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Ask HN: Has anyone tried to debunk the myth that Facebook is listening?

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Re: Ask HN: Has anyone tried to debunk the myth that Facebook is listening?

#71

Post by logicallee »

superbrama wrote: post #69
logicallee wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Likelihood has to be judged against the evidence. A lot of scientifically-minded people have tested it for themselves and found ads to appear when they spoke about subject explicitly to test whether ads would appear. I recall several specific cases. It's not quite scientific enough for me, but I'd expect a scientific study to have the same conclusion. Just like if you do a scientific study of whether baked beans make…

Source?

>Source?

[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=%22baked+beans+make+me+fart%...

[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/79i4cj/youtube_user...

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjbz1N4qBQA the host themselves did the same.

In the original comment of mine that you replied to, I suggested how to make the methodology even more scientific with a double-blind study. As far as anecodtal evidence this is going to be the best that you can do. I personally find it convincing. These are reasonable people testing things as scientifically as they can.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone tried to debunk the myth that Facebook is listening?

#72

Post by superbrama »

logicallee wrote: post #71
superbrama wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source?

>Source? [1] https://www.google.com/search?q=%22baked+beans+make+me+fart%... [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/79i4cj/youtube_user... [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjbz1N4qBQA the host themselves did the same. In the original comment of mine that you replied to, I suggested how to make the methodology even more scientific with a double-blind study. As far as anecodtal evidence this is going to be the…

Dude, cmon. I know this is hn and I’m supposed to put effort into crafting useful responses. But, how have those links convinced you that it must be the mic?

From the evidence in those videos, I’d rather be considering whether fb is part of a future AI continuum monitoring and influencing the past (from the future in which the AI exists) by messing with people testing this feature. Yep, cat is alive on Facebook/IG, days later. Microphones and big data/AI are but two slits through which photons can pass, in the experiment known as fb.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone tried to debunk the myth that Facebook is listening?

#73

Post by momeunier »

logicallee wrote: post #43
paulcole wrote: post #10

The people who believe it’s listening would never accept even the most ironclad “proof” that it’s not. This is a hallmark of conspiracy theorists. So why bother?

I believe it's listening based on an overwhelming amount of anecdotal evidence reported all over the Internet. (Where there's smoke, there's fire.) Including by intelligent, scientifically-minded people. At the same time, it wouldn't take much at all for me to believe otherwise: a simple blinded test where some people leave their phones in a room, researchers come and talk about some subject (absent the owners), then…

I don't agree with your proposed way of studying this. You're trying to study a symptom and then conclude on the cause of the symptom. That makes no sense. If you want to prove that Facebook is listening, then prove that Facebook is listening. And don't try to prove that Facebook is listening and then targeting you with ads based on what you said. There are way too many levels of indirections that can trigger false positive for a vast number of reasons you don't control at all. What you are trying to do is replicate in large-scale displays of anecdotes but with a slightly more controlled environment. That won't prove anything since it will just be anecdotes and will again not sustain rational explanation by experts of Facebook ads mechanisms.

Without getting into the ads delivery part and the anecdotes, how would you prove that Facebook is listening? How would you prove that there is a set of information taken from your speech or your audible environment transferred to Facebook.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone tried to debunk the myth that Facebook is listening?

#74

Post by mikeash »

mikeash wrote: post #64
ben_jones wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wasn't there just a story about Apple giving Uber special permissions (which were not turned off after they were no longer needed) so they could do stuff on the Apple watch? Is it that much of a stretch to think they would also give Facebook special permissions?

Yes, it is that much of a stretch. Apple temporarily gave Uber that special permission in order to make their Watch app work better for their users. It’s extremely unlikely that Apple would give Facebook special permission in order to spy on users to no benefit to the people who actually pay Apple money. And somehow it’s gone unnoticed all this time.

I didn't realize it when I wrote the above, but this makes my case much stronger: these special entitlements are listed as part of the app. It's far from obvious to the end user, but people who know how to look at them can do so. Either nobody knowledgeable has ever looked at Facebook's entitlements, or it doesn't have one that would let them do this.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone tried to debunk the myth that Facebook is listening?

