Creep Alert: Facebook Wants To Read And Record Your Feelings, And They Have A Way To Do It


Facebook wants to know you. They want to know all about you. They want to know what you’re feeling.

They already keep track of what you like, which emoticons you use, and which pages you follow. They use that information to direct ads and pages your way. We’ve all had the unnerving experience of seeing ads that seem to know the contents of our closets and what’s on our shopping lists.

Now Facebook is going one step further.

Forbes reported that Facebook has filed some new ones that will impact our personal privacy. While these are only patents at this point, and aren’t yet ready to be rolled out, they show a creepy desire by the tech industry to climb inside our heads.

The first patent that was recently filed is kind of interesting, but still really invasive. It’s designed to add a predictive piece to our text messaging. By measuring the speed and smoothness of our key strokes, they hope to understand what emotion we’re feeling while we text our kids. Then, based on how they think we feel, they’ll change the font and size. Maybe add a smiley face or two.

Another patent filed by the tech giant tries to be cute, but it still involved invasive and creepy actions. If you wanted to use this item, once it got up and running, you would take a selfie and Facebook would evaluate your mood and send your text with your selfie turned into an emoji.

Weird, but I can see a bunch of 12 year olds getting into it.

The last patent gets way creepier. This time Facebook wants to use your camera phone to watch and record your facial expressions, then use the images to read your emotions. Unlike the patent with the emoji selfies, this time you wouldn’t get a choice. In fact, if you have a camera, you wouldn’t be able to opt out of it.

The idea would be to find out what you like and what you don’t like. Then they could aim posts or ads to match your interests. If you were frowning while you watched kitty videos, you’d start seeing fewer of them.

So maybe there is an up side after all.

Featured image via YouTube screengrab.

 

Karen is a retired elementary school teacher with many years of progressive activism behind her. She is the proud mother of three young adults who were all arrested with Occupy Wall Street. To see what she writes about in her spare time, check out her blog at "Empty Nest, Full Life"