Meta Got Fined for Guessing Your Sexual Orientation From Your Likes #Privacy #Meta
The short version: A South Korean fine over Meta inferring sexual orientation from likes is a reminder that inferred data, not just collected data, is the real surveillance threat.
Our Take
Creator Mading Thok lays out a case that should unsettle anyone who thinks privacy is just about what you explicitly share: Meta didn't need you to say you were gay, it just needed your likes. South Korean regulators found the company inferred sensitive categories for hundreds of thousands of users and sold those guesses to thousands of advertisers. No law here stops that. The fine landed because South Korea treats control over your own data as a constitutional matter. We don't.
This is the same logic that powers license plate surveillance in the US. Flock Safety doesn't need you to confess where you go to church, your doctor's office, or your ex's apartment. It just needs your plate showing up in those places over and over, and the inference writes itself. Nobody votes to approve the pattern-of-life profile that gets built behind the scenes — it just accumulates, department by department, camera by camera, with no South Korea-style backstop telling anyone that's off limits.
Check your own Ad Preferences tonight if you want, but also check what's already watching your car. Our camera map shows where ALPRs are logging plates near you, and our take-action page has steps if you'd rather your town not build that profile at all.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of Mading Thok, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.