When I found out I could download my entire Facebook data file, the offset affair I felt was fright.

How far does it become back? What does it incorporate? Who has access to it? Will it make me feel old?

The idea popped into my head amidst mounting headlines around the alleged misuse of personal Facebook user data by analytics firm Cambridge Analytica. I wanted to know what, exactly, those potentially in possession of my data might know nigh me -- so despite the trepidation, I downloaded it anyhow.

The results were not exactly encouraging.

This file had everything -- I mean,everything -- from personal contact records that I don't fifty-fifty take stored on my iPhone anymore, to every unmarried paradigm I had sent someone over Messenger. Equally the title suggests: Things got weird, fast.

And if you're understandably hesitant near downloading your ain data, or just considering information technology, hither's what yous tin can expect -- and what the results mean.

I Downloaded My Facebook Data and Things Got Weird

A Snapshot

When y'all first download a copy of your data archive and unzip information technology the compressed file (hither's a quick how-to), information technology'll look something like this:

Open the general "alphabetize.htm," and you'll see a quick snapshot of all the data available on you, ranging from your full general profile to advertisers who have your contact data. Here's what the "contour" section of mine looks like, with a few sections removed for the sake of -- this old thing -- privacy.

indexfile-1

Granted, what was bachelor on this page was largely information I voluntarily supplied to Facebook by way of putting it on my profile, like where I went to school or my altogether.

But it was in the other sections and file folders where things started to get weird -- and where I started wondering what potential advertisers or others might be doing with it.

The 'Ads' Section

The "Ads" section of my data index file largely consists of an exhaustive list of ad topics that would be of interest to me. Some of them made sense, equally they were brands whose Pages I already Liked.

Merely some of the topics were downright irrelevant and, therefore, befuddling -- like "fishing bait" and "organic compound."

Only there was also a section for advertisers with my contact information, many of whom were brands and musical artists whose Pages I hadn't Liked.

I had to wonder, why do the Smashing Pumpkins and Beck accept my contact information? I hadn't listened to either, really, since my first year of college when -- at risk of dating myself -- Facebook didn't exist yet.

It raises questions about only how attainable this data is, and how widespread the availability of our data might be. While likely a bad actor, I'm inclined to believe that Cambridge Analytica isn't lone in the way it allegedly synthesized Facebook user data to get to the root of what sort of promoted content and messaging would resonate most with people.

It's also unclear how to selectively remove that data, if at all -- which could be a valuable side by side step for Facebook, says HubSpot Product Pb Daria Marmer.

"Facebook now needs to have the next pace and brand data deletion from its platform as easy as data access," she explains. "After all, shouldn't information technology be at least every bit easy to remove your history/personal information every bit it is for advertisers to access it?"

Messenger Records

That became particularly salient when I discovered that my Facebook data includes a transcript of every Messenger interaction I've had, replete with any photo or video files I may take shared in those conversations.

Once more, this might non be new. In an April 2014 earnings telephone call, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg noted that every bit role of the social network's ongoing efforts to personalize any content seen past a given user, it would take "a couple of different approaches towards more private content too."

In the context of the full remarks, it would announced that Zuckerberg was referring to content promotion in these individual conversations -- namely, those taking identify on Messenger and WhatsApp (also owned by Facebook).

Those plans are increasingly coming to fruition every bit of tardily, by way of in-app ads on Messenger (encounter below image) and the proposed Messenger Broadcast feature.

At the time, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg positioned these efforts equally going strictlytoward displaying Facebook content that users would be "genuinely happy to run across."

Merely to this day, and among contempo events, it remains unclear equally to which information is, was, or would be used to aid target the "private content" Zuckerberg alluded to. Still, some believe that any user data authorization, including the kind that eventually led to the alleged misuse by Cambridge Analytica, would include Messenger data and files, too.

This personal revelation comes amid recent allegations that, on Android devices, Facebook may have been scraping data on calls made and text messages sent from users' mobile devices -- through the device itself, not the Messenger platform.

