A few years back, I saw an online rumor, that I decided to try for myself.
I left my (locked) iPhone 6 in front of a TV overnight, that was left on a Spanish channel.
The next day, ALL of my Facebook ads, across all devices, were in Spanish — along with about 20% of the ads that I came across during regular web browsing. Took about a month for them to revert back to English.
I do not speak Spanish. At the time, I lived in a rural New England area, where census data reported very low Hispanic population. Zero reason for me to get targeted with alternative language advertisements.
I’m not a Luddite of any kind. Several decades of tech industry experience, specifically with ecommerce software engineering. Hold all available certifications for Google marketing, Facebook marketing, Hubspot marketing, along with many more. Know quite a bit more about this topic than the average Joe, and it concerns the hell out of me.
Since that day, Facebook’s apps haven’t been allowed on any of my devices, and their services only get used by me for work purposes.
I left my (locked) iPhone 6 in front of a TV overnight, that was left on a Spanish channel.
The next day, ALL of my Facebook ads, across all devices, were in Spanish — along with about 20% of the ads that I came across during regular web browsing. Took about a month for them to revert back to English.
I do not speak Spanish. At the time, I lived in a rural New England area, where census data reported very low Hispanic population. Zero reason for me to get targeted with alternative language advertisements.
I’m not a Luddite of any kind. Several decades of tech industry experience, specifically with ecommerce software engineering. Hold all available certifications for Google marketing, Facebook marketing, Hubspot marketing, along with many more. Know quite a bit more about this topic than the average Joe, and it concerns the hell out of me.
Since that day, Facebook’s apps haven’t been allowed on any of my devices, and their services only get used by me for work purposes.