Is Facebook "Listening" ?

Alright, I have nothing to back this up, except my own account. Believe me or not, this is what happened.

The other day, I was speaking to my brother; basically, I was telling him how much I loved Kraft Dinner when you put a tad of Ketchup in it (some people think thats gross lol). We had no Ketchup or Kraft Dinner, so I was saying how we should go pick some up, and as it was before the "End of the World" date (Dec 21st), I jokingly added that we should "Stock up on it", as well as plent of Kraft Dinner.

So here comes the wierd part:

The next day, I logged into facebook, and BAM!

Right there in my news feed, is Kraft Dinner. Never before had it appeared, not even as an advertisement; 1 day after my conversation, there it was.

I am Goddam crazy? Or is Facebook Listening?



Edit; This was a real life conversation, which took place in my kitchen at home, and was not conducted on the internet. I have never search for Kraft Dinner on the internet before that.

Originally posted by anon4m05

maybe, maybe not

No, Facebook is not.

Define "is" please.

Originally posted by anon4m05

Part of the CIA.... Yes

Can't disagree.

lol love the replies, please read my edit everyone

No, there is usually a lot more on Facebook, some of it interesting, most of it not.

EDIT: It's called targeted advertising, everywhere, including ATS uses it.

Every thing you Google search is logged and ads thrust in your very direction.

I just hope my mother never sees some of the collection of ads I have build up over the years.

(For the record, they are usually cookie based, so they won't follow you forever, quick cleanup does the job)

reply to post by anon4m05


After reading your OP with text in it, I'd put it down to coincidence.

Unless you did a search on the dinners.

They didn't hit you with ketchup ads along with the Kraft dinner ads did they?

Then, no they are not "listening", just possibly targeting if you searched for the dinners, if not I stick with coincidence.

Yes, it is "listening". t's really just a way to funnel us ads based on our likes and a ton of other data. It's a tool for companies to take our money more efficiently.

It's not FaceBook that's listening to you. It's targeted advertising.

Happens to me all the time.

Originally posted by anon4m05
Alright, I have nothing to back this up, except my own account. Believe me or not, this is what happened.

The other day, I was speaking to my brother; basically, I was telling him how much I loved Kraft Dinner when you put a tad of Ketchup in it (some people think thats gross lol). We had no Ketchup or Kraft Dinner, so I was saying how we should go pick some up, and as it was before the "End of the World" date (Dec 21st), I jokingly added that we should "Stock up on it", as well as plent of Kraft Dinner.

So here comes the wierd part:

The next day, I logged into facebook, and BAM!

Right there in my news feed, is Kraft Dinner. Never before had it appeared, not even as an advertisement; 1 day after my conversation, there it was.

I am Goddam crazy? Or is Facebook Listening?

edit on 4-1-2013 by anon4m05 because: Accidently Pressed enter while writing the title (lol)

edit on 4-1-2013 by anon4m05 because: (no reason given)

There is an option in FB settings where you can agree whether or not to allow advertising according to your likes, but perhaps the algorithms now pick up on 'wall' conversations, it wouldn't surprise me at all. It's a bit like Twitter if you happen to mention a key word in conversation, for example "sheds", and all of a sudden you are followed by several commercial shed companies.

reply to post by anon4m05


You must be Canadian.

"Kraft Dinner" ... In America it's Kraft Macaroni & Cheese. It's crazy to look the Canadian box. It's the same font and colors as the US version. Oh Canada...you're like the bizaro America!

P.S. I like mine w/ketchup too!

ETA: I need to find a Canadian to send me some of those ketchup flavored potato chips...

All the more reason to be as diligent as possible in preventing yourself from being tracked and advertised to. Solutions are widely available if one simply knows how to search.

Like others have said, its targeted advertising. You will see it on many websites. It and a host of other things is the reason I refuse to have a personal facebook account anymore.

reply to post by anon4m05


It's called contextual advertising.....I earn a living online and see this all the time, it's nothing to be alarmed about......If I posted an article on one of my sites about any given subject, within seconds the google ads are displaying ads associated with the keywords in the article.......all sites (that have adsense or other contextual ad companies) including Facebook will do this.....no conspiracy.....just companies making a dollar or two

reply to post by SilentKoala

All the more reason to be as diligent as possible in preventing yourself from being tracked and advertised to. Solutions are widely available if one simply knows how to search.

Why?.....you are not being tracked for any nefarious reasons, in fact you are not being tracked at all unless you click on one of the ads, and then it is likely only a 24 hour cookie linked to an ad you have shown an interest in.....contextual advertising is a good thing!.....If you use the internet to browse your interests and hobbies, and in the course of that browsing you are presented with ads that relate to your browsing habits and are therefore relevant to your interests....how is that a bad thing?

Advertising on the internet is here to stay!.....surely it's not unreasonable to be presented with ads that are of interest to you instead of the irrelevant ads that were spammed to internet users several years ago?........Does anyone who watches TV have any control over the ads you see there?

Yes. I've seen firsthand some data that my "friend" can pull from the huge databases that Facebook (among all the other big "social media sites", be it Youtube, Ebay, Netflix or any other) has made available for "partners and law enforcement officials." My friend works for a company that makes new algorithms for "target advertising" and "research for political and societal purposes" .. which in practice means they generate ways to manipulate large group of people through individuals and the other way around.

The amount of data they have is staggering and they do "forecasting" for individual users according to all his actions In Facebook and they compare them to other groups with similar stats and backgrounds. They also classify every single user according to his actions with gazillion variables.

For example they know exactly how many seconds in average it takes for you to reply to your friends in different "groups" (they call your most active friends and family members "group A") or/and how long it takes in average for you to open any link that has been sent through Facebook. Some of the data I've seen is just mind blowingly personal and disturbing, especially when you see the "forecast" variables for individual users and "modified personal links" (MPL) which they call "jokingly" manipulation links among the coders and statisticians.

When they try to forecast the number of your future children when you're 15-18 years old, your most likely professional career and education level and classify you as "attention seeker, group A activist, celebrity fanboy" in their databases, I'm pretty sure calling them manipulation links is more than appropriate.

(And they also rate you for how easily/often you click a generic add, targeted add or a link in your private conversations vs. group messages (walls and w'ever, I don't use facebook myself so some details are a bit sketchy for me).

I also got to see my personal results that was gathered from Youtube, Ebay, Amazon and some other big sites that I've registered with the same email/id. It was pretty damn accurate, mind you..

(And they're also making a cross database which connects all your information to be able to "id" you based on your name/alias, real name, email, ip-address (yes), paypal accounts etc.. there is no escaping them using some lame [email protected] -address with false details.)

So if you are "only" targeted with ads at the moment, be happy.. at least you know now you're being monitored and manipulated 24/7.

I understand the concept of targeted advertising, and indeed its benifits, aswell as its implications.

But I must clarify;

This was real life conversation, which took place in my kitchen. Spoken word.
There was no clicking. There was no searching.

The Ketchup thing was sort of a side point, the conversation itself was more about Kraft Dinner.

This is why I chose the word "listening"... not in figurative sense (i.e. monitoring text conversation and etc on the internet), but in the literal sense.

reply to post by MystikMushroom


Firstly; Yes, I am Canadian. Great Deduction my friend!

Secondly; YOU ACTUALLY DON'T HAVE KETCHUP CHIPS IN THE US?!