Meta’s way of making profits fits in a category called Surveillance Capitalism. Surveillance capitalism began when internet companies started tracking user behavior data to make their sites more personally tailored to users. These companies realized that this data was something that they could profit from, so they began to collect more data than strictly necessary (“behavioral surplus”) and see what more they could predict about users. Companies could then sell this data about users directly, or (more commonly), they could keep their data hidden, but use it to sell targeted advertisements. So, for example, Meta might let an advertiser say they want an ad to only go to people likely to be pregnant. Or they might let advertizes make ads go only to “Jew Haters” (which is ethically very bad, and something Meta allowed).
Meta utilizes sophisticated algorithms and machine learning techniques to analyze the data it collects. By mining this data, Meta can make predictions about users' future behaviors, interests, and preferences.