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Is Facebook eavesdropping on phone conversations?

news10.com

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Re: Is Facebook eavesdropping on phone conversations?

#61

“That is kind of weird,” she laughed. “I’m still not so sure this isn’t just coincidence. I don’t think Facebook is really listening to our conversations.” This is a terrible article. There's an easy way to figure out if it's a coincidence... repeat the experiment.

I agree that the nature of the article is bad but still I would not be surprised to hear that Facebook is listening to phone conversations. That's why I don't use it. :P

I work for Facebook. This does not happen. If it does, I can assure you that one of the many thousands of engineers will speak out.

Re: Is Facebook eavesdropping on phone conversations?

#62
post #32
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Evey now and again I see a picture or article being shared around saying Facebook are spying on you and how their apps have all these permissions to use your camera and phone audio. If they are on android, I tell them to open their system settings and show them how Google Search has just about every privilege on your phone and has had it since they turned it on. Even if people are concerned they still don't stop usin…

> Facebook are spying on you and how their apps have all these permissions to use your camera and phone audio. And it's not just the Facebook apps. The Facebook SDK is widely embedded into many other apps Facebook SDK (it's the most popular SDK on iOS for example, according to data published from Cocoapods - https://gist.github.com/ryanolsonk/e33bf9e89677da9fe8ce ). It's so popular because Facebook is basically the m…

Facebook is you spying on yourself, by posting it all that info.

Re: Is Facebook eavesdropping on phone conversations?

#63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about the program. It's about the network... you cannot switch a network when all your friends and colleagues use WhatsApp and their groups. But I'm happy WhatsApp is more secure than most of the alternatives with good E2E encryption support.

I wonder if good E2E encryption of the WhatsApp message rules out the app sending, in parallel, an indexed list of juicy keywords (encrypted or not) to FB servers for the purpose of targeting ads.

So you're saying the client indexes your words locally and then e2e encrypts and sends to the person whom you're conversing with?

Is that feasible client-side without burning all your battery?

Re: Is Facebook eavesdropping on phone conversations?

#65
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what they say. One of the urban legends was also that USA government agencies don't collect data at bulk and they were lying about it. We know the truth now. Facebook has been caught with the hand in the cookie jar too many times already and got away with it. Fuck Facebook.

No. I work for Facebook. This doesn't happen.

I doubt that it happens myself, but out of curiosity, are you saying this because you are in a privileged position to know for sure that Facebook doesn't do this, or are you saying this based on your experience of the corporate culture?

Re: Is Facebook eavesdropping on phone conversations?

#66
post #32
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Evey now and again I see a picture or article being shared around saying Facebook are spying on you and how their apps have all these permissions to use your camera and phone audio. If they are on android, I tell them to open their system settings and show them how Google Search has just about every privilege on your phone and has had it since they turned it on. Even if people are concerned they still don't stop usin…

> Facebook are spying on you and how their apps have all these permissions to use your camera and phone audio. And it's not just the Facebook apps. The Facebook SDK is widely embedded into many other apps Facebook SDK (it's the most popular SDK on iOS for example, according to data published from Cocoapods - https://gist.github.com/ryanolsonk/e33bf9e89677da9fe8ce ). It's so popular because Facebook is basically the m…

You could just build it yourself from the source if you're worried about that. Does the SDK ship with any pre-built binaries?

Re: Is Facebook eavesdropping on phone conversations?

#67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

99% sure this is not a coincidence, here's my theory: people's IRL conversations can be pretty reliably predicted by their Facebook conversations, so targeted ads based on messages tend to be surprisingly relevant to the next thing they talk about IRL. Example: my girlfriend was given a box of Flonase by her parents and immediately got a Facebook ad for it. She had not mentioned Flonase anywhere on Facebook ever. Spo…

See this seems reasonable.. however I was once playing Battlefield Hardline raving about how awesome the camera's were for whatever I was doing and was then presented with security camera ads shortly after while browsing Facebook on my desktop. I have no interest or need for security cameras or even any reason to source information about them online. I double checked my web history and couldn't find anything related…

Sample size of 3. Evidence collected through anecdotes. I'm convinced.

Re: Is Facebook eavesdropping on phone conversations?

#69
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what they say. One of the urban legends was also that USA government agencies don't collect data at bulk and they were lying about it. We know the truth now. Facebook has been caught with the hand in the cookie jar too many times already and got away with it. Fuck Facebook.

No. I work for Facebook. This doesn't happen.

I've been looking for this online statement they say was made by Facebook: “We use your microphone to identify the things you’re listening to or watching, based on the music and TV matches we’re able to identify.”

I can't find it anywhere on Facebook's site. I don't believe it exists, or if it exists it was expunged some time ago. I'd like to know from which website ABC News 10 has located this information!

Re: Is Facebook eavesdropping on phone conversations?

#70
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. I work for Facebook. This doesn't happen.

I doubt that it happens myself, but out of curiosity, are you saying this because you are in a privileged position to know for sure that Facebook doesn't do this, or are you saying this based on your experience of the corporate culture?

> are you saying this because you are in a privileged position to know for sure that Facebook doesn't do this

I'd like to add "and will not do it in the future"

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