Whether this functionality is justification for more nefarious data usage remains to be seen.
> “It turns out, in the vast majority of cases, when you mute yourself, these apps do not give up access to the microphone,” says Fawaz. “And that’s a problem. When you’re muted, people don’t expect these apps to collect data.”
I wouldn't assume that's nefarious
These things implemented somewhere in the middle of the stack seems dangerous. I much more prefer a slider switch. Preferably made from real atoms and molecules.
After sitting through over an hour, including the part I thought was essential to my team, I jumped off the call and proceeded to explain the shit show to my fellow passengers for 15m or so.
When I got to my destination and pulled out my phone I discovered _I had never hung up_ - I was on the line the whole time. I had said some things that you should never say about your employer within their earshot and expect to remain in their employ.
After some nauseating minutes I realized I had been saved by the auto-mute feature. When a call has over x participants, everyone is muted until they take their mic off of mute.
I am much more careful now about these things, bc I don't expect to get that lucky again.
I now disabled screensharing in MacOS privacy settings for all apps unless I am explicitly sharing.
I double-checked Discord and the mic icon was displaying as muted but I could still talk to my friend regardless.
As a result, I don't generally use in-software mute effects. :/
:-)
vs
- Training models, wasting years of CPU cycle world wide, &c.
For such a dumb feature... I just don't see the point