Recently a teenager in London was made homeless because his parents discovered “incriminating” gay content on his Facebook page. He was kicked out of the house without notice and his whereabouts are currently unknown. London’s increasing subculture of extreme homophobia may also carry some of the blame here. One of his friends who spoke to Privacy International was concerned that the young man had spun into depression. He had no money – not even a change of clothes.

The young man, we are now calling ‘David’ did not place the offending material on his Facebook profile – someone else did. He never mentioned anywhere on his profile that he was gay, and was not openly involved in any online gay groups. For David, living in a closed-minded community and with homophobic parents, such revelations would be disastrous.

But if David didn’t place that material on his profile, who did?

The culprit is Facebook. The company placed that material on his page without notification, without his consent and in violation of every principle of care that the company claims to stand for. It did so through a covert mechanism of targeted advertising, deeply analysing David’s Facebook activities and relationships and then posting blatant ads on his profile that scream “Hey! This user is queer!”

Facebook didn’t place incriminating information on this young man’s profile “without his permission.” Facebook’s revenue comes from placing highly targeted ads based upon a user’s listed interests. David was fed “Gay Speed Dating London” ads because advertisers were targeting interests he had listed, and correctly at that.

David knew the ads were displayed on his profile, but could do nothing to remove them no matter how hard he tried. They just kept coming back. On this occasion he made the mistake of leaving his computer screen on while going to the shop, unaware that his parents were to return earlier than expected to the house.

Closeted Facebook users should surely exercise caution when using the free site, especially if their home life is potentially volatile.

Damn you facebook and your targeted ads!!!!!!!!!!!!