Anecdotal obviously, but I'm surprised at how pervasive the "Facebook listens to your conversations through the app" rumors are, even among the more technically literate.
I'm curious how much of an effect that rumor had on this finding.
I'm curious how much of an effect that rumor had on this finding.
I have heard this anecdote many times but I don't believe Facebook is actually recording everything we say. Mostly because I don't think our phones have that kind of battery life. I do think they have data on essentially everything you do online.
- They watch how quickly you scroll through the news feed at what you pause on, even briefly.
- They have ad deals with many of the sites you probably visit so can determine many of your search terms and interests even if you didn't search those things through Facebook itself.
- They have your friend & family graph and Facebook messenger context. Even if you personally didn't say something, maybe you mentioned it to a friend at some point and they searched it or discussed it in a chat.
Then we watched a random TV show on Netflix. During the show, two characters discussed a very specific medical method of improving their chances of bearing a child. Literally minutes later, she was getting ads for this type of conception therapy. We are both past child bearing age and have not discussed it in probably 20 years. We had never even heard of the specific type of process. We had never looked it up or read anything about it. It definitely came from something listening to our household, but we don't know what. It was way too specific to have been random chance.
We don't fall into the demographics for such an ad in any way. We have Apple devices with Siri, but that seems unlikely given their privacy policies. We don't have any Amazon or Google home devices (or any other types of their devices). She's on FB, and I'm not, so we think it was probably either her laptop or phone listening. She's had mic access on her phone turned off for Facebook and no other apps were running, but these apps have a way of finding their way around such permissions.
eg - https://www.cnet.com/how-to/disable-vizio-smart-tv-spying/
Once you match the public IP address of all your devices you can link up the identities and do fun advertising stuff.
I suspect they have much more information than what we tell them, and I mean raw data, not what's derived from collaborative filtering or other techniques. I wonder if our ISPs, streaming services, banks, visa, etc, share data. Maybe it's just the trackers all over the internet.
Getting ads for a specific product the day after discussing it in person could be luck... or not.
They absolutely do. You should download your FB data, if you have an account. It's basically a list of everywhere you've shopped/been/etc. 95% of it you likely didn't share intentionally. It's quite shocking.
That, and I don't allow the app to know my location, or have access to my photos.
That limits the damage to a significant degree.
The fact of the matter is, the company's modus operandi is to collect as much information from you as possible. Their business model is spyware.
Whether the application currently records conversations or not is almost immaterial. You know that if they could get away with it, they would.
The app has enough permissions that when coupled with Facebook's data analytics it amounts to a similar invasion of privacy.
You might as well just admit to encouraging disinformation campaigns against things you don't personally like.
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/03/faceb...
Not quite "listening to calls," but not too different either. It shows you where their heart is.
a) Vaguely agree that Facebook is awful, and removing the app is a good idea,
b) Start explaining how a detailed log of every app user's location, time spent reading each story, typing speed, searches, lists of other apps used (or in use), full lists of contacts, calendar events, text messages, phone call history, photographs, nearby WiFi networks and battery statistics can be combined with website-based Facebook use and tracking cookies on other sites, allowing Facebook to create a detailed profile of each user, and that's why they showed the creepily-relevant advert.
I would usually choose (a), unless the discussion is specifically about data privacy. (b) is not literally listening, but it's close enough for a casual discussion.
https://newsroom.fb.com/news/h/facebook-does-not-use-your-ph...
When you're alone on Facebook it's easier to be yourself, and for some it's not a pretty picture.
Facebook = Friends and family pissing me off
Reddit = Strangers amusing me
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-targ...
Snooping on users like that would cost them everything.
They were slurping up text massages and collecting call logs, IIRC. So the rumor isn't too far from the truth.
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/03/faceb...
I have troubles convincing myself it’s not true because it just happens on an almost bi-daily basis - it’s too accurate and it regularly involves things either my friends or I have definitively not typed but only spoken about.
It’s creepy as hell.
