i've had a lot of conversations with a lot of people from various backgrounds about how they understand facebook tracking (it inevitably follows when i tell the

i've had a lot of conversations with a lot of people from various backgrounds about how they understand facebook tracking (it inevitably follows when i tell them i'm not on facebook) and i can't think of an instance where people had a poorer understanding of facebook's tracking than i gave them credit for. That's not to say people like it, but they accept it as an inevitable consequence of using the service. And of course, for all the tech crowd's fear about the "invasion of privacy" that comes from the passive behaviour monitoring facebook does, the reality is that likes, follows, and posts are the strongest signals for their ad targeting anyways. a non-trivial number of people think that facebook is continually listening to their every conversation through the mic on their phone, and keep the app installed anyways.