If the Belgian police is to be believed, Facebook’s new ‘React’ feature may be used to monitor the moods of the users. The feature, which was released in February, has six ways in which a user can react – Like, Love, Haha, Wow, Sad, and Angry.
But the Belgian police believes that these reactions may be used to collect information about the public, which may be further used in deciding how to advertise to them. Hence, it is now being seen as a threat to the privacy of the site users.
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On their official website, the Belgian Police posted, that “The icons help not only express your feelings, they also help Facebook assess the effectiveness of the ads on your profile”. They added “By limiting the number of icons to six, Facebook is counting on you to express your thoughts more easily so that the algorithms that run in the background are more effective. By mouse clicks you can let them know what makes you happy. So that will help Facebook find the perfect location, on your profile, allowing it to display content that will arouse your curiosity but also to choose the time you present it. If it appears that you are in a good mood, it can deduce that you are more receptive and able to sell spaces explaining advertisers that they will have more chance to see you react.”
These claims give rise to the speculations that Facebook may be selling this information to advertisers around the world, which if true could pave way for money-minting corporations to easily manipulate people who are unoblivious to these tactics.
