so it's hard to believe that in this day and age nobody
4:09
would have Google searched yeah it's insane it makes me angry the only thing I can hope for is if they are popular
4:15
and people search them out that they stumble on our show too that's the only thing I can hope for are you that desperate for listeners
4:22
maybe I could I could use five more that'd be great it's a little bit irksome because it's like someone literally is taking your product and
4:29
here you are begging for five more listeners and then you have me on as a co-host that's true we're going to lose the other five I know at least our mom
4:36
will listen Ruben doesn't even listen to the podcast you blame him I guess not all
4:43
right well here we go guys we're excited for this this is actually a really fun topic when I did the research for this
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sometimes i' you know I've done topics ah maybe wasn't the best topic maybe that's part of the problem why nobody listens but this was actually really uh
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a really interesting one to read about only because I'm I'm a big Facebook user I've slowed down my usage and has
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nothing to do with the reasons that we're going to talk about we'll get to the topic in just a second but my own personal Facebook use I have you know
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just like everyone else I've used it for 13 odd years whatever since it came out I've had mixed feelings about it mixed
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feelings about technology social media in general overall my Facebook feeling
5:21
is it it's a necessary evil in the same way that you know emissions from Fuel and cars it sucks the environment it
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sucks for the environment but it's like man I'm never not going to drive right I I'm sorry like as much as I like the
5:33
environment I need my car now I'm not to say like I need social media or a social
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platform but it does provide a lot of things it's just very easy I got news to share with friends or or anyone that
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cares family or anyone that cares I should say then I'm like hey I got a job promotion great I didn't have to make 30
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phone calls I could just people could say congratulations or we're moving or all these things that happening in my life right now recently it's just an
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easy way to get the word out picture from Christmas or the line of communication in a lot of situations for
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example if you're moving you could just make a post and then everybody that know
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air quotes cares about you at least is aware that you're moving you don't have to write 30 letters and 30 different
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address changes to a whole variety of people streamlines a lot of
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communication I use it a little less than you I I typically it's just family orientated conversation or interactions
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I'm never one very good at advertising things about myself or things that I'm kind of like really involved you know
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you have a couple podcasts you're a little bit more engaged in that way and the only way for you to get listeners is
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to advertise through social media or else no one will know about you no one will know to copy you yeah without
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social media I know I know the irony whoever started the podcast if you're
6:54
listening to our show can I don't know can you just say hey I'm sorry give them a cease and assist order
7:00
yeah I know it's all fine you know what if there's a 100 of our shows 100 of our what are you going to do know old joking
7:05
side the concept I guess isn't that original because there's a lot of best of podcasts there's movie podcasts there's a variety of different podcasts
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I guess it's just weird they literally it's the same name but anyways yeah yeah that's the weirdest part concept I don't
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really care about that the actual name and the logo art is similar but anyways okay so back to Facebook necessary evil
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something I've had mixed feelings about but if you're on the fence about Facebook this episode today will make
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you even more angry at Facebook what we're discussing today is the top 10
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unsettling things Facebook knows about you and how it's really quite
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fascinating and you're going to say to yourself like what do you mean of course they know my name okay they know my
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interest because I've put likes here and there and you know people aren't that surprised when if you were to tell them
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hey did you know that Facebook knows XYZ about you so we all know that Facebook kind of pries into our personal lives
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that's the whole point point of it and what we volunteer to it but there's things that we don't volunteer to it
8:04