While anything's possible, it would be pretty shocking and a big blow to Apple if Facebook figured out how to, on iOS (I can't speak for Android):
* Record audio if the app's killed completely
* Record audio with microphone permission disabled
* etc.
All of which have been claimed and seem unlikely.
The far more likely scenario is that we're much more predictable than we think. Remember the target controversy when they figured out a teenage girl was pregnant before she had told her parents [1]? That happened in 2012. Imagine how much more advanced things have become since then.
1: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-targ...
But I explained that I'm a developer. I used the term 'implausible', and, yes, given legal requirements and whatnot there would have to be some extremely shady activity going on, but what I'm trying to explain is that whatever is going on has nothing to do with text or anything except spoken voice and occurs on such a regular basis to not just myself but other friends of mine that even though I absolutely know from a scientific perspective it's almost technically impossible, I literally have troubles believing it's technical implausibility/impossibility over the fact that it is simply happening.
That's how messed up and creepy it is. And I'm certainly not the only one saying or experiencing this. Many of the incredibly intelligent and talented developers at the major bank I work at have also experienced this and have extreme troubles explaining it. Many of the brilliant minds here at HN are having to say similar things.
It's like something out of Scooby-Doo. I want to pull the mask off the bad guy, but it really feels like one of those one-offs where the monster is real.
I'm a developer too and I know it doesn't sound technically possible, but after FB's behavior it really wouldn't surprise me. Collecting copies of every SMS from Android phones via Messenger when it only advertised using Messenger to send/receive SMS alongside FB messages? Downright lies and abusive to privacy.
Most of us knew how poor Facebook's developer data policy was and no one cared until Cambridge Analytica. I'm just waiting for this voice scandal to happen in the next year or two.
I'm such a skeptic by nature. But this messes with my head, and other developers at my office, too.
Being able to accurately predict what you might be interested in, or at least interested enough to click on is how FB makes their money. That is where a bulk of their R&D spend goes. Couple that with the fact that humans are creatures of habit and relatively predictable, and you can end up with the notion that FB or Google must be listening in on everything you are saying.
Absolutely, beyond a shadow of a doubt, in several instances. Too many, at this point.
>> Perhaps not even the exact thing but something similar or associated (e.g. searched for dog treats, sees ads for dog beds)?
Definitely not. These things are often obscure, and many times, said in jest, and never repeated via texts, and certainly never looked up in a serious context.
>> Have you visited a place that sells that thing with location services enabled?
I keep all of my location services disabled by default. I do enough development to know that's a poor idea.
>> Do your friends express a lot of interest in the things advertised (posts, pictures, comments on any FB platform)?
No, again, I think it's that these things are often said or suggested in a joking manner that really throws my friends and I off a lot of the time.
>> Do you spend a decent amount of time with these friends? What about other people that use the same home/work networks that you do?
For sure. I spend a lot of time with a lot of my friends, and again, these things are observed by co-workers as well, our security is extremely tight at my office, so the idea that could be exploited in any way by something like Facebook is disturbing at best.
Frankly, the fact that you have to ask me these things alone is evidence enough as-is that there is an insane amount of intrusiveness going on.
There is a solution to all this. A (repeated) double blind experiment.
Pick two phrases. Say one so the phone can hear and one so it can't. It's very important you don't know which is which. You could eg have a friend put the phone in one of two rooms.
According to that, they do not listen for ads.
Later on in the evening my brother had ads for soldering iron in the Facebook app.
So it totally can be a coincidence, or not.
* Record audio if the app's killed completely
* Record audio with microphone permission disabled
* etc.
All of which have been claimed.
The far more likely scenario is that we're much more predictable than we think. Remember the target controversy when they figured out a teenage girl was pregnant before she had told her parents [1]? That happened in 2012. Imagine how much more advanced things have become since then.
1: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/02/16/how-targ...
Does it use your private messages for advertising? It seems like "no" for now, but nothing is stopping them.