The US Supreme Court ruling to legalize gay marriages all across the nation was a revolutionary step and it was received with happy emotions all over the world. The tech companies like Google and Facebook too expressed their happiness in their own way. Google showed rainbow colors on searching the term gay marriage while Facebook chose to go via a more personalized path.
s from the past few days, you would have seen your news feed full of rainbow pictures. While people found it a great way to express their support, it’s possible that Facebook might be conducting another experiment with its “celebrate pride” feature. Earlier Facebook’s data scientists are known to track the voting behavior and moods of the users.
So when Facebook does something once again, naturally Facebook is also keeping track of who’s using it. And, Facebook hasn’t denied it. According to Facebook, this rainbow filter was built by two Facebook interns during an internal hackathon recently.
The Atlantic asked Facebook if these rainbow profile pictures are “another experiment.” A spokesperson from Facebook responded that “it’s not an experiment or test- everybody sees the same thing.” Back in the past Facebook has conducted studies on people’s profile picture and this time it’s safe to say that Facebook is also keeping track of who is using this feature.
Facebook didn’t deny that the website was tracking which users support gay marriage and it’s adding their information to its database. Based on some past research papers, we can say that Facebook is looking closely to everything you are doing on the social network.
Well, it’s a great way to celebrate an event like this but remember, Facebook is always watching.
Gizmodo reached out for clarification and Facebook still failed to deny tracking. They made sure that they won’t be using this to target ads or anything, but tracking isn’t denied.
So yeah, Facebook is watching you.
Did this rainbow profile picture tracking surprise you? Tell us in comments below.
With inputs from The Atlantic
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