Closeted guy baffled by the gay ads he receives on Facebook
Chances are you’ve seen them yourself: Those ads on Facebook beckoning you onto that gay cruise, or to stay poolside in your Speedo at an all-gay hotel. Fine and dandy? Well, if you happen to be firmly ensconced in the closet, not so much.
That’s the micro-scandal plaguing one hapless Redditor, who is altogether mystified why the social networking site feels entitled to pepper his feed with altogether homosexual ads like this from Ski Bums:
“Alright, so. I’m not out yet,” writes newyorkansun. “However, Facebook for the past couple months has been sending me targeted ads for gays, including this one that is in the picture. How does it know? Whenever I search for something, I usually use the incognito mode on Chrome. I try to click on why are you showing me this ad, but the window closes automatically. Thanks for any insight.”
Readers have been quick to offer him their own two cents.
“If you are logged out,” says x_k_c_d, “Facebook still knows the account you were logged in with earlier. If you visit a website in incognito mode that has Facebook buttons on it, Facebook gets your IP and because it also knows the IP you were or are logged in with, it can connect the information. I would recommend using uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger to stop this sort of snooping.
alamborn19 doesn’t think it’s that big of a deal. “When i was closeted,” he writes, “I’d get them too. No one would use my phone or iPad especially on Facebook, so it’s not like it’ll be seen, and just lie and easily explain it away if they are seen. TDRL: Don’t worry about it — they’re just ads. No one will question them and there’s nothing you can do to stop them.
“Facebook does the equivalent of digital stalking,” says Grem-Zealot, which is pithy enough. “Of course, you can rest assured Facebook is privy to, how shall we say, the heady art films you gravitate towards on those intimate nights spent alone with your Internet connection. Perhaps that’s how it knows what kinds of ads you like?”
What are your thoughts? Sound off in the comments section.
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11 Comments
Peach head
December 21, 06:52Next post please!!!
johnny
December 21, 06:53I experience this too. Even most things I googled are seen on my ad. They want to out me.
Delle
December 21, 10:19?????
.•*Sugaar.•*
December 21, 08:10Yeah…. Whatever site you visit, they use cookies and that’ll always come back to you as of the kind of the site you visits…
Rapum
December 21, 10:52Mogbe! So, they see all my “Big Black Cock” searches? I hope gmail doesn’t snoop, too?
Delle
December 21, 12:09Slut of Babel!
ambivalentone
December 21, 11:26I had always assumed its cos of the the two gay guys on my friend’s list. O ga
Khaleesi
December 21, 13:31The amount of data that facebook has on all its users is mind bending; even here in Nigeria, if you’re gay and on facebook, FaceBook probably already knows that you’re gay!
bruno
December 21, 18:40lol. if you’re uneasy about facebook, you dont want to know what google knows about you.
Haiku
December 21, 19:56As in ehn..
Mandy
December 22, 08:33Lol. Aswear.