that Facebook gets from you so what this list is actually very intriguing is the things that you didn't personally kind
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of post or say anything about but they are able to glean from your activity and who you are and figure out quite a bit
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about you even more than you might know something that happened this past week as far as Facebook goes that was
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interesting is my family has a private Facebook group where we share funny
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memes and you know maybe a little bit off-color jokes or whatever that we GLE you know that we glean off the internet
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my daughter shared a picture that Facebook I mean it was like literally
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just almost like an onion somebody just made it like a and they through their
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algorithms thought it was offensive which it isn't and banned my daughter's
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Post in our private family group and now she has to be moderated for the next
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little bit for every post that she yeah so it's a private group to the Facebook
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public so to speak but not to Facebook right and they literally picked up on this picture yeah which there's nothing
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wrong with the picture it's a picture that I don't want to get into but it is a picture that everybody in America will
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have seen this past two weeks and it was just like an onion article it was it's
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just uh it's a satire yeah I you actually you showed me the picture when you told me the story and I don't mind
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saying it was about the Capitol Hill and all the costumes something to do with that and it was but it didn't even say anything like anti-trump or
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anti-government or anti establishment it was just making fun of the the get up these people were wearing almost or
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exactly yeah but the algorithm was like oh you're talking about Capitol Hill off to jail you go yeah yeah interesting how
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quick that happened yeah any right okay so that's yeah very interesting so we're gonna start what well speaking of
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politics there Jason you start number 10 go yeah number 10 your political ideology Facebook knows your political
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IDE ology even if you have never revealed it on any of your apps or like the page of a political candidate
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Facebook determines your political leaning by looking at your activities across its services it then uses this
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information to categorize you as a liberal moderate or a conservative how Facebook really Narrows
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down on your political beliefs remains unclear Some analysts think it tracks your interactions with politically exposed associations for instance liking
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or interacting with Facebook page of say the National Rifle Association believe
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Facebook to conclude you are a conservative at the heightened tensions that we're all being exposed to this is
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one that oh it's not surprising that they can pick up sure this is not
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surprising they can pick up your political leanings I do very little on Facebook regarding politics actually
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very little anywhere because I just find it for me personally it is too contentious for my own personal skin I
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don't think there's a lot of worth wildness you know it's not worthwhile to me to participate but every seems like
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the last couple years last year in particular every second post I see is a political one so I don't think it'd be
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too hard for them to pick up on that no and that's just how they do it so there you go you don't have to say I am a
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conservative or I am liberal or I am whatever party just by the information you and the Articles you click on to
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read even and the scary thing though of late I mean just within my own family like
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that one post it being deemed something to them as if it had anything to do with
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politics it was just a satire picture satire meme so that's where the for me
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the concern starts to creep in is they start dictating what people can communicate about even in just even in
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humor it is a little bit unsettling all right number nine your love life so
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Facebook knows when you're in love Yeah months before you officially posted on your profile or wall
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how do they do this Jason well thanks to years of analyzing billions or even trillions of data points Facebook can
