How to find out what Facebook knows about you
Digital privacy is a lot more involved than just monitoring what you post on Facebook and who you post it to. The ad preferences setting on Facebook reveals what personal data Facebook is sharing with advertisers.
In the ad preferences setting Facebook states, “The categories in this section help advertisers reach people who are most likely to be interested in their products, services, and causes. We've added you to these categories based on information you've provided on Facebook and other activity.”
Facebook can even classify what phone model and web browser you use to access Facebook with.
The good news is that you can see the data Facebook is using to classify you and you can remove whichever categories you think shouldn’t be there. Here is how you manage your ad preferences setting.
Ad preferences setting
1. Under the drop-down arrow in the top right corner of your homepage, click settings.
2. Click “ads” on the on the left-hand side.
3. Under ad preferences click on “your information” then “your categories”.
4. You will see a list of categories about you. To get rid of these categories hover over the individual boxes and click the “x”.
Remember, whenever you see an ad on Facebook that you do not want you to see if you click the drop-down arrow of any ad you can select “Why Am I Seeing This?”. From there you can find a prompt to manage your ad settings.