data do facebook and google collect it's possible to download a copy of your personal information although if you have an account with google that data alone could be several gigabytes. google saves all of our searches. and knows things like when we need to have our phone repaired. it keeps track of places we spend time in and follows us as we move through a city. your facebook data includes the private messages you sent right down to the images you used. both google and facebook can share their users data with third parties. users can't control what happens with their data once it's been shared what's more interesting is how that data is used and used to target and attempt to influence and manipulate not just the people who have the data access but almost everybody i think it is true that in some ways they control so much that it's like like a dictatorship but a kind of hidden dictatorship it's working with soft power rather than rather than