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accurately predict the behavior two would be lover words portray so Facebook
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data scientist Carlos diak breaks down what happens in the days leading up to immediately and following two Facebook
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users beginning the relationship up until the day the two make it official Facebook notices an uptick in the number
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of timeline posts you and your soon to be significant other make on each other's walls this is the metric that
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gives it all away he writes we observe a peak of 1.67 posts per 12 days before
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the relationship begins and a lowest point of 1.53 post per day 85 into the
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relationship presumably couples decide to spend more time together so courtship is off and online interactions give way
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to more interactions in the physical world so even though there are fewer messages being sent between Star Cross
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lovers the longer they're in a relationship the content of interactions get sweeter and more positive so by
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using statistical methods to automatically analyze a set of aggregated analized timeline interactions they've counted the
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proportion of words Express positive emotions like love nice and happy minus the proportion of words expressing
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negative ones like hate hurt or bad so in conclusion before a relationship officially kicks off the two soon Tobe
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participants are communicating often via Facebook they later use the site to say fewer things to each other but those
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things tend to be more positive know on Facebook how it has like on this day in your timeline or whatever on this
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day 5 years ago 10 years yeah memories well things will come up from when I was divorced and when I was single so
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between marriages I'm married now and I was married before and I have certain time periods where I have certain
13:47
females posting on my wall or posting on my comments and stuff so that still comes up like so and so said this on a
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post I made or whatever and it's weird to see someone be like oh you're this or you're that like obviously you know flirtation words one of the posts there
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was a girl I had dated and a girl that I had yet to date both commenting under my Facebook it was just interesting to kind
14:06
of see like where I was during this time what Facebook would have analyzed one individual is with me and one has yet to
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be with me but both are interested in me and so you can see Facebook analyzing that data yes okay so there's a
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particular person on my Facebook I didn't know really their backstory
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they're from way in the past and it came to my my knowledge that I think they're
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going through like a divorce though it wasn't really publicly said and I I see another person that's going through a
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divorce and that person communicating with the other person and like I could pick up on their interaction or at least
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this girl's interaction maybe I shouldn't say any of this exactly what you were talking about you could see the
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uptick right like you could see liking Harding caring and then make a little
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comment or I'm like Oh my goodness is hilarious yeah now going back to the
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relationship stuff my current girlfriend I met on Facebook through a private group Facebook has its pluses and it has
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its minuses and people can connect with a whole variety of people they wouldn't
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have otherwise have access to or be able to become familiar with these people kind of in a safe harmless way in the
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group I went to her profile and just did my own little call it creepy okay I was okay you everybody
15:29
creeps you don't come on she reached out to me and added me
15:34
asked me to be a friend because I guess she creeped on my page you know a few years later we're we're still together
15:40
so shout out to Mary yo yeah so as much as I struggle with Facebook there are pluses and minuses to social media as we
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talked about before I would suspect we fell into some of these early indicators
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that Facebook would have picked up on absolutely for better worse for better for worse all right number eight Jay
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yeah okay your call SMS and MMS logs are
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being looked into so every call SMS and MMS you send or receive Facebook saves
