AwarenessPlatforms & social life
What the feed infers about you
Political, health and personal guesses drawn from what you pause on.
Understand it
Platforms don’t just record what you click - they infer. How long you linger on a post, what you rewatch, who you follow, all feed a profile that guesses your politics, health, mood and more. That inferred profile shapes what you’re shown, and can be sold or used in ways you never stated or agreed to.
How to spot it
Your “ad interests” or “topics” page on a platform is a glimpse of what it has guessed.
Close the gap
- Review and clear your ad-interest / topic profile where the platform allows.
- Turn off ad personalisation in the platform’s settings.
- Be aware that lingering and rewatching are signals - not only likes.
- Use the feed deliberately; the less you feed it, the less it infers.
What to do about it
This is the profiling that powers your feeds. You can't turn it off entirely, but trimming what you share - and the platform steps in your plan - limit what it has to work with.