Did you know that by using Facebook you are agreeing to these 5 things?

When you use Facebook, you agree to various terms without realizing the fine print. Let’s break down five significant things you may have agreed to when you joined the platform.

1 Location tracking – even when GPS is turned off

Based on a report from The Hill, Facebook is known to track users’ location even when you have your GPS turned off. It may sound surprising, but Facebook uses alternative methods to track you, including IP addresses, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth signals, to collect location data.

So even if you turn off your phone’s location tracking, Facebook can still know where you are and where you’re going. If you are logged into the app, this location tracking continues as part of Facebook’s advertising and engagement strategy.

2 Facebook can use your content however it wants

Facebook allows you to “own” your content, but gives itself broad rights over it. Under Facebook’s terms, the company has a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to use the content you post, including photos, videos and updates. This license allows Facebook to modify, sublicense, or even transfer these rights to third parties as needed.

The conditions specifically state:

When you share, post or upload content covered by intellectual property rights on or in connection with our Products, you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sublicensable, royalty-free and worldwide license to host, use, distribute, modify, run, copy, publicly perform or display, translate and create derivative works from your content (in accordance with your privacy and application settings).

Your privacy settings seem to be the only thing that can prevent Facebook from using your posts on a public platform.

3 Facebook can use your data to train its AI

Most users don’t realize that by opting in, they’ve allowed Facebook to use public posts to train its AI models. This means that your interactions, preferences, and publicly published content may be analyzed to improve Facebook’s artificial intelligence features, such as facial recognition and content recommendation systems.

This data use is a standard part of Facebook’s terms and conditions and allows the platform to use user data for both internal AI development and external partnerships.

By default, you give Meta permission to also use your data to train its generative AI. However, users in some countries or regions, such as the EU, can opt out as a data source for AI training. Go to the Facebook Help Center and fill out the form by adding your email address (the one you used to register with Facebook) and how your data used for AI training affects you.

If you’re not in a country where you can opt out, remember to change your posts’ visibility to Friends Only to prevent them from being used to train AI. However, your public comments on pages and groups may still be used for AI training.

4 Deleted content isn’t really gone

Deleting a Facebook post, photo, or video doesn’t mean it’s completely deleted. Based on Facebook’s terms of service, when you delete posts, photos or videos, they may remain in Facebook’s backup systems for up to 90 days, during which they are not accessible to other users but still exist on Facebook’s servers. Additionally, content such as messages may still be visible to recipients unless they also delete it.

Some cached versions of photos or posts may also persist for a short time due to caching procedures that can sometimes take days to clear.

In addition, Facebook’s data retention policy allows the platform to retain data for specific legal or security reasons and for advertising and analytics. Facebook also states that it may retain user data beyond the initial 90 days if required by legal obligations or for compliance purposes.

Facebook uses user data for targeted advertising on and off its platform. The platform collects insights from your likes, shares and general activities, which it then uses to show you ads tailored to your interests.

These ads appear on Facebook and partner sites across the Internet. Your data helps Facebook’s advertising partners reach you on different platforms, whether it’s e-commerce sites or news.

By using Facebook, you give up significant control over your content and data. Regularly checking Facebook’s terms and privacy settings can help you manage what you share and how Facebook can use it. It’s worth noting that while these practices are common across many social media platforms, Facebook’s massive reach and deep data collection capabilities make these policies particularly effective.