Hither's what that logged action looked like for one Android user who discovered this record in his own data file:

Source: Ars Technica

Facebook'due south response to this allegation is that users must explicitly opt into allowing Messenger to access contacts and, it seems, log call and text activeness. According to a statement published Sunday:

"When you sign upwardly for Messenger or Facebook Lite on Android, or log into Messenger on an Android device, you are given the choice to continuously upload your contacts as well as your telephone call and text history. For Messenger, you tin can either plow it on, choose 'learn more' or 'not at present'."

But according toArs Technicawriter and editor Sean Gallagher, that's non the feel shared by all Android Users.

Even though he never installed Messenger on the Android devices he's used, Gallagher says that afterwards installing Facebook on his Nexus tablet and Blackphone two in 2015, his own archive includes telephone call data from between 2015 and 2016. That's after, he says,never receiving "an explicit message requesting access to phone call and SMS data."

Where We Go From Hither

If nothing else, it seems that no one is quite sure how, exactly, personal Facebook user information is existence leveraged, in whose possession it might be, and how much data those who have it might be privy to.

"Tech companies take access to an insane amount of our data -- you can even come across for yourself on Facebook and Google exactly what they collect," says Henry Franco, HubSpot'due south social campaign strategy associate. "My gauge is in that location are a ton of Cambridge Analyticas out at that place, and people would be horrified to realize how many companies are using their data to gently nudge their controlling processes."

This is why Facebook'southward own investigations might not be plenty.

Later on several days of silence on the initial Cambridge Analytica data misuse allegations, Zuckerberg finally issued a statement on the matter last Thursday, and has been on an active interview and apology circuit since and then.

Case in signal: Total-page mea culpa ads in the Sunday editions of theNew York Times,Washington Mail service, andObserver (which is published past Guardian, an outlet Facebook threatened to sue before information technology first reported on the Cambridge Analytica scandal).

Simply at that place have been a few central, repetitive themes underlying Zuckerberg's remarks. The kickoff is an accent on the words "I'thou deplorable," which were notably absent from his official written statement released terminal week.

The second is Zuckerberg's suggested willingness to appear earlier lawmakers and other authorities to testify on user data and privacy -- if, as he toldRecode, he's "the person who has the most noesis on it."

And considering the Federal Merchandise Committee confirmed today that information technology is non-publicly investigating Facebook among its "substantial concerns about the privacy practices," Zuckerberg should exist prepared to testify -- especially since he's been called upon to do then by members of the Senate Judiciary Committee (along with the CEOs of Google and Twitter).

It all leads to an increasingly likely outcome: that Facebook and its big tech counterparts will have to bow to the external regulation that it's been visibly dodging for some fourth dimension.

For instance, after allegations first came to light that Facebook was weaponized by foreign agents to influence the 2016 U.S. presidential election, many wondered if the network instituted its own onslaught of new rules to avert facing those from lawmakers.

Zuckerberg says he's not entirely opposed to that effect, saying in an interview with CNN last week that "I'yard not sure we shouldn't be regulated." Merely if that is the end result, Facebook likely won't be alone in facing that new level of oversight, as unsaid by the aforementioned invitation to appear earlier lawmakers aslope executives from Google and Twitter.

And where such regulation is going to have the greatest ripple effect, co-ordinate to HubSpot Manager of Strategic Partnerships Kevin Raheja, is ad.

"Facebook, Twitter, and Google will be subjected to, and likewise adjust to the regulations, probable at the expense of some revenue," he says. "They will probable accept to exist selective with advertisers, particularly politically-charged messaging ... non merely to protect users, only also their own integrity and their own perceptions."

The timing as well closely aligns with the GDPR coming into forcefulness in May. "With Zuckerberg being asked to testify in front of Congress," says Franco, "one could wonder if we'll run into similar data regulation in the U.S."

This is a developing story that I'll monitoring every bit it unfolds. Questions? Feel complimentary to counterbalance in onTwitter.

Originally published Mar 26, 2018 3:21:56 PM, updated March 24 2021