Behind every great social media platform sits a digital representation of who you know and what you like.
The digital mapping of who you know is called your social graph, and the map of what you like is called your interest graph.
Every platform tracks and maps your activity into these two types of “spiderweb” graph and every action you take adds a bit more “web” each time.
Creepy, right?
Well, it’s especially creepy when you discover these graphs exist even if you’re not on social media, since companies like Google, Apple and even banking apps build interest graphs based on your contacts, emails, purchases, and browsing history.
So, to be clear:
A social graph is about who you know—it maps your relationships within a social network: your friends, family, coworkers, etc.
An interest graph is about what you like—it connects you to other people based on shared interests, hobbies and topics, rather than personal relationships.
Every social media platform including the short-form video and content discovery platforms like YouTube and TikTok build and use these graphs about their users. And, surprise, surprise, they use them to analyze user behavior, personalize user experience, recommend content, and sell ads and the data itself.
But they’re not the only ones:
- Online retailers use interest graphs to recommend products based on your browsing history and past purchases.
- Streaming services like Netflix and Spotify use interest graphs to suggest content based on your viewing or listening habits.
- News aggregation platforms like Google News and Apple News use interest graphs to personalize news feeds and recommend articles based on your interests.
- Many other apps and services, such as dating apps, job boards, and travel booking platforms, use interest graphs to personalize user experiences.
But while social graphs and interest graphs improve user experience, they also raise privacy and security concerns. The more data collected, the more companies—and bad actors—know about you, so it’s crucial to manage your privacy settings and take other proactive privacy steps.
You can control your social graph and interest graph, to an extent
While you can’t completely opt out of having social graphs and interest graphs, you can take steps to control what information is collected and shared:
- Review your privacy settings on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn to limit data collection.
- Be choosy about accepting friend requests and connections to limit the amount of your personal data that others can access.
- Limit app permissions to stop third-party services from accessing your social graph data.
- Regularly audit your online activity to remove old or inactive connections, unfollow accounts, and mute topics you’re not interested in.
While that’s the standard advice, you can do more to protect yourself:
- Use Sudo digital identities in MySudo all-in-one privacy app to break your data trail. MySudo lets you control who sees your personal information online and in real life.
- Use the end-to-end encrypted messaging within each Sudo in MySudo to keep your conversations private.
- Use the private browser within each Sudo in MySudo to search the internet free of ads and trackers.
- Use the virtual card within each Sudo in MySudo to hide your transaction history from your bank and those they sell your data to. (Yes, they do!)
- Take even greater control of your data privacy with all Anonyome Labs’ personal information protection tools in easy-to-use apps, including RECLAIM, which lets you reclaim your personal data from companies that store and sell it.
You can’t control whether platforms build social and interest graphs about you, but you can control a lot of what they see, with MySudo. Download MySudo for iOS or Android.
