In February, Facebook launched five Reactions besides the “Like” button to help users better share their feelings about posts which appear in their social networking site. Facebook promoted it as a way of answering calls from users for a “Dislike” button.
On Wednesday (11 May), the Belgium’s police issued a warning to Facebook users that the Reacticons – of laughter, amazement, anger, sadness and love – actually erode your privacy, and that they help the social networking site to evaluate the effectiveness of its advertising.
There is a reason why the Reacticons are limited to six said the Belgian police. It helps users to express their feeling more frequently and helps Facebook’s algorithms to gauge when is the best time to show advertisements.
“If it appears that you are in good spirits, Facebook will infer that you are receptive and will be able to sell advertising space by explaining to the advertisers that they are more likely to get a reaction from you,” the police wrote.
“One more reason therefore not to rush to click if you want to protect your privacy,” it added.
And also, it does not mean that users will not see any advertisements if they react with an Angry emoticon to all posts that appear in their newsfeed.
The social networking site had previously said that it treats any kind of engagement on Facebook as an indication that users want to see more of such posts. So reacting angrily often to posts would simply indicate to Facebook that users like seeing more of the same, and that could be sold to advertisers too.