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those details it savs everything about these phone calls including names phone
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numbers color and receipt and date time duration of the call now this is
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something I would never have guessed the other ones I get because they're more of a social experiment this one is more
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technical Invasion I think Facebook retains this information for years in 2018 some users who downloaded their
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data archives containing information Facebook had on them found call logs text messages dating back to 2015 iOS
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had a little less invasion of privacy compared to the Android devices and of course in usual fashion Facebook denied
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that they had access to Android this is partly true because since the feature was Auto oped in particularly with early
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versions of Android you automatically agree to it by downloading using the Facebook app Facebook is tracking your
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phone calls your text messages and probably all our messenger app uh conversations and that's not cool honey
17:13
pick up some milk and butter I'm sure that's not all the conversations that are picked up though no I I don't want
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to know when my older two boys are 22 and 29 uh 22 and 20 right now but when
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they were uh 12 and 14 13 and 15 respectively they wanted Facebook kind
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of a newer software at the time and and I was like okay I just got to monitor their I just want to make sure they're
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being safe you know on the internet they're just young teens told them I said I just so you know I'll be periodically checking your chats and
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your Facebook activity just make sure you're being safe and good it's funny how quickly I just didn't care anymore
17:48
meaning like I I knew they were just talking about whatever and I just stopped reading it cuz it's like oh so I
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always just find it interesting I wonder like is there's just so much boring garbage and of course of course there's
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a listed activity going on too and illegal activity too does it say what they do with this information or they
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just have it I don't see what they use it for you got to figure there's Facebook employees that just get off on this stuff come on yeah and I suspect
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it's the same way that like reading someone's diary or even the way government uses this type of information
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they're probably just scanning for ads they pick up certain key words certain
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and it's probably to create ads that are more specific to you I don't think it's really people really listening I'm sure
18:30
they could they just pick up data points there data points there's no physical listening with their ears unlikely cuz
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think about how many Facebook I think it's a billions like billion Facebook users there's not enough manpower to
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monitor every conversation in text like by the human ER it would have to be it's all AI yeah yeah I'm sure if somebody in
18:49
the government or something finds a real need for it it's backed up somewhere we've already given off a few points
18:54
here and people who are on the fence about Facebook and it's us are probably like you know what I'm already thought about deleting Facebook getting rid of
19:00
it Jason and Ryan to convinced me enough of this I'm just going to after this episode I'm going to delete my Facebook
19:05
well I got news for you guys number seven there are still many people who do not use Facebook or have deleted their
19:11
Facebook accounts over privacy concerns that we just talked about however folks this does not mean that you are free of
19:18
Facebook's nosiness Facebook Minds your business even if you do not use its services it knows you exist and has
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created what's called a Shad Shadow profile for you on Facebook now what is a shadow profile you say well what is
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that simply put let's imagine a simple social group of three people you have
19:39
Ashley Blair and Carmen three girls okay they all know each other and have each other's email addresses and phone
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numbers in their phones now if Ashley joins Facebook and uploads her phone contacts to Facebook servers Facebook
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can proactively suggest friends to whom she might know based on the information she uploaded for now let's imagine that
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Ashley is the first of these three friends to join Facebook the information she uploaded is still used to create
20:06
Shadow profiles for both Blair and Carmen kind of like waiting in the shadows so that if Blair and Carmen join
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they will be then recommended as Ashley as a friend next Blair joins Facebook
