Hey all, a little Social Media PSA if you have the Facebook App on your phone. 

With the last update, Facebook began tracking something called ‘off-Facebook Activity’ which keeps up with all apps and browsing you do off of Facebook and collects that information with the purpose of targeting ads… which means they’re selling it to ad agencies. This includes access to any banking apps on your phone and your spending habits. 

 Not only is this a major breech of privacy that Facebook didn’t have to tell us about when they updated the app, it’s, of course, automatically turned on. 

From Facebook, go to the Menu by clicking on the three horizontal lines on the top right of the screen.

Scroll down to the bottom and select the Settings & Privacy drop-down menu.

Then select Settings (the first option under the drop-down).

This will take you to a screen showing multiple headers with lists of links under them

Scroll down to Your Facebook Information and select Off-Facebook Activity.

The next page has a short explanation of Off-Facebook Activity. Click Manage Your Off-Facebook Activity after the What You Can Do header.

This will take you to a screen with an option to Clear History (which I recommend). To actually turn off this feature, you will have to click the three dots at the top right of the screen and select the Manage Future Activity option that pops up.

This will take you to a page explaining in more detail what they’re doing. Select the Manage Future Activity at the bottom of the page.

THEN you can finally select the toggle to turn off Future Off-Facebook Activity. 

“The ethereal/angelic black girl that looks like she’s almost “too good” for this world”

I: Tell me about the dreams.

Girl: They were just dreams. Kinda scary. Kinda boring after I woke up for awhile. I’m making a perfume. Wanna smell?

I: Sure. Wow. What’s in there?

Girl: Oh, all kinds of stuff. Audrey says that the best perfumes are made of a variety. Gross stuff and good-smelling stuff. The gross stuff is the secret. People think they don’t wanna smell like it, but really they just don’t wanna smell only like it. People wanna smell like a lot of things all at once, even if it’s only got the one name. 

I: Audrey, your aunt?

Girl: Uh-huh. She makes really fancy perfumes. She’s got little bottles of different kinds all locked up in boxes on the wall, and she won’t let anyone else sniff them. Except for me.

I: You must be very special. Tell me about your perfume.

Girl: It’s called “Ampersand.”

I: Like the symbol?

Girl: Uh-huh. It means “and.” I don’t want people to think there’s only the sweet-smelling stuff in here. Everyone likes to forget about the parts they don’t want to think about. 

I: Like what?

Girl: Like, most perfumes come from dead things. Dead animals. Dead plants. You know the smell musk? 

I: I’ve heard of it. Comes from a deer, right?

Girl: The musk deer. It comes from the males, from their glands. People kill them for it. It’s in a whole lot of perfumes, but if you ask most people, they wouldn’t wanna wear something that comes from deer glands. They rub it all over their skin. It’s gross, if you think about it. So they don’t think about it.

I: Does your perfume have musk in it?

Girl: No. But it has ambergris.

I: What’s that?

Girl: Amber-grease. Old whale poop that washes up on the beach. I bet you never thought someone would put that in a perfume.

I: You’re right.

Girl: But they do. Lots of people do. Audrey says it’s a “high value ingredient.” That means a lot of perfume makers want to use it, but it’s not that easy to find.

I: Where’d you find yours?

Girl: On the beach.

I: The same beach where you had the first dream?

Girl: I didn’t know I was dreaming.

I: Can you tell me about it?