Very creepy awareness by Facebook of my text message photo. is this a coincidence?

ExpertFarmer

ExpertFarmer

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Today I had a really creepy experience with Facebook. First of all, I have drastically reduced any time I spend on Facebook, and needed to do something on marketplace, so decided to check my feed for the first time in a while. I had 3 ad posts in my feed about cedar planters. Earlier this morning, I had seen a cedar planter in Costco and sent a picture of it to my wife. At no time have I ever mentioned the words “cedar planter” anywhere. So it seems that the words were scraped from the photo and iMessage somehow shared this with Facebook. Is this a weird coincidence or is there something going on?
 
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ExpertFarmer said:
Today I had a really creepy experience with Facebook. First of all, I have drastically reduced any time I spend on Facebook, and needed to do something on marketplace, so decided to check my feed for the first time in a while. I had 3 ad posts in my feed about cedar planters. Earlier this morning, I had seen a cedar planter in Costco and sent a picture of it to my wife. At no time have I ever mentioned the words “cedar planter” anywhere. So it seems that the words were scraped from the photo and iMessage somehow shared this with Facebook. Is this a weird coincidence or is there something going on?
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It feels creepy sometimes, but it’s usually not Facebook reading your messages directly. Most of the time it’s because of tracking data — websites with Facebook Pixel, browsing history, app activity, and even behavior patterns.
With that much data, their algorithm can predict interests surprisingly well, which makes it look like they know things from private conversations.
 
Probably just coincidence mixed with ad targeting.

If you recently looked at gardening stuff, Costco products, or home items, the algorithm might just connect the dots and show planter ads.
 
ExpertFarmer said:
Today I had a really creepy experience with Facebook. First of all, I have drastically reduced any time I spend on Facebook, and needed to do something on marketplace, so decided to check my feed for the first time in a while. I had 3 ad posts in my feed about cedar planters. Earlier this morning, I had seen a cedar planter in Costco and sent a picture of it to my wife. At no time have I ever mentioned the words “cedar planter” anywhere. So it seems that the words were scraped from the photo and iMessage somehow shared this with Facebook. Is this a weird coincidence or is there something going on?
Click to expand...
Facebook's algorithm is interesting because it can link to the tools you use to search for information. So, if you've mentioned something on a website, Facebook will assume it's something you're interested in and push posts about it to the top of your news feed.
 
It’s probably not reading your messages. Facebook usually uses signals like recent searches, location data, or similar product interests. Sometimes it just feels creepy because the targeting is very accurate.
 
Could have been something at Costco with geofencing, but who knows.
 
I've encountered a similar situation. It seems Facebook can read what I search for on Google or what I send over the network.
 
ExpertFarmer said:
Today I had a really creepy experience with Facebook. First of all, I have drastically reduced any time I spend on Facebook, and needed to do something on marketplace, so decided to check my feed for the first time in a while. I had 3 ad posts in my feed about cedar planters. Earlier this morning, I had seen a cedar planter in Costco and sent a picture of it to my wife. At no time have I ever mentioned the words “cedar planter” anywhere. So it seems that the words were scraped from the photo and iMessage somehow shared this with Facebook. Is this a weird coincidence or is there something going on?
Click to expand...
this is typically a combination of device level image recognition, in store location tracking, and correlated search data from your spouse rather than iMessage being directly scraped by fb
 
Facebook is extremely intelligent. This is certainly no coincidence. Maybe it scanned the text and image in your photo or identified the context based on location. honestly, something the same happened to me.

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