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and she uploads her contacts from her phone and thanks to the shadow profile
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she has already made connection to Ashley in Facebook's people you may know feature at the same time Facebook has
20:32
learned more about Carmen's Social Circle in spite of the fact that Carmen has never used Facebook so that third
20:39
friend who's never joined it Facebook knows who her friends are their interest and everything like that and therefore
20:45
has never agreed to its policies for data collection so it's just like it was building on that other point yeah right
20:52
those conversations those text messages those phone calls it is gathering enough
20:58
data point points that they can pinpoint other people even if they're not on Facebook they're collecting information
21:04
on people that you're associating with it's kind of like the Six Degrees of Separation with Kevin Bacon right
21:09
eventually we are going to find how we are all connected and Facebook just has so much data that's collected on
21:16
everybody that eventually you're not going to be immune to being found out so do you Heroes who've deleted Facebook
21:23
they still have stuff on you exactly you know our mom might be on Facebook eventually they're going to be able to
21:28
figure out that who her sons are even if we aren't on Facebook there might be a comment or a reference eventually that
21:36
data point will lead back to other people all right number six now speaking
21:41
of data and them collecting information on you this is a big one your location
21:47
not only Google collecting all the information about where you are and where you've been Facebook is right up
21:54
there and doing the same thing it knows where you are at every moment and if you feel that that is creepy we should add
22:01
that it also stores this information on its servers so it knows everywhere you have been how long after you have left
22:08
and probably forgotten you were ever there Facebook tracks you use in the Facebook app on your phone the app
22:14
tracks you every time even when it's not in use Facebook offers everyone the option of limiting the app's tracking
22:21
feature or even switching it off completely but as others have found out Facebook still tracks you even if you
22:27
opt out while it was will no longer rely on using the location features on your phone it will resort to using your Wi-Fi
22:34
IP address Bluetooth browsing habits places you check into and other contents you upload to the site to determine your
22:41
location unlike the location feature you cannot turn this one off data daada data
22:47
right I mean there's just no hiding from Facebook no or your phone that's like
22:52
the same You Gotta Get Off the Grid and really the only way to get quote unquote Get Off the Grid is to literally have on
22:59
your person what you would in 1970 even cell phones while turned off can be
23:04
found and so really the only way to get off the grid is to get rid of your cell phone that is the only real way you
23:12
can't even turn it off without it being able to be found I remember cell phones first came out and just how excited we
23:18
were that we could make a call outside our house because it used to be well obviously it used to be that you could
23:24
only get a hold of somebody in their home or if you knew their place to work so basically like oh Charlie Works 8 to five at this office so we can call him
23:30
at the office look up in the phone book his office get you know hey can you patch me into Charlie and there you go
23:35
then Charlie's home from work at 5: you know you can call him after 5:00 and then you don't call him after 9:00 because people are get wrapping up and going to bed that's the way it used to
23:42
be and now it's it's it's insane now I know where Charlie is between work after
23:47
work what he's watching on TV and and then we have data points of where he went on vacation and stuff it's it's
23:53
insane we freely give up the information because we want to show off that we were on vacation
23:59
and then even when we don't want to show off our information they still taken it from us the only way you communicated
24:06
with somebody almost only way was when you saw them in person or you kept your
24:12
word I will see you at the movie theaters at 700 p.m. you had to keep
24:18
your word you had to be there for seven we waited man we waited for you you didn't show up we're not missing the
24:23
movie without you miss sorry where out like where were you guys there's no way to say hey I'm minutes late or I'm here
24:30
but I don't see you you just had to carry on but nowadays we give away everything about ourselves I kind of
24:39
miss yeah I know all right brother well then we would but then again we talk about I love podcasting I truly enjoy it
24:45
and I joke about having a small audience which I appreciate you guys listening so those who are listening I appreciate you
24:51
but that's what I enjoy doing it that's the thing it's a small hobby I enjoy doing it I can't do it without technology and I can't advertise it
24:57
without social media so it's but then social media made it so that you have to have a podcast to advertise did we
25:03
really need podcasts that's an interesting dilemma yeah it is I think the need to connect with humans has
25:09
always been there to put your voice out there you know they'd have local radio or public radio so people have been
25:14
doing it for all you know call-in stations so it's hard to say I would say podcast would have still gotten out somehow absolutely it's like talk radio
25:21
yeah exactly yeah again social media is a very easy wonderful convenient
25:26
streamline way of saying hey new episodes out this what it's about if you want to listen to that subject check it out yeah all right number five okay this
