If you're like me, you've amassed hundreds, if not thousands, of "interests" on Facebook over the past decade. These interests can be used to track, target, and advertise to you. These public "likes" can also be used for more nefarious purposes, like blackmail or coersion (https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2013/01/23/facebook-graph-search-embarrassing).
This is a short guide on how to easily remove them.
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First, make sure you're logged into Facebook and navigate to https://www.facebook.com/adpreferences/?section=interests
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Click "See All Interests"
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Open your browser's Javascript console and type in:
setInterval(function(){ document.querySelectorAll('div[aria-label="Remove"]')[0].click() }, 2000);where2000is the number of miliseconds to wait between clicking the "Remove" button. My default is a sensible two seconds. This function clicks "Remove" over and over again. Facebook makes it purposefully cumbersome to remove all interests at once. -
Wait.
Thank the digital gods for this. Now if I could let this happen in the actual app, I'd be a happy camper. ditto the suggested or recommended ads.