This is a good blog post from Signal (even though I don’t recommend using it).
Signal >> Blog >> The Instagram ads Facebook won’t show you
Companies like Facebook aren’t building technology for you, they’re building technology for your data. They collect everything they can from FB, Instagram, and WhatsApp in order to sell visibility into people and their lives.
Why do we tolerate these advertisements?
This isn’t exactly a secret, but the full picture is hazy to most – dimly concealed within complex, opaquely-rendered systems and fine print designed to be scrolled past. The way most of the internet works today would be considered intolerable if translated into comprehensible real world analogs, but it endures because it is invisible.
Especially for the West, where they have a “high bar for privacy”, most users seem unperturbed by the onslaught of advertisements or data breaches. The PR appears to “manage” the fall-out while administrators call it the cost of “doing business”.
All of this flows back into policy, healthcare and privacy legislation. These companies are unavoidable evils that address most of the chaos (and anarchy) in the world. Are we better off without them? Yes! Can individuals wrest control of themselves? I am not sure.
RadOncNotes 