#75

Post by momeunier »

semperdark wrote: post #29
ricardobeat wrote: post #26

The lack of actual responses to your question here is a bit entertaining. "Of course they are not", "it's not possible", "iOS/Android is safe" etc. Almost like it is offensive to ask. I can't help but remember my incredulous reaction to ECHELON in the 90s and how it turned out to be not just true, but much worse than the original "conspiracy theory". A very relevant example: https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/handl…

This post was built to influence the largest number of people possible. The title is worded to reach people that don't click with the suggestion that the accepted view in the community is that they aren't spying. It's also by a newly-created account made by a Facebook Ads employee. The microphone privacy invasion rumor has spread so far without evidence because people are tired of the 1000 other privacy invasions for…

Happy to debunk this in whichever way you want! I definitely don't work for Facebook. Also I have been consuming HN content for years without contributing. There has to be a first day...

I do work closely with Facebook (For a Facebook Marketing Partner called Smartly.io) and we collaborate closely on certain aspects. I think I have a very deep understanding of what Facebook is capable of and that's the reason why I want to debunk this. Also, I am really tired of hearing the questionable reports.

Look me up if you which: https://www.linkedin.com/in/momeunier/

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone tried to debunk the myth that Facebook is listening?

#76

Post by logicallee »

momeunier wrote: post #73
logicallee wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe it's listening based on an overwhelming amount of anecdotal evidence reported all over the Internet. (Where there's smoke, there's fire.) Including by intelligent, scientifically-minded people. At the same time, it wouldn't take much at all for me to believe otherwise: a simple blinded test where some people leave their phones in a room, researchers come and talk about some subject (absent the owners), then…

I don't agree with your proposed way of studying this. You're trying to study a symptom and then conclude on the cause of the symptom. That makes no sense. If you want to prove that Facebook is listening, then prove that Facebook is listening. And don't try to prove that Facebook is listening and then targeting you with ads based on what you said. There are way too many levels of indirections that can trigger false p…

I think you didn't read my proposed methodology carefully.

    Box     Researcher    | Owner of phone (outside room)
  [     ]~       x        |      o
The researchers speaks about some subjects, but not others. The ~ represents that in some cases the researcher's conversations are being fed into the box, and in others they are not. The box is otherwise soundproof, and inside is the phone being tested.

We can pick subjects such as:

   - #1 Adult incontinence
   - #2 Cat food
   - #3 Last-minute trip
   - #4 ..
   -    ..
   - #10
The test group is that the researchers' voices are being fed into the box. The control group is that researchers voices are NOT being fed into the box.

It is important in order to maintain double-blind environment that the researchers not hear whether they are being amplified into the box.

The results might potentially look like this:

https://imgur.com/a/y7852

Of course, I just made this up. (I imagine the subjective 1-5 scores being whether the given subject reports seeing such an advertisement, from 0 definitely not to 5 definitely yes.) I even made subject 3 unsure about topics 1 and 3 to mimic that humans are fallible. Likewise subject 2 does not really report any advertisements. (This is likely in the real world - for example subject 2 could be explicitly excluded by advertisers for some reason.)

The attached is the kind of graphs that I would expect based on dozens of scientifically-minded people trying them.

If these are the two graphs that we got, and if the test and control groups were truly randomized, what other explanation could you offer?

Of course, my proposed experiment is orders of magnitude more scientific than what people are doing with their n=1, unblinded personal experiments. But theirs has some validity also.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone tried to debunk the myth that Facebook is listening?

