It can be spooky when the social media algorithms figure you out. Particularly if you’re trying to maintain separate worlds.
For example, I have a Reddit account, but I keep it clean. I use a totally different username and follow things related to my non-kinky interests – restaurants, cooking, programming, games, books, etc. I’m not even logged into it on machines I use for this blog and other kinky activities.
I was therefore a little surprised when my reddit feed featured an item from what looked like a martial arts shitposting forum. I’ve zero interest in either of those things. Yet this did catch my eye, as it featured a woman’s kickboxing champion throwing around a male UFC fighter. Maybe it was just a coincidence and a popular post? Then today, my feed featured another item from that same forum, with a woman repeatedly kicking a male ‘sparring partner’ in the nuts. I checked the rest of the forum and those are the only posts it selected to put on my feed. That can’t be a coincidence. I think it’s on to me.
These are images from the first item I mentioned. That’s Katarina Kavaleva (kick boxing world champion) having some fun with Merab Dvalishvili (UFC Bantamweight champion).
This is a cause for concern.
You have gone to great lengths to keep your worlds separate and still the Algorithm has connected the two.
It would be helpful (for all of us) to know what an IT-Internet-Social Media expert makes of what has happened and how connections between worlds can be prevented.
If Paltego was, in different worlds, a Physican and a Kink Content Creator, any connection between the two would be a disaster for your career as a physician (for example)
Think I shared this before. I’m not on Facebook. Never was. Whatsapp yes. One day a friend asks me if that is my brother who is on Facebook. [Do you know? – suggestion in a side bar.] Only shared connection between the three of us is Whatsapp. There you go.
Over time with those enormous piles of data that have been gathered, you need less and less points to connect the dots with some degree of certainty. And if the algorithm gets it wrong, who cares, it’s just a suggestion in your feed. Better luck next time.
Dutch newspapers recently reported how for years Meta spied on it’s users [Facebook, Instagram] even in incognito modus through the so-called Meta-pixel. I guess it’s true, offline is the new privacy.
https://archive.is/YS5kq [link in Dutch]
Yeah. I think if you truly want to be safe, offline is the only option. As you say, there’s just too many datapoints that these companies can connect together now. It might be possible to build a very custom linux machine with locked down browsers and a VPN to avoid it, but who has the time and energy for that?
-paltego