Ask HN: What data is Facebook sending from my phone?

10 points by marviio 2 years ago | 3 comments

I looked at some statistics in my router and saw that Facebook (the mobile app) is the biggest sender of data from my network. It's more than my online backup provider uses. What data is the app sending that can amount to many, many gigabytes? Has anyone tried to decipher the packages to find out what it contains?

ipaddr 2 years ago |

They send your contacts, installed apps, location and gyro data. Everything you gave them access to. Never use facebook or meta products on your phone

dotcoma 2 years ago | |

If possible, never use Meta products. Full stop.

mattbrewsbytes 2 years ago |

Did you allow their apps access to photos? That would likely be the largest sized data set on the phone. Maybe they also send similar data for ads. Constant scrolling of the "feed" might require a lot of that content to be on your phone so it could be caching things.

Meta/Facebook is known to slurp up all kinds of data off peoples phones - location data, listening to the mic, etc. has been alleged in the past, possibly proven in court. You could try only using their website which I believe puts them in a sandbox where they can't send/receive as much. Or uninstalling it and not using it would mean 0 traffic to them from your router.