Facebook Tracks Unposted Status Updates

Facebook gets even creepier, they can now track status updates you never published.

We’ve all typed out status messages, erased them, and never posted right? We all think that these status messages disappear…but guess what? They don’t. Facebook keeps them on record.

According to CBC News, a recently-published paper entitled “Self-Censorship on Facebook” reveals that Facebook has the ability to track what you’re typing, regardless of whether or not you publish it. If you’re thinking that this is from conspiracy nuts, it’s not. The report was published by men who work for Facebook!

It may sound like a digital privacy advocate’s worst nightmare, but Facebook assures it’s not interested in collecting the content of your deleted text – only in analyzing whether or not you’ve actually deleted any.”

We’ve all typed out something we shouldn’t have… whether or not booze was a factor in the typing is another question, but we’ve all typed out some sort of crazy status message and thought twice about publishing. We delete the messages thinking they are gone forever. Apparently a lot of people have what’s called “last-minute self-censorship” behavior.

Subscribe to 96.1 The Eagle on

A Facebook representative told Slate’s Jennifer Golbeck that the collection of user data in this way is not a violation of the company’s Data Use Policy.

To collect the text, Facebook simply sends a code the user’s web browser which automatically analyzes the text and reports the metadata back to Facebook. “

Do you think Facebook is collecting this data for a greater purpose?