> [!info]
> Input: [[Social Media Posts|posts]]
> Output: [[Operational Systems and Platforms|device platform]]
>
> Types: [[Technical Weakness|technical]]
> Weakness: [[SOWEL-5. Exposing the Fact of Activity]]
> Functionality: [[SOFL-1. Communications]]
### Explanation
Many platforms attach small structured metadata to each post — the client used to publish, the language detected, the platform's internal post ID, sometimes a location, edit history. The visible UI often shows only a fraction of this; more is reachable through the platform's API or by inspecting the raw post object in browser devtools.
Aggregating this metadata across a target's recent posts paints a picture the user didn't intend to publish: which devices and operating systems they actually use (and when they switch — an always-iOS profile suddenly showing an Android entry suggests a second phone); how aggressively they edit vs post fresh; the rough quality of their operational security.
Note this is platform-attached metadata, distinct from the file-embedded metadata covered by [[SOTL-3.1. Extract Metadata From User-Generated Content]] — file metadata lives in the photo or video, post metadata lives in the platform's database around the post.
### Examples
{{some links to articles, videos, etc}}
### Tools
{{some links to tools}}
### See also
- {{internal links to similar techniques}}