25:35
one will never re have anything to do with you or me because we will never be pregnant so yeah yes yes no you and I
25:43
we're not talking about the M yeah let's be clear I I just I know I can't get pregnant I'll yeah that's what I mean that's what you're saying so you and I
25:50
cannot get pregnant so that's we're only speaking to me and you we're not speaking to all
25:55
genders across the board we are saying that Jason Ryan we identify as people being incapable producing a child and I
26:04
also choose not to have a child yes I'm actually fixed as well so I'm like a double whammy I can't get pregnant and I
26:11
can't get people preg oh boy what a disaster this is the world we live in I can't even believe we can't even okay anyway so this can't even apply to uh
26:18
Becky either your wife that's right she can't get pregnant by me but you exactly
26:24
okay but Facebook will know despite you if she becomes pregnant yeah so all
26:30
right so this is uh your pregnancy status is number five so Facebook knows when you're pregnant or likely to become
26:35
pregnant that is so you should not be surprised when you start to see ads for baby care products Facebook allows
26:42
advertisers to Target pregnant women and they will Target you if they suspect you
26:48
are pregnant an investigation was done by ad AG the accused Facebook of being
26:53
purposely vague about how it targets users based on their likes and interest so for example if you're thinking about
27:00
having a baby what are you going to start doing I'm going to look at cribs I'm going to look at should I breastfeed
27:06
or not breastfeed articles home burst medicine things I can't take while I'm pregnant how do I know if I become
27:11
pregnant all these things are being searched for whether it's Google which is attached to we know it's attached Facebook and Google are just like
27:17
bedmates Facebook has more than 200 ways of tracking its users from the web ad AG says that Facebook's advertising tool
27:24
applies a hashtag to terms such as morning sickness ultrasound and privacy test and can then serve ads with those
27:32
in mind but of course Facebook declined to come out and say that it uses posts made by users to identify pregnant woman
27:38
Facebook for its part said it rarely uses the content of status updates as a signal for ad targeting but Facebook is
27:46
careful to note that it doesn't use the content of status updates to Target pregnant women not all advertisers are
27:52
created equally in terms of how they Define privacy as opposed to how we the consumer or Facebook user defines
28:00
privacy so certainly there's a gap between what marketers say that they are being told and what Facebook tells a
28:06
journalists for the record I think this is one is very not surprising Becky and
28:11
I will be talking about a product and it's it's happened to everybody and Instagram as you know is connected to Facebook no Facebook owns Instagram
28:18
there you go yeah so I'll be talking about something like literally five hours later hey uh hey Becky remember
28:24
that thing we were talking about it's on my Instagram I'll show it to her got advertis it for it's insane so it's gone beyond even the hashtags now now it's
28:31
just the conversations I've done it where it's right away yeah yeah but I
28:36
think what makes this one a little bit say disturb pregnancy it's kind of a privacy thing that's I think what the
28:42
problem is yeah yeah yeah so it's beyond just like not what dog food we want to buy but the fact that a woman wants to
28:48
be private about her pregnancy think about that for a second let's say she's considered having an abortion her
28:53
privacy is being invaded here her body's doing
28:59
Facebook's like haha we know and just so you know we know and here's how you know here's some things you might want to
29:05
know what we know and where the person's like I don't know if I want to have the baby I don't know if I you know or whatever it might be I mean I'm not
29:10
trying to I'm just saying like so are you saying those gender reveals is
29:16
really antil climatic for Facebook yeah pretty much so those are cringy you know what my gender reveal party was there
29:22
was a bunch of us uh standing around the body of my wife as she was delivering the baby and when the baby came out we
29:27
found out what it was call me old school call me old school that's how we did it yeah everything else is already a known
29:33
so let's keep that part a surprise we're old school number four Jay okay Facebook
29:39
knows your sleep pattern Facebook knows when you're asleep and awake like Santa M and if you do not have a problem with
29:47
that wait until you hear that it made this data publicly available to everyone anyone capable of writing a bit of code
29:53
to extract this information from Facebook's Messenger will know your sleep pattern messager contains features
29:59
that detects when you are using the app on any of your devices by writing a code to check the status of everyone on your
30:06
friends list a person can determine when their friends are online offline or online but idle they can then use this
30:13
information to determine when they are awake and asleep this is just a data point that they're able to make a very
30:19
very educated algorithm guess about your behaviors I mean I'm sure you've done
30:26
this before you're asleep you wake up and then you kind of go I'm gonna check my phone and then you see somebody had
30:32
messaged you at 12:30 in the morning you didn't see it because you're asleep and then you click on it to see what was
30:37
said and then obviously Facebook knows that you were at least awake in that window yeah let's say you check your
30:43
Facebook every I'm just using the number every 15 minutes throughout the day and then it knows that number goes down
30:49
