Lets talk privacy

After reading Careless People about Facebook and chatting with the AI Ethics group we thought it would be good to share some tips. Word of warning – do not speak to the AI Ethics group as they WILL scare you and suggest other scary reading suggestions like Empire of AI, One Nation Under Blackmail, an ugly truth and Surveillance Valley (don’t blame us when you’re crying into your wine trying to drown the world out after reading!).

Profiling

As we all know (or should) if a product is free then you are the product and that has never been as true as with the current rise of AI (The large scale language models with clever algorithms automating most things). The large language models are built on your data that you give into things such as the search engines you use, as well as any other product you use that has AI on it such as co pilot or social media.

Whilst it all seems rather great that we are getting the benefit out of such tools, there is a major risk in relation to how you are being profiled. There are various issues around this, from how social media profiles you to create an echo chamber where you are only ever being shown what they want to show you – hence where rage bait comes from. This risks you not only having a narrower view of the world (through political profiling) but also being pumped full of adverts to sell you things that your profile is likely to buy (this is how their paid adverts target their demographic).

The good news is that you don’t need to cut off from it all but you can strategise to change this.

We want to share some of the options around to try and keep your data as safe as possible if you want to so will do a series of posts based on some tips and tricks.

Note – I did use Gemini to help find the information so this is a half human/half AI post (although I did think up the questions to ask!)

Facebook

Managing Facebook has some options to avoid the political side of its advertising and profiling. You’ll notice if you ever look at anyone elses facebook page that their ‘view’ of the world is very different to yours – it drives the manosphere and other toxic viewpoints as well as some good stuff.

Clear the “Political” Tag

Go to Settings and on the drop down on the right choose Content preferences

On the top you will see political content

Obviously many of you may be happy to live in an echo chamber and not be concerned with other points of view and may even prefer it to avoid seeing alternative reactive view points. But if not you can switch it off – as in reality Facebook was supposed to be about connecting with friends and sharing stories but nowadays its a far bigger and more influential beast.

Engagement

The algorithm assumes that if you “Anger” react to a political post or argue in the comments, you want to see more of it. It prioritizes engagement over your happiness.

• Use the “Show Less” Button: When a political post appears, tap the three dots ... and select Show Less. This is the strongest signal you can send to demote that specific topic.
• Zero Engagement Rule: Stop commenting on or reacting to political posts you dislike. Even a “dislike” signal tells the algorithm, “This person is interested enough to stop scrolling.”
• The 30-Day Snooze: If a friend or page is posting one-sided content, use the Snooze for 30 Days feature rather than unfriending. This starves the algorithm of that specific data point for a month.

Actively Seek “The Other Side”

To see “all views,” you have to manually confuse the AI by providing contradictory data.

• Search and Follow: Search for news outlets and think tanks from across the political spectrum. Follow a few from “the other side” and a few “centrist” ones (like Reuters or AP).
• The “Favorite” Trick: Go to Feed Preferences > Favorites. Add a mix of sources with different viewpoints to this list. Facebook is forced to show “Favorites” higher in your feed regardless of your typical browsing habits.

Technical Cloaking (The “Outside” View)

Facebook tracks you even when you aren’t on Facebook via the “Meta Pixel” on other websites.

• Off-Facebook Activity: Go to Settings > Your Information > Off-Facebook Activity. Use “Clear Previous Activity” and then select Disconnect Future Activity. This prevents Facebook from knowing you visited a political news site outside of their app.
• Use a “Container” Browser: If you’re on a desktop, use Firefox with the Facebook Container extension. This prevents Facebook from tracking your political reading habits on other tabs.

(as I am a Firefox user the container extension is my choice .. plus I couldn’t find the other settings)

Note: If you really want to see the “other side” without ruining your main feed, try using the “Most Recent” feed view instead of the “Home” (algorithmic) view. It shows posts in chronological order, bypassing the profiling entirely.

On the next blog we’ll cover search engine options.

Jobs currently available

---

We know its a difficult jobs market out there at the moment so will tray and share anything we’ve spotted that may be worth looking into.

• Defense & Engineering: BAE Systems and MBDA are heavily recruiting in Bristol and Gloucester for software and systems engineering. (Note MBDA have a careers open day on the 15th – this Friday)
• Professional Services: Deloitte and KPMG have numerous openings in Bristol for Cloud Strategy, Workday Integrations, and Dynamics 365 Architects.
• FinTech & Banking: J.P. Morgan (Bournemouth) and Lloyds Banking Group (Bristol) are hiring for SREs and Digital Transformation roles.
• Hardware & Research: ARM is looking for CPU Verification Engineers in Bristol.
• Some in the IT sector such as UWE loads at PhysicsX

And of course you can always check out our Jobs Board