#77

Post by logicallee »

superbrama wrote: post #72
logicallee wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Source? [1] https://www.google.com/search?q=%22baked+beans+make+me+fart%... [2] https://www.reddit.com/r/videos/comments/79i4cj/youtube_user... [3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjbz1N4qBQA the host themselves did the same. In the original comment of mine that you replied to, I suggested how to make the methodology even more scientific with a double-blind study. As far as anecodtal evidence this is going to be the…

Dude, cmon. I know this is hn and I’m supposed to put effort into crafting useful responses. But, how have those links convinced you that it must be the mic? From the evidence in those videos, I’d rather be considering whether fb is part of a future AI continuum monitoring and influencing the past (from the future in which the AI exists) by messing with people testing this feature. Yep, cat is alive on Facebook/IG, d…

What other kind of explanation do you expect? People have tested it by playing a Spanish soap opera on their TV for a few hours, leaving their phone in front of it to listen. They then started getting Spanish advertisements. I realize that there is a confirmation bias in that they are then actively looking for Spanish-language ads (to test their theory) but don't you think they would have noticed them at other times? They explicitly ran an experiment and got the verification.

In fact, some people were incredulous and re-ran the experiment thinking there's no way they would start getting Spanish ads: they did too. That's all it takes to convince me. I mean what other mechanism would get back to Facebook? As far as I know TV's don't report back which specific channel they're tuning into (all channels are streamed concurrently.)

I'm all for a more scientific test but at the moment I find the anecdotal evidence quite convincing. I just outlined how a scientific test might work here:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15782323

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone tried to debunk the myth that Facebook is listening?

#78

Post by _l8fa »

logicallee wrote: post #43
paulcole wrote: post #10

The people who believe it’s listening would never accept even the most ironclad “proof” that it’s not. This is a hallmark of conspiracy theorists. So why bother?

I believe it's listening based on an overwhelming amount of anecdotal evidence reported all over the Internet. (Where there's smoke, there's fire.) Including by intelligent, scientifically-minded people. At the same time, it wouldn't take much at all for me to believe otherwise: a simple blinded test where some people leave their phones in a room, researchers come and talk about some subject (absent the owners), then…

> it wouldn't take much at all for me to believe otherwise

...goes on to describe multi-week, double-blind trials involving human subjects.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone tried to debunk the myth that Facebook is listening?

#79

Post by logicallee »

_l8fa wrote: post #78
logicallee wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe it's listening based on an overwhelming amount of anecdotal evidence reported all over the Internet. (Where there's smoke, there's fire.) Including by intelligent, scientifically-minded people. At the same time, it wouldn't take much at all for me to believe otherwise: a simple blinded test where some people leave their phones in a room, researchers come and talk about some subject (absent the owners), then…

> it wouldn't take much at all for me to believe otherwise ...goes on to describe multi-week, double-blind trials involving human subjects.

:D I get your point. The specific reason I said it "wouldn't take much at all" to convince me otherwise is that under a negative result, we do not know:

-> Was Facebook listening under previous versions?

-> Did the researchers adequately trigger ads?

-> Are subjects able to notice all direct ways in which listening data is being used?

Instead, I would simply accept a negative as showing that no, Facebook isn't listening. (I'd happily accept false negatives.) Instead, what is really interesting is that numerous people decided to do an informal experiment such as put their phone next to their TV set to Spanish-language programming and then, to their shock and horror, Facebook began showing them Spanish-language ads.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone tried to debunk the myth that Facebook is listening?

#80

Post by momeunier »

logicallee wrote: post #76
momeunier wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't agree with your proposed way of studying this. You're trying to study a symptom and then conclude on the cause of the symptom. That makes no sense. If you want to prove that Facebook is listening, then prove that Facebook is listening. And don't try to prove that Facebook is listening and then targeting you with ads based on what you said. There are way too many levels of indirections that can trigger false p…

I think you didn't read my proposed methodology carefully. Box Researcher | Owner of phone (outside room) [ ]~ x | o The researchers speaks about some subjects, but not others. The ~ represents that in some cases the researcher's conversations are being fed into the box, and in others they are not. The box is otherwise soundproof, and inside is the phone being tested. We can pick subjects such as: - #1 Adult incontin…

Thanks for explaining further. That would actually be an interesting experiment. Who's going to run it?
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