Facebook is categorizing you politically — Here's how to see what they think of you

Matt Agorist
The Free thought Project

Imagine a computer system in which people voluntarily submit personal information about everything in their private lives from the type of perfume they like to their worldly and political views. Then imagine what someone with access to that information could do with it. The implications are horrifying — yet this system exists, and more than 1.7 billion people readily submit to using it. It's called Facebook.

Every time you hit the like button, react to a post, click on a link, like a page, scroll past something, or update your status — Facebook is watching and recording it.

The social media leviathan will tell you that it does these things to better serve its users and its advertisers. However, it effectively establishes divisive categories in which to place its users, so they are unlikely to see things that challenge their way of thought.

Peacefully challenging one's worldviews, however, is how progress is made. When we are constantly reassured that everything we believe as a Democrat or a Republican is correct, we are more likely to dismiss beneficial arguments to both of those paradigms. And it's dangerous. Imagine a computer system in which people voluntarily submit personal information about everything in their private lives from the type of perfume they like to their worldly and political views. Then imagine what someone with access to that information could do with it. The implications are horrifying — yet this system exists, and more than 1.7 billion people readily submit to using it. It's called Facebook.

Every time you hit the like button, react to a post, click on a link, like a page, scroll past something, or update your status — Facebook is watching and recording it.

The social media leviathan will tell you that it does these things to better serve its users and its advertisers. However, it effectively establishes divisive categories in which to place its users, so they are unlikely to see things that challenge their way of thought.  

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