Metadata

Metadata is data about data — information describing the context of a communication or activity rather than its content. For a phone call, metadata includes who called whom, at what time, for how long, and from which location. For an email, it's the sender, recipient, timestamp, and subject line, not the body text. For a social media post, it's the account, device, IP address, and timestamp — not the words themselves.

What it means

The intelligence community's famous line — "we kill people based on metadata" (attributed to former NSA director Michael Hayden) — captures how revealing metadata can be. Even if the content of your communications is encrypted, metadata patterns can reveal your employer, your doctor, your lawyer, your political affiliations, your physical location at specific times, and who your close associates are. NSA mass surveillance programs have primarily collected metadata, not content.

Social platforms collect extensive metadata: every click, hover, scroll, time-on-page, device orientation change, and network change is logged. This behavioral metadata is as valuable to advertisers as the content of your posts.

How it works on Gab

Like any online platform, Gab collects metadata — server logs, IP addresses for security purposes, timestamps, and ad-related signals for Gab Ads. Gab does not sell user data to data brokers. The platform's privacy policy governs what's collected and how long it's retained.

Related terms

End-to-end encryption protects content but not metadata. VPNs can mask location metadata. Data brokers trade in compiled metadata. Surveillance capitalism depends on it.