A tech expert has revealed exactly how Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook and Instagram are mining your data.
The Meta platforms collect information about a user’s activity within the apps and websites, such as pages visited, content liked and locations, and stores it in Facebook setting.
Melanie Joy shared the workaround in a TikTok video, telling users to select ‘See more in Account Center’ and then click on ‘Your information and permissions.’
Users move on to ‘Your activity off Meta technologies, then ‘Clear previous activity’ and finally, ‘Manage future activity’ to ‘turn it off.’
Another option follows the first two steps but suggests selecting ‘Ad preferences’ and then ‘Activity information from ad partners’ that lets you review settings and shut them completely down.
Joy shared the workaround in a TikTok video where people were thrilled to hear they could stop data collection.
‘Former Meta employee here. Thank you,’ one comment reads.
Melanie Joy, known as @soundsbymojo, said she posted the instructional video in response to the recent changes to Meta policies coinciding with the results of the 2024 presidential election
The video has been saved over 50,000 times and received more than 3,000 comments.
‘I just did it last night. Shocked at how many companies were listed,’ one TikToker commented.
Users will still see ads on Facebook and Instagram, ‘but the ads may be less personalized.’ And the changes made can take up to 48 hours to reflect.
Melanie Joy, known as @soundsbymojo, said she posted the instructional video in response to the recent changes to Meta policies coinciding with the results of the 2024 presidential election.
The Zuckerberg-owned company is facing an immense backlash from users after announcing to eliminate its fact-checking program implemented in December of 2016.
In a recent video, the Meta founder said the new policy aims to move in the direction of the country and increase rights to ‘free speech.’
The fact-checking program was initially intended to reduce the spread of misinformation thought to have contributed to the 2016 election.
With the program being axed, so will the 3,600 employees who worked on it.
Zuckerberg said third-party moderators were too ‘politically biased’, as he opted for a system that will work like X, which has ‘community notes’.
The Zuckerberg-owned company is facing an immense backlash from users after announcing to eliminate its fact-checking program implemented in December of 2016
Speaking last week, Zuckerberg said: ‘We’re going to get back to our roots…. restoring free expression on our platforms. First, we’re going to get rid of fact checkers and replace them with community notes similar to X.
‘It means that we’re going to catch less bad stuff, but we’ll also reduce the number of innocent people’s posts and accounts that we accidentally take down.
‘The fact checkers have been too politically biased and have destroyed more trust than they’ve created, particularly in the US.’
President-elect Trump has previously been highly critical of what claimed was Meta’s anti-conservative bias.
