How To Stop Facebook From Spying On You?

Laiba MohsinLast Updated: Feb 1, 2024

Facebook has been around for over 15 years with approximately 2.4 billion users all over the world. The social media giant controls other huge apps such as Instagram and WhatsApp. It would not be wrong to say that Facebook pretty much rules social media. However, the question arises how much of our data is Facebook using, and how are they using it? Is there any way to keep your information as private as possible? Don’t worry, we have got you covered! In this blog, I’ll jot down some simple steps to stop Facebook from spying on you.

How to Stop Facebook From Spying?

There have been many privacy scandals regarding Facebook. Details of 267 million Facebook users were leaked back in December 2019. The Cambridge Analytica scandal affected 87 million people in 2018. The list goes on. It means that using Facebook is equal to granting Mark Zuckerberg’s company permission to log your activity in several ways. Facebook tracks a lot of your information as it also owns WhatsApp and Instagram. It has all the information regarding where you check in, the users you interact with, the groups you join, etc.

Sources claim that the social media giant tracks this data mainly for advertising purposes. Meta logs this information so they can make a profile to target people with specific advertising. Information related to your interests, your relationship status, and your job is useful for advertisers. Anyhow don’t worry! These are some steps to help you keep at least some of your privacy intact.

Steps To Follow

If you use a computer, go to “Settings” and click the “Privacy” tab. Review who sees your activity on Facebook. If you have everything set to “Public,” your information is accessible to everyone. So, try to limit that according to your needs.
Look how people find and contact you. Limit it as much as possible.
You can also find the apps and websites you’re logged into with Facebook. If you’ve been using Meta for some time, you have likely permitted some apps to process some of your information. You might not have discovered it, but that app you logged into with Facebook years ago still has access to your friends list, your birthday, and other important information! Revoke all those permissions and guarantee those apps and websites don’t use your data anymore.
Contact the app or website directly and ask them to delete it. If they ask you for your User ID, you can find this by heading to the “view and edit” tab of the app.
Click on the “About you” tab. Manage how ads are tailored to you based on some profile information, including relationship status, your job, and education. You can turn these off if you want.
Go to ad settings and disable “Ads based on your activity on Facebook Company Products that you see elsewhere.”
Select “Not allowed” and “No one” for “Ads based on data from partners” and “Ads that include your social actions.”
Face recognition is responsible for ringing privacy alarm bells in certain cases. Try to disable this feature in the “Face Recognition” settings.
“Hide ad topics”
Change your location settings

By following these steps, you can stop Facebook from spying on you to a certain extent.