Facebook: Cracking the Code Page #4

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if it's not relevant to them.

If it actually is something

that they want,

they don't mind it so much.

This is actually

not a bad thing.

Nik Cubrilovic is

a former hacker

turned security consultant.

He's been using his skills

to investigate

the way our data is tracked.

One day Cubrilovic

made a discovery

that startled the tech world.

He found that even if you're not

logged on to Facebook -

even if you're not a member -

the company tracks and stores

a huge amount

of your browsing history.

And you can't opt out.

If you don't like Facebook,

if you don't like the kinds

of things you're describing,

just close your account?

It's very difficult to opt out

of Facebook's reach on the web.

Even if you close your account,

even if you log out

of all of your services

the way that they're set up,

with their sharing buttons

and so forth,

they're still going to be able

to build a profile for you.

And it's just not going to have

the same level of information

associated with it.

They don't even tell us clearly

what they're doing.

They tell us some things

but it's not specific enough

to really answer the question,

if somebody was going

to build a dossier on me

based on what Facebook

knows about me,

what would it look like?

I should be able to know that,

so that I can make

informed decisions

about how I'm going

to use the platform.

Facebook is not just

influencing what we buy.

It's changing the world

we live in.

Sure they want to

bring their service

to everybody on the planet.

From a commercial standpoint

that's obviously a goal.

Whether it makes the world

a better place

is another question.

Not only have you built

this big business

and this big social network,

you now are possibly determining

the course of world events.

That's exactly what happened

in the streets of Cairo.

In January 2011,

millions gathered in the city

demanding the resignation

of the autocrat Hosni Mubarak.

It became known

as the Facebook revolution.

The organizers used Facebook to

rally vast crowds of protesters.

They were so effective

that the government

tried to shut down the internet.

It took just 18 days

to topple Mubarak.

So what Facebook came to stand

for several months I would say

or at least in its early days

after the events of Tahrir

Square in the Arab Spring

was a symbol of people's ability

to organize and express

and share information

more widely.

It symbolised that so much so

that I like to tell stories

about how I could buy

T-shirts in Tahrir Square

which said

"Facebook, Tool of Revolution".

I understand as well as anybody

just how effective

Facebook can be.

Three years ago,

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