Your embarrassing Facebook secrets now searchable
For months Facebook has been testing Graph Search, a function that itemizes user data into an easily searchable form. Search “People in Seattle who like the Republican Party” and voila, over a hundred local contrarians pop up. Last Monday the company started rolling it out globally, and already people are getting creative with it.
For those who haven't yet gotten around to strengthening their Facebook security settings, this is a public service announcement: It’s time to get on that. To illustrate, we point out that several locals are public fans of Ashley Madison, a service that helps people cheat on their spouse. At press time, companies that hire Seattleites who like “stealing” include Microsoft and GameStop. And for some professionals, publicly liking “weed” or “getting high” may not be a boon for their careers, recent ballot initiatives notwithstanding.
There’s an expression that “If you’re not paying for it, you’re the product.” With Facebook attempting to convince disappointed investors that the company’s finding new revenue streams, they’ve been pulling out all the stops to organize their data in a way that’s useable to marketers, and moderately compelling to others. Users should be prepared for more of this sort of thing.
