Facebook: Cracking the Code Page #2

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to keep us online

for as long as possible.

The algorithms are designed

to be helpful

and give us information

that's relevant to us,

but don't for a minute

assume that

the algorithms are just there

to help us.

The algorithms are there to make

a profit for Facebook.

And that is Facebook's genius.

It is a giant agency

that uses its platform

to deliver us advertising.

By tracking what we do,

who we associate with,

what websites we look at,

Facebook is able make

sophisticated judgements

about the stories we see,

but also advertising that

is likely to move us to spend.

We will probably

always live in a world

with old fashioned display ads.

Times Square simply wouldn't be

the same without it.

But these ads nudge

towards products

with all the subtlety

of a punch in the nose.

Facebook on the other hand uses

the extraordinary

amounts of data that it gathers

on each and every one of us

to help advertisers reach us

with precision that

we've never known before.

And it gives anybody

in the business of persuasion

power that is unprecedented.

Depending on what we post

at any given moment,

Facebook can figure out

what we are doing and thinking,

and exploit that.

Facebook's very well aware

of you know our sentiment,

our mood and how

we talk to people

and it can put

all that data together

and start to understand

like who our exes are

and who our friends are

and who our old friends are

and who our new friends are

and that's how it really works

to incentivise another post.

What you're saying is

Facebook has the capacity

to understand our moods?

Yes.

Could that be used to influence

our buying behaviours?

Of course it can be used

to influence our behaviour

in general, not just buying.

You can be incredibly

hyper targeted.

Can I give you an example?

We don't always act our age

or according to

our gender stereotypes.

A middle-aged woman

might like rap music.

She is sick of getting ads

for gardening gloves

and weight loss.

So she posts on her Facebook

that she likes Seth Sentry's

Waitress Song.

Now she gets ads

for a streaming music service -

something she might

actually buy.

Adam Helfgott runs a digital

marketing company in New York.

He uses a tool called

Facebook Pixel.

Facebook gives it to advertisers

to embed in their sites.

They can track anybody

who visits their site

and target them with ads

on Facebook.

Well if you've ever logged

into Facebook

with any of your browsers,

it's a good chance

it'll know it's you.

You don't have to be logged in,

you have to have been there

at some point in time.

If it's a brand new computer

and you've never

logged into Facebook,

Facebook at that moment in time

won't know it's you,

but based upon their algorithms

and your usage

they'll figure it out.

So, what you can then do

is put this piece of script

onto your website.

And then use Facebook data

to find the people

that looked at your website

and then target ads to them.

That's correct.

Through Facebook.

- Yep.

That feels a little bit creepy,

I mean...

are there privacy issue

involved with that?

From a legal point of view

there's no privacy issue,

that's just the internet today,

and the state of it

and using a product

that generates a lot

of revenue for Facebook.

For advertisers it is a boon -

giving them access to the most

intimate details of our lives.

Megan Brownlow

is a media strategist

for Price Waterhouse Coopers

in Sydney.

When you change your status,

for example,

we might see something,

a young woman

changes her status to engaged.

Suddenly she gets ads

for bridal services.

These sorts of things are clues

about what her interests

might really be.

The research from consumers

is they don't like advertising

if it's not relevant to them.

If it actually is something

that they want,

they don't mind it so much.

This is actually

not a bad thing.

Nik Cubrilovic is

a former hacker

turned security consultant.

He's been using his skills

to investigate

the way our data is tracked.

One day Cubrilovic

made a discovery

that startled the tech world.

He found that even if you're not

logged on to Facebook -

even if you're not a member -

the company tracks and stores

a huge amount

of your browsing history.

And you can't opt out.

If you don't like Facebook,

if you don't like the kinds

of things you're describing,

just close your account?

It's very difficult to opt out

of Facebook's reach on the web.

Even if you close your account,

even if you log out

of all of your services

the way that they're set up,

with their sharing buttons

and so forth,

they're still going to be able

to build a profile for you.

And it's just not going to have

the same level of information

associated with it.

They don't even tell us clearly

what they're doing.

They tell us some things

but it's not specific enough

to really answer the question,

if somebody was going

to build a dossier on me

based on what Facebook

knows about me,

what would it look like?

I should be able to know that,

so that I can make

informed decisions

about how I'm going

to use the platform.

Facebook is not just

influencing what we buy.

It's changing the world

we live in.

Sure they want to

bring their service

to everybody on the planet.

From a commercial standpoint

that's obviously a goal.

Whether it makes the world

a better place

is another question.

Not only have you built

this big business

and this big social network,

you now are possibly determining

the course of world events.

That's exactly what happened

in the streets of Cairo.

In January 2011,

millions gathered in the city

demanding the resignation

of the autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

It became known

as the Facebook revolution.

The organizers used Facebook to

rally vast crowds of protesters.

They were so effective

that the government

tried to shut down the internet.

It took just 18 days

to topple Mubarak.

So what Facebook came to stand

for several months I would say

or at least in its early days

after the events of Tahrir

Square in the Arab Spring

was a symbol of people's ability

to organize and express

and share information

more widely.

It symbolised that so much so

that I like to tell stories

about how I could buy

T-shirts in Tahrir Square

which said

"Facebook, Tool of Revolution".

I understand as well as anybody

just how effective

Facebook can be.

Three years ago,

I was imprisoned in Egypt

on trumped up terrorism charges.

My family used Facebook as

a way of organizing supporters,

and keep them informed.

It became one of the most

vital tools in the campaign

that ultimately

got me out of prison.

The Facebook page became a place

that anybody could find

the latest on our case.

The underlying algorithms

helped push it to people

who might have been interested

in supporting our cause,

even before

they knew it existed.

Peter!

How are you, man?

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