Signal has challenged the user privacy policies of Facebook and Instagram by sharing a series of ads on Instagram to showcase how the social network collects information from users and displays ads basis of those private details.
The Encrypted messaging app claimed that companies like Facebook aren’t building technology for you but for your data.
“They collect everything they can from FB, Instagram, and WhatsApp in order to sell visibility into people and their lives,” Signal said in a blog post.
Facebook, that blocked Signal from its platforms, was yet to comment on the Signal blog post.
One of the ads Signal posted on Instagram, read: “You got this ad because you’re a newlywed pilates instructor and you’re cartoon crazy. This ad used your location to see you’re in La Jolla. You’re into parenting blogs and thinking about LGBTQ adoption.”
Signal said it created a multi-variant targeted ad designed to show you the personal data that Facebook collects about you and sells access to.
The ad would simply display some of the information collected about the viewer which the advertising platform uses. Facebook was not into that idea, the company noted.
Facebook immediately blocked Signal’s advertising account after it aimed to run an ad campaign to show Instagram users how Facebook collects the data.
Signal said that Facebook is more than willing to sell visibility into people’s lives, unless it’s to tell people about how their data is being used.
Facebook’s own tools have the potential to divulge what is otherwise unseen, Signal alleged.
“It’s possible to catch fragments of these truths in the ads you’re shown; they are glimmers that reflect the world of a monitoring stranger who knows you. We wanted to use those same tools to highlight how most technology works. We wanted to buy some Instagram ads,” Signal said.
Both Signal and Telegram achieved significant new users as Facebook-owned WhatsApp’s new Terms of Service and Privacy Policy triggered a fresh privacy debate.
