How to find out what Facebook knows about you

You can change your ad preferences to add what you are really into

Facebook tracks your moves around the internet, who your friends are, your conversations, and uses that information to target ads so that users see the things that they’re likely to be interested in.

Now, you can find out what the social media site knows about you and trick it into getting it wrong.



Your ad preferences can be found by heading to the News Feeds preferences page on Facebook’s site. There, you’ll see everything it has decided you’re into, categorised by topic (such as “Food and Drink” or “Hobbies and Actives”).

Clicking on any of the interests will show why Facebook has decided you are into it – sometimes it will be because of a specific page you 'like', but other times the site won’t be able to say why you like it.

If it’s wrong – or you just want to trick Facebook – you can use the same page to add things that you’re into. Clicking the bar at the top lets you add and remove new things, and see all the things Facebook counts as preferences.



Doing that will change the ads you see on Facebook so that they’re suited to whatever preference you choose.

The site provides this option to make sure people are shown things that they are really into.

This article originally appeared on Independent