Pretty much every Facebook user has begun typing a status update or response to a post at some point, only to delete it before they click on “post”. Usually we do this because half way through typing, we realize that whatever we’re saying is a stupid thing to say, or that it could be offensive, or we don’t want others to see what we feel. You might think that when you delete these un-posted messages, they’re gone forever – but apparently that’s not the case, according to Slate’s Jennifer Golbeck, who reveals that Facebook tracks everyone who deletes a message before its posted, collecting metadata to store on its own servers.

But why is Facebook tracking people’s discarded posts? Well, Golbeck cites new research by Facebook data scientist Adam Kramer and Carnegie Mellon Ph.D. student Sauvik Das, which looks into the reasons people practice what they call “self-censorship” and examines millions of aborted status updates, comments and posts on other user’s timelines.

We should stress that Facebook isn’t keeping a record of all of these non-posted comments – all it does it collect metadata on said posts, such as the time it was almost posted, and the page where it was due to be published. According to Kramer and Das, Facebook’s justification for doing this is that it wants to understand why people apply self-censorship, because it “loses value from the lack of content generation” each time a comment is deleted by the user.

“Consider, for example, the college student who wants to promote a social event for a special interest group, but does not for fear of spamming his other friends — some of who may, in fact, appreciate his efforts,” write the authors.

Golbeck is critical of Facebook, even going as far as to accuse it of being worse than the NSA when it comes to invasion of privacy – the point being that while the NSA might be accessing everyone’s private communications, it only ever snoops on stuff that has actually been posted online or sent as an email, while Facebook analyzes content that people never wanted to share with anyone.

In conclusion, Golbeck argues that Facebook is acting in a rather perverse fashion with its desire to get users to post absolutely everything that pops in their heads. She claims that by doing so, the social media giant is encouraging users to lower the standards of what they post.

“So Facebook considers your thoughtful discretion about what to post as bad, because it withholds value from Facebook and from other users,” writes Golbeck. “Facebook monitors those unposted thoughts to better understand them, in order to build a system that minimizes this deliberate behavior.”