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I was once sitting at a bar having a beer, chatting with the bartender (one of my best friends) and the guy sitting next to me, whom I had never met before. I pulled out my phone to show my friend something that had been posted on Facebook and, while browsing Facebook right after that, the app showed the guy sitting right next to me as the first person under "People You May Know". I had not "checked in" or posted any updates while I was there, FWIW. It was at that point that I removed all permissions (i.e. location tracking) that I could from the Facebook app.

More on-topic: I recall reading that the Facebook app would activate the microphone when one was posting a status update, apparently listening for things like a movie playing in the background and such.

ETA: Related Snopes articles:

https://www.snopes.com/computer/facebook/facebooklisten.asp

https://www.snopes.com/2016/06/04/professor-claims-facebook-...

After Obama’s comments on the NSA surveillance program back when sh*t was hitting the fan, I’m always keenly parsing these kinds of statements for word play. There’s usually a way out of accountability and liability through evasive rhetoric.

I agree. Really, I don't see why Facebook wouldn't monitor audio like this for targeting ads. If you make money from serving ads, that seems like exactly the kind of thing you would want to do.

Like you, I have gotten pretty good at noticing "weasel words" and such in the government's statements (denials). It is clear that they take their time to make sure they word their statements ever so carefully.

> Really, I don't see why Facebook wouldn't monitor audio like this for targeting ads.

Horrible battery life?

Anecdotally, Facebook battery performance is pretty poor, it's always the app that drains my battery the fastest. I don't think they care about power consumption.

There's a very significant difference between "Facebook's battery impact is pretty shitty because the app is clunky" and "this would mean the average smartphone standby time would be two hours because it would require a phenomenal amount of power."

From another comment [0] in this thread:

> Remember the time they kept the app open in the background on iOS devices by sending an empty audio buffer to the phone for playback?

> People started discovering that after iOS introduced the battery/power usage section in the Settings app.

They couldn't do it 24/7, of course, but they could certainly take "samples" at regular intervals or in certain locations or something. From my own experience, it doesn't seem that Facebook has ever been worried about battery life or preserving it.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15580748

What would be the purpose of taking "samples"? How is this possibly supposed to work?

>Really, I don't see why Facebook wouldn't monitor audio like this for targeting ads.

Because they'd get hit by huge lawsuits and fines from governments all over the world. Europe is especially hungry to fine US companies for privacy issues.

Also it would be terrible for their reputation. Hordes of people would uninstall the app, and even delete their accounts. I would for sure.

It's becoming harder to avoid their apps now that people I need to stay in touch with are on the inevitable Whatsapp that needs voice+other permissions, plus whatever other apps they bring into our lives next. I think it's kinda hopeless.

If you both had connections to the same free WiFi, and thus the same IP, it's virtually guaranteed you're at the same location. No GPS required.

Facebook may not be recording audio, but they do pay attention to your cell phone, GPS, and wifi, so they know that you're at a particular fast food place. Then the brand-named shake is probably something they're trying to advertise, maybe even time-limited, so the fact that you're at that place is enough. Past that it's coincidence, the law of large numbers, and confirmation bias - you remember that instance and no others, and while a few people have their own anecdotes to share, HN's readership is large enough that FB could produce that population of anecdotes with a hit rate of "One time out of ten, advertise $restaurant and mention a single totally random item selected off their menu".

The "People you may know" anecdote below is, similarly, some combination of location, wifi sniffing, luck, and confirmation bias.

> then listen in through ANY one of the apps you have installed

If there was some third party ad library that was installed across multiple apps that streamed audio and/or performed local speech recognition on everything you said don't you think somebody would have a) noticed by now, b) a security researcher figured it out, or c) everyone's battery's would be running red hot all of the time.

Teams at Apple and Google reverse engineer and debug the top 100 apps on their platforms all the time (there are teams dedicated to doing it). Facebook is also not the NSA - people leak stuff from them all the time. You're suggesting that either everyone is complicit in this, or there's a conspiracy so large and technically complex that it's managed to be kept secret all this time with no technical evidence outside of anecdotes.

Presuming Facebook has some sort of totally encompassing omniscience is a little foolhardy in light of e.g. the Russia issues, isn’t it? I tacitly admitted they may at worst suspect but not know that third parties are targeting in this way.

I’m not sure I trust that security researchers can be relied upon to catch everything. There are so many flagrant abuses of user privacy that go unchecked or remarked upon and nevertheless ignored that such an avenue of prevention seems highly unreliable.

Also you’d be surprised at what people are willing to do when you define a certain culture and incentive structure. While you may dismiss it, I find it frankly astounding that the NSA program managed to metastasize into the behemoth it became before it was finally outed to the public. And even a cursory reading of behavioral psychology will help to explain how that can happen.

I also know that Facebook perversely prioritizes metrics above pretty much all else. And it means they’re perfectly willing to indulge in dark patterns if the numbers line up.

Yep. My immediate read of the denial was, "the legal entity that is Facebook does not itself spy on users in this exact manner".

Once they have a business model that does not revolve around selling data about their users to their customers, claiming they don't spy can be something other than a bad punchline.

Out of curiosity, why did you remark on the Fruit Loops shake? Could it be due to an ad campaign that started prior to your remark, and continues after it?

We were going through the drive-thru and saw a sign. It seemed so magnificently revolting, I wondered at the time if it was a red herring to drive word of mouth.

It’s a great shake btw. Tastes amazing. Seriously.

What about the possibility of geofences detecting your proximity to a Burger King and perpetuating through ad networks to trigger the current ad campaign which happens to be the Fruit Loops shake?

It wasn’t an ad for the shake though. It was for Fruit Loops cereal.

In my case I was talking about flying with some coworkers and mentioned the entertaining safety videos that New Zealand Air had done. Probably hadn't thought or talked about it for 3 years. Opened up Facebook and had an ad announcing their new video. The microphone permission was turned off on Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram on my phone too, so either Android isn't blocking permissions properly, or they are getting it from somewhere else which is even worse.

And you're sure none of the coworkers you were with Googled it?

Perhaps the friend you were talking to about the Fruit Loops shake did a search on Facebook on their smartphone?

Anyway, I want a LED on my camera and microphone. And a hardware switch.

Why would any rational human being search ‘Fruit Loops shake’ on Facebook? Let’s also assume for the sake of argument that I only associate with rational people.

You think they need microphone access for that? Froot Loops is in the middle of a massive co-branding campaign with Burger King, and you are surprised that you'd get an ad for Froot Loops while at a Burger King? Occam's razor says no.

Delete both Facebook apps from your phone and just use it from Chrome. Haven’t had a problem since.