Facebook’s Deep Fake
In-app Instagram surveys catfish loyal customers
I am sure that it is not a surprise to anyone that Facebook.com generates 98.5% of its revenue from advertising, and that they own and operate sophisticated technology to tailor and target advertising to people with precision accuracy.
What you may not know is that Facebook impersonates other businesses to gather even more information.
Facebook tracks online purchases and uses in-app survey tools branded with the logo of the company from which you bought your goods to ask you further questions. The design makes it appear that the company delivered the survey, and not Instagram, but that company has no idea that its customers are being solicited.
Recently I made a purchase on a local company’s website (I cannot disclose the name for governance reasons). After I received delivery, as I scrolled through Instagram, a survey appeared in my feed. It was branded at the top with the company’s profile graphic and read:
“How was your purchase experience? Review your experience with [this Company] so we can improve the ads people see.”
Here’s what’s twisted: I always log out of my social media channels on my web browser. I’m diligent about my security, and block trackers with Privacy Badger (a Google Chrome extension by the Electronic Frontier Foundation). However, the survey still got through.
The plot thickens. The company where I bought my goods supports the Stop Hate for Profit campaign and suspended their advertising with Facebook-Instagram in June. At the time I received the Instagram survey prompt in August, the company had not advertised on the platform for more than a month. In other words, the Instagram-generated, company-branded survey undermined the commitment the business had made to their customers, business partners, to Color of Change and the NAACP.
To resolve the issue, the company reached out to Facebook-Instagram with a firm statement that they had not consented to this survey process and to immediately discontinue any such surveys. Instagram refused. Their explanation was that the survey is generated as a part of their Ads Conversion Experience program, which relates to products purchased through ads placed on Facebook or Instagram. However, I did not click on an ad — I ordered directly online. So, how did Instagram know about my purchase?
The company undertook a three week investigation and concluded that my personal information and order details were likely provided to Instagram by way of a code-based Facebook pixel tag on the website. The tag (now entirely removed) had been installed earlier to support a remarketing campaign. The tag waited in the background (like a virus) until I accessed my account, and then ‘fed the beast’ (pardon the analogy) once the gate was open.
It wasn’t always like this: in-app Instagram surveys for online purchases were introduced in 2014, and they were clearly branded ‘Instagram’. Now it appears that Facebook thinks it may be more effective to appropriate other companies’ identities and catfish their loyal customers into providing even more data.
Facebook is wrong to assume that they have the right to steal a company’s brand under any guise. This is why the first Congressional Tech Antitrust Hearing is so important: to open a discussion on how the inescapable power and influence from the tech giants is bad for competition and consumers.
Don’t get deep-faked by Facebook. Decline those ad surveys, and if you see them, please let your vendor know that Instagram is pretending to be them. We must look after each other — customers and retailers together — to ensure our marketplace is what we want it to be: safe, secure, and private.