between 9 in the evening to 7 in the morning and it says oh he checked it
30:56
again at 12:30 they'll know okay during that moment of time he's he or she is sleeping because
31:02
they rarely check if at all their Facebook updates or anything like that thus they must be incapacitated dead or
31:09
asleep right yeah that's pretty yeah it's pretty straightforward for sure so but again the Privacy issue maybe we
31:15
haven't been harping that enough the Privacy issue here is that Facebook just knows when you're when you ever get your
31:20
feet tickled that's a fear that I still have
31:27
does anyone have a fear of how their foot touched can you imagine being that
31:33
person who's writing code to see when you're asleep and awake just to tickle your toes make it's more of a paranormal
31:39
thing but the whole idea of just if I put my foot on the blanket the ghost is like nah can't do anything about that I
31:45
a pretty good chance that Ryan's asleep at 235 number three your breakups so
31:51
back to relationships if your relationship is Facebook official so many people do that you know what hey
31:56
I'm in a relationship with so and so we've seen it but you're still getting ads for dating sites in your newsfeed
32:02
the social networking site may have realized something you haven't you and your significant other are headed for
32:07
Heartbreak Hotel check it out a new paper co-authored by Cornell University Computer scientist John kleinberg said
32:14
Facebook data can not only predict whom you're in a relationship with but if the relationship will go kaput so using the
32:21
rather enormous sample of 1.3 million Facebook users that's a large sample size I mean that's more than enough
32:28
kleinberg and bom set out to devise an algorithm for figuring out how to successfully determine if two people
32:33
were in a relationship and it turns out the number of annoyingly cutesy selfies you post together or even the amount of
32:39
friends you have in common aren't the Prime predictors in fact what they discovered was that the best indicator
32:46
of a relationship is how many of your mutual friends are not connected to each other this metric is called dispersion
32:53
and it measures mutual friends but also friends from the further fly long reaches of a person's Network
32:59
neighborhood so having high dispersion or when two people have widely dispersed
33:04
clusters of friends that are linked mostly via the couple is the best predictor of whether those two people
33:10
are in a relationship in fact Kleberg and Backstrom were able to correctly predict a user spouse 60% of the time
33:16
and a non-married partner onethird of the time using the algorithm okay so none of this is shocking so again the
33:22
idea is you're dating but you haven't made those connections so Facebook's saying Hey look
33:28
if your mutual friend doesn't kind of grow or you don't have those like you're going to weddings anniversaries parties
33:33
funerals to yeah interconnected uh this this relationship going to last because you're just you're not a part of each
33:39
other's life outside of the bedroom almost yeah interesting well I think this one is interesting Facebook tracks
33:45
your your mouse cursor use right yeah so if you use Facebook on your personal
33:51
computer then we should inform you that Facebook tracks your mouse cursor during the US Congress investigations into the
33:58
infamous Cambridge analytica scandal in 2018 Facebook revealed it tracks cursor
34:04
movements to determine whether the user is a human or a bot this would have been
34:09
a very good excuse except that Facebook had revealed the truth a few years earlier when it said it tracks our mouse
34:16
cursor movements to determine the ads we clicked on and hover around in one
34:21
sentence Facebook tracks our cursors to know the ads we are interested in even if we click on those ads or you're not
34:28
and you know bite the bullet it realizes you just hovering over the
34:34
ad you have an slight interest insane all right last one I we haven't really
34:42
determined welcome to the worst of the best podcast if you're a first- Time listener but if you're not you kind of know how we do things but you know this
34:48
is your 10 quote unquote best ways that Facebook analyzes and evades your
34:55
privacy essentially so we're going to pick what we think is the worst one maybe the worst invasive form of privacy
35:01
the one that's the most damaging or whatever you want to call it the one we like the least the one we would wish didn't exist maybe the one ability that
35:07
we wish they didn't have I don't know does that sound good yeah yeah I agree with that that's kind of where I was going okay now the the last one though I
35:14
don't think would make either one of her list I think it actually is kind of a a good again we talk about social media being good and bad but this is say it's
35:21
creepy but it's just insane how this happened in 2017 a man named Cashmere
35:27
Hill found a long lost relative after Facebook suggested he added this
35:33
individual as a friend they had no mutual friend they had different last
35:38
names and yet Facebook somehow figured they were related or they should know each other already in this episode Jason
35:44
and I have explained that this people you may know feature Works in an earlier entry I believe it was the shadow
35:50
profile one but it's more sophisticated than just phone contact entry it also
35:55
uses your location facial recognition technology and even buys data from other
36:00
apps a psychiatrist once at Facebook recommending her patients to each other as friends okay so however in what
36:08
qualifies as nothing short of irony back to the story cashmir Hill was researching and experimenting to decode
36:15
how the Facebook friend suggestion feature worked at the time Facebook recommended he added an individual named
