Ask HN: Facebook is listening to your conversations | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Facebook is listening to your conversations

32 pointssamblr17 comments

This happened in last 5 minutes.

Was speaking to a friend about Wix website builder. And within a minute in my FB news feed - I see Wix relevant link (link was from techcrunch: http://tcrn.ch/2jdnFeM)

The news item is published on Jan 19th i.e 6 days ago! I haven't seen that link in my last week of social media browsing. How did it all of a sudden became relevant ? Freaky!

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This was discussed a lot:

https://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/5k4dn8/im_becom... (6086 comments)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13252242 (109 comments)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11833718 (49 comments)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10360761 (54 comments)

I believe this has been discussed before, but it never ceases to amaze my wife and I.

We will be talking about, say suddenly needing new Swiffer pads. Face to face conversation, emergent and organic conversation, no prior searches in the last few weeks or anything like that. Then, next time you're scrolling through instagram, there is an Amazon ad for Swiffers.

I keep getting ads for plates of shrimp.

Stop calling people "fooking prawns" then!

Guess it's just part of the lattice of coincidence.

This kind of means: there will be multiple versions of '1984' from multiple corporates + state.

Could Amazon know how often you buy them OR could it be whatever the psychological phenomenon is when you buy a new car suddenly you see that model everywhere. It's "on the mind".

I read last year accusations some android apps were in trouble for undisclosed listening to identify ads on television, that might be a good starting point for more information, it's technically possible something was listening.

http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/ftc-android-developers-a...

Wouldn't this waste a lot of bandwidth?

Or is it likely that the audio is being analyzed client side before pushing results to a server somewhere?

Also, if this was actually happening, should this be announced in some terms of service?

For me it's not the question of whether they're doing it. Its technically feasible, so it's being done.

What interests me more is whether the broad user base cares enough to change their habits. Does it become freaky enough for them that they'll change the way the use the platform? (Doesn't matter if it's Facebook or any other website.)

Same thing happened to me. I was eating Sunchips and then logged into Facebook to see an advertisement for Sunchips. Wouldn't be surprised that they're also watching us.

how often do you eat something, log into Facebook and not see an ad for that product?

Are you talking about Messenger in text, Messenger in voice/video, or face-to-face conversations? I'm reading some of these linked threads that suggest that the microphone is recording at all times.

face to face

It's from Techcrunch not FB. They use retargeting/remarketing ads and sell this info back to Facebook. A lot of websites do that... It's actually easy to find out what people browse on the web only by looking at their FB news feed. If you see a birth control ad on your girlfriend's FB news feed - run away!

> If you see a birth control ad on your girlfriend's FB news feed - run away!

What?

Why is that surprising though?

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