How a viral challenge can be turned against you

Published in El Pais, 22 January 2019.

The internet is often convincing people to do “challenges” where people perform certain tasks for brief internet fame. Some are dumb and dangerous like the “In my feelings” challenge where people get out a moving vehicle and dance beside it. Others are innocent enough like the recent “10-year challenge” where you post a photo of yourself in 2009 alongside a more recent photo to compare the differences. Seems simple and innocent enough and many people might feel nostalgic about it the same way we feel nostalgic while looking at old photo albums. But the latest conspiracy theory might make you think twice before participating in this challenge.

The theory states that the challenge was started by none other than Facebook to compare photos of the past 10 years to improve their facial recognition software. Sure, they have access to your photos from ten years ago already but having them side by side makes it much easier to organize. For its part Facebook has denied any involvement and I doubt they did myself but while they were not the mastermind behind this viral trend that does not mean they could not make use of this new data.

Facebook uses their software to automatically recognize your friends when you post new photos to make it easier to tag them, but this information can be used for so much more, many of which you might be so thrilled with. For example, shop owners and casinos are likely using this information to profile customers for things like detecting shoplifters or important customers. Even if you are ok with Facebook using this technology on you should there ever be a breach, and they have had quite a few of those recently, this information can be available to the highest bidder.

The takeaway in this is simple, maybe forget this latest challenge, sure its not as risky as jumping out of a moving vehicle, but we should not be so willing to give our information away either. Let’s be honest, except for close family members most will not care about the difference.