Virtually every app on your phone has facebook/instagram trackers that gets access to whatever data that app has access to
Their ad network (that runs broadly across the internet) is not only known to fingerprint everyone that sees an ad. They’ve pioneered new was of keeping track of you even if your browser fingerprint changes.
Facebook (and one assumes Threads/Instagram) create ghost profiles of everyone mentioned or photographed in any posts on their platform if they can’t link that mined data to an actual account. So if your friends use the platform, then you do too, whether you know it or not.
Cambridge Analytica is probably not the only company doing that stuff, they’re just the ones that got caught.
A quick Googling of “phones without Facebook” gives lots of options.
Facebook (and one assumes Threads/Instagram) create ghost profiles of everyone mentioned or photographed in any posts on their platform if they can’t link that mined data to an actual account. So if your friends use the platform, then you do too, whether you know it or not.
This would be Facebook using your friends’ data. It happens to be about you, but it’s not yours.
I’m not saying people shouldn’t care about privacy or take actions to protect it, but I think it’s possible to go overboard in believing that nobody is allowed to know anything about you without your permission. There’s a lot of public information that’s available to anyone simply by being in public.
If you don’t want your friends telling people about you, that’s on you to tell your friends that. If your friends refuse to keep your existence secret then you’ll have to decide whether that’s more important to you than having friends.
That’s not an exhaustive list, mind you.
A quick Googling of “phones without Facebook” gives lots of options.
This would be Facebook using your friends’ data. It happens to be about you, but it’s not yours.
I’m not saying people shouldn’t care about privacy or take actions to protect it, but I think it’s possible to go overboard in believing that nobody is allowed to know anything about you without your permission. There’s a lot of public information that’s available to anyone simply by being in public.
If you don’t want your friends telling people about you, that’s on you to tell your friends that. If your friends refuse to keep your existence secret then you’ll have to decide whether that’s more important to you than having friends.