36:22
Rebecca Porter as a friend so ironically he was trying to figure out why do I get suggestions how does this work why does
36:28
Facebook suggest who they suggest to me right it turns out Jason that Miss Porter Rebecca Porter was cashmere's
36:36
great aunt okay she married his grandfather's brother a year after he was born of course cashmir and that was
36:43
the only time they ever met so they did meet 35 years previous at that birth but
36:49
they had no mutual friends and they lived far apart she lived in Ohio while he lived in Florida so Hill's biological
36:55
grandfather who was also called porter abandon Ed him when he was still a baby and he was later adopted by a man named
37:01
Hill this is where he got the surname Hill but 35 years later Facebook linked
37:06
him up with his great aunt using that shadow profile algorithm face recognition all that stuff it made the
37:13
connection the behind the scenes connection that they have a history hey there might be something here you two
37:19
yeah and we can never do it on our own no not without the billions of points of
37:25
data he was abandoned by his biological family adopted and Facebook reconnected to some of his relatives but nothing on
37:32
his profile would indicate that he's related to this individual other than Facebook saying hey we've got some data on this person we've got some data and
37:37
history on you and guess what you guys know each other have fun figuring out how and why right interesting so and
37:44
it's funny Jay reading this I've gotten I think we all have have gotten Facebook
37:50
recommendations on her Facebook page without mutual friends I wonder why now I've gotten those people you know that
37:55
would be a fun mystery to solve the next time you dear listeners get a Facebook recommendation for a friend where
38:02
there's no mutual friends creep their Facebook profile see what interest or
38:07
whatever you might have in common why was this person recommended to me by the Facebook it wasn't R it wasn't random no
38:12
it feels random when it happens but it's not you're right with this list you can see how it there's too much data points
38:19
there's a reason why Facebook said hey Ryan hey Jason hey listener this person
38:24
and you might just know each other somehow why and what a fun Journey that might be the next time I get asked to be
38:31
a mutual friend with somebody that's not a mutual friend I might just add them and say hey do we know each other
38:37
interesting I'll dig deeper the next time yeah all right so there's the 10
38:42
yeah review the 10 yeah I'll let you go ahead and do that starting from number 10 your political
38:47
ideology your love life your calls me text messages Messengers Your Existence
38:56
your very existence your your location pregnancy status sleep pattern
39:03
breakups a mouse cursor and lost and forgotten relatives
39:09
it's easy for me a lot of it it makes sense against that necessary evil I use the car analogy we know Carbon emissions
39:17
suck nobody's not driving come on we all know you're driving your car you're probably in the car right now listening
39:23
to this episode that's just a necessary evil and I think social media and or the internet or any algorithm that put way
39:29
if you have a cell phone these algorithms are being used against you it's also a psychology thing right you
39:34
get a you get a large group of people and we they continue to collect data and the more data they collect the the more
39:41
fine-tuned the information they have about people you know regarding relationships politics breakups
39:48
pregnancy I mean it's all things that we almost willingly give to them and they
39:55
have such a vast amount of information that they can bring together it's they
40:00
know about you but they really don't know about you they just know the the points of data and and the algorithms
40:06
that are associated with all that it's a big massive social experiment to sell us
40:11
stuff back to ourselves to it's not like oh my goodness they know about my love life and how did they figure that out
40:18
yeah I think the one that if I had to It's Kind most of them are kind of like
40:24
whatever they're going to figure me out with the algorithm data point I you can't escape but it doesn't I've kind of consigned the fact that it's just the
40:30
way the world is now but the one that I wouldn't mind if it just stopped existing is the whole having a log of
40:36
all my texts that's that's mine yeah I'm not gonna I'm not gonna say I've never
40:42
sent a bad text but I'm also saying if all my texts and M you know and
40:48
messenger logs cease to exist my sleeping pattern at night that Facebook is tracking would be even
40:55
better like I don't know a phone calls are vocally recorded they are okay well
41:01
but the fact that text messages which can be very private for a whole variety of reasons that one bothers me the most
41:08
I agreed I think it was kind of an easy pick I but yeah I think if anything cease to exist I think having access to
41:14
our text at any point would be great if they just cease to exist but they
41:20
won't so Choose Wisely what you say yeah all right well that was fun I enjoyed
41:25
this one yeah it's good to be reminded about how you're being spied on remember even if you delete Facebook they still
41:32
got you on a shadow profile my friends the only thing you do is really get rid of your phone and truly live off the grid yeah phone personal computer to
41:40
another extent as well all right well remember in front of every Silver Lining there's a cloud and we're here to help
41:47
you find it thanks Jay thanks for coming on hope to have you on again thanks brother gam Gator
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Productions a [Music]
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[Applause] [Music]