Your Facebook data

I recently found out that you could check what data Facebook has on you. Well, the data that they let you know about, at least.

You can see what you shared online, which messages you exchanged with your friends and so on. You can also see which applications have access to your Facebook information, the topics that Facebook is serving you adverts about, the advertisers with your contact information, and the adverts that you clicked on.

I found this last category (Ads History) quite disturbing because, of all the clicks listed, I only saw three of them as adverts. In other words, I only clicked consciously on three of those adverts. I though that all the others were something else. For instance, I thought that they were links that friends had shared, or pages that I was following. Instead, it was content that someone had paid to be put in front of my eyes, and I completely fell for it! This realisation certainly made me rethink the whole fake news / disinformation issue, and realise how easy it is to be fooled by the content on my Facebook feed.

You can check your Facebook data archive, too, by following these steps.

1. Click on the downward arrow, located in the top right-hand corner of your screen

2. Choose settings, on the drop-down menu

3. Click on the option to download a copy of your Facebook data

Let me know if you try it, and whether you are surprised by what you find out.