04 September 2026 | David | Sparks of Inspiration

When the platform algorithms connect the dots and expose your data

This is a bit of a "bite the hands that feed" type of article. It is really important that we as a society pay attention to these developments, be aware of the power of advanced programming that can roam the internet on it's own missions once given a directive, and see the promotional opportunities that are created out of big data.

The important part of this intro is the "BE AWARE" bit. And the surprise this mother had to discover she had the ability to completely stalk herself quite accidently.

This story has unfolded across Facebook over the past 24 hours or so. It has, at the time of writing this had 1.3 million views. The ordinary mother that posted this video had around 400 Facebook friends when she posted this video. Now she has 4,500 connections and has had to make a follow up video explaining herself. This story isn't really about her, it is about her experience and her message. It has really resonated with a wide, wide audience. For very good reason.

Photo by Kevin Ku

In almost a scene akin to something out of Terminator this one video has awoken the questions of a lot of people. It has sparked a conversation about what the social platforms are actually doing with their data aggregation quests. The LLM (large language models) / AI programmes that they have built and unleashed onto the world with little conversation or regulation are now running amok through the data of every single person on the planet. Nothing is safe and there is no one to complain to, and little we can do about it.
This is just the new way of the world.

For Kalie Robins, the entire episode has come as a bit of a shock. Her video is well worth a watch. Just click on the screenshot and you will be taken directly to her video.
Here is also a summary.
She posted an innocent video of herself and her young daughter singing in the car.
Facebook then posted a Meta AI question underneath it that said "whose the child passenger?" This sparked her interest. She was confused as to why the algorithm wanted to know specific details about her child, clearly a minor.
So she clicked the suggestion.
The Meta AI started compiling a lot of information, not just about this child, but all of her children, including full names, birth information, videos of them, a new born photo from her Mother's Facebook page, and then it pulled up a photo that Kalie knew she had deleted from her own Facebook page many years ago.
Then it took another turn. Meta AI then suggested it ask where does Kalie Robins live?
So she clicked that question as well.
The Meta AI then started compiling a bunch of data connecting her to where she used to live and also to where she currently lives. It pinpointed her location.
This obviously is a total freak out for most people. Especially people that use social platforms like Facebook to share their lives, with their friends and families. Those that also enable extra features without realising the extend to which those features are capable of.
So here is where the conversation gets really intense.

For now it's actually not that easy to use Meta AI to scape the data in the manner that she has described in the video, especially on content that someone else has posted. You need to download the Meta AI app. Even then it is a bit clunky and in it's early stages. What is surprising though is how many of your friends are already using it. Some of those people however will be completely unaware that they have downloaded it and have activated it's terms and conditions.

So what was happening with Kalie?
In reality she had opened the portal to encourage Meta AI to learn about her post and build up a meta data landscape.
Probably she had enabled this on every post so that every time she posted, Meta AI would try and build a meta data set to help spread her content. Her page is fully public and it appears that she is aiming to become an influencer of sorts. Her desire to be public does not negate the fact that privacy via the social platforms really is an illusion.
The questions she was seeing were for her, but this is a chilling glimpse into the near future. Already models like Google's Gemini, Claude and ChatGTP can all summarise content on websites, but there are some guard rails in place. For instance I could not get Google's AI to summarise the Facebook reel, probably due to an ownership and / or copyright issue, not because it cared for Kalie's privacy.

At the heart of all of this is the concept of ownership, and the race to become the dominant AI. Kalie has just learned that all of the content she has ever uploaded to Facebook / Meta now belongs to them, to do with how they see fit. it is no longer hers. The Facebook page she has for that matter is also not hers. It belongs to Meta. Even if she deletes content from that page, it is still in Meta's storage. Able to be archived, able to be searched. It belongs to them. They are very very clear about that in their Terms and Conditions.

How does this apply to business?

This is where it becomes very interesting.
By using their platforms you also enable that platform to take ownership of whatever you upload. It will be on their servers forever. Data centres are getting bigger and more localised for a very good reason. It is their desire to store all of that information forever, and to maintain ownership and control over it. Kalie has showed us how easy it is right now for a social platform like Meta to build a comprehensive profile of her entire family in seconds, and that she has no control over her data. Photo's she wished deleted and no longer connected to her are still completely connected to her. For businesses this is a very important moment of clarity!

You cannot let just anyone loose on your social media profiles. Those of us in the know have been saying this since the beginning. We knew where this was heading. Any comment made, any accidental post posted, it is all still there, connected to your business. Forever. Got into a war with a disgruntled customer in the comments and then deleted the post to make it all go away? Guess what. It hasn't gone away. Social Media is an absolutely necessary marketing tool, but it comes with a permanence very underestimated. It is essential that it be handled delicately by someone of the skillset to ensure that your narrative is controlled and supportive of your goals.

UPDATE: Now 72 hours after posting her video it has been seen 1.5 million times, and shared 17,000 times. She now has 5,100 followers.