Is The Government Using Facebook to Spy on CNY?

It's one thing to see an ad for something you recently searched for online pop up in your Facebook feed, but could the government be using the social media app to spy on Central New Yorkers?

Unless you've been living under a rock, you've heard about the recent controversy involving a company called Cambridge Analytica and Facebook. The crux of the story is this: the private data from 50 million Facebook users was breached by Cambridge and then used to influence voters in the 2016 Presidential election. We all know advertisers use our browsing history to send us ads for similar products, but what about more nefarious purposes - like influencing election outcomes? Is it much of a stretch to think that the government is using Facebook to track our views and habits? 

Depends on who you ask. 

According to zerohedge.com, the US government can subpoena your Facebook data, and not tell you. What they're gonna learn from all those cat memes, who really knows?

According to the place where most conspiracy theories are born and thrive, Reddit.com, there's WAY more to it. Check out this post from a thread started in 2016: "I once spoke about a friend I hadn't seen in years, and the town we used to live in together. Said a few details about them. Next day, they were in the "people you may know" section. We live hundreds of miles apart, absolutely no mutual friends or interests."

And then there's the famous "cat food" experiment where an iPhone user "proved" that their iPhone was eavesdropping on them by repeatedly saying "cat food" in front of the phone - and then cat food ads started appearing.

We conducted a poll on our own Facebook page, and the majority of Central New York respondents felt that the government is already using Facebook to spy on them. 

What do you think? Is Facebook spying on you?

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