How does the shared Discovery dataset work?

Public post data captured by any PostSnag user is saved once and can power the community Discovery feed for everyone, not just the person who captured it. This is only public Facebook post data, the same content anyone viewing that profile could already see. Your account details and your private Bookmarks and Folders are never part of it.

Here's exactly how that works, and why a profile sometimes already has posts the first time you capture it.

Why data is shared across the community

Once a profile's public posts are captured by any PostSnag user, that data is saved and made available across the platform rather than staying locked to the person who captured it. That's what powers Discovery: a feed of standout posts pulled from every profile the PostSnag community has captured, not just your own. It also means a popular profile is often already captured before you get to it yourself, so you may see its posts right away in Discovery instead of waiting on a fresh scan of your own. See What is the Discovery feed? for how those posts get surfaced and sorted.

What's in the shared dataset

Only public post data, the same kind of thing anyone could see by visiting the profile directly:

• Post text, type, and media links or previews.

• Engagement: reactions, comments, shares, video views.

• The author's public name, username, and avatar.

• The post's URL, date, and time.

In short, the same fields covered in What Facebook data does PostSnag capture, and what does it never capture? All of it was already public on Facebook before PostSnag captured it.

What's never in the shared dataset

• Your account details. Your email, password, and plan status stay tied to your account and are never shared.

• Your private Bookmarks and Folders. What you save and how you organize it is visible only to you.

• Anything not public. The shared dataset only ever contains what was already publicly visible on Facebook; PostSnag doesn't capture private content in the first place, so it can't end up in Discovery either.

How a post actually gets from your scroll into Discovery

Scrolling a profile captures its posts locally, to your own browser. Clicking Export To Dashboard sends the public posts up, and that's the point where they join PostSnag's stored dataset. Being part of that shared dataset makes a post eligible to surface in Discovery; it doesn't guarantee that it will. Discovery separately sorts by Recent or Trending to decide what actually shows up at any given moment. See What is the Discovery feed? and What is an outlier post, and what does "top 1%" mean? for how that sorting and surfacing actually works.

How this affects you day to day

If you capture a profile, its public posts can surface in Discovery for other PostSnag users, the same way another user's capture of that profile can surface it for you. Either way, what shows up is limited to public post data. Your own research, saved posts, and Folders stay private to your account regardless of what's shared in Discovery.

If you'd rather not have your captures surface in Discovery

There's no PostSnag setting that keeps a specific capture out of the shared dataset, because the content itself was already public on Facebook before you ever opened PostSnag. The dataset only ever reflects what Facebook already made visible to any visitor; PostSnag doesn't add a second layer of exposure on top of that. Your own private research, meaning your Bookmarks, Folders, and how you personally organize a profile's data, stays private to your account regardless. If you're the one who posted something and don't want it publicly visible at all, that's controlled by your own Facebook privacy settings, not by PostSnag.

[Screenshot: The Discovery feed with the Recent and Trending toggle]

Common questions

If I capture a profile, does everyone else on PostSnag see it too?
The public post data can surface in the shared Discovery feed. Your own Bookmarks and Folders stay private to your account.

Does the shared dataset include anything from my account?
No. It only ever contains public Facebook post data. Your account details and private saves are never included.

Why do some profiles already have posts the first time I capture them?
Because another PostSnag user likely captured that profile before you did. Public post data is saved once and made available platform-wide, which is what Discovery draws from.

What happens to a profile's public data if I delete my account?
Your account and its private saves are removed. Public post data that already became part of the shared dataset may persist independently, since it's public data captured for the benefit of all users.

Can I opt a profile's posts out of the shared dataset?
No, there's no PostSnag-specific opt-out. The dataset only ever reflects public Facebook content that was already visible to any visitor before you captured it.

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