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Facebook denies 'listening' to conversations

bbc.com

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Re: Facebook denies 'listening' to conversations

#331

Post by ec109685 »

imroot wrote: post #174
ec109685 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or like the article said, you just noticed the contextual eyeglass ads because you had just been to lens crafters and it seemed weird to you. Also, by contextual ads, do you mean the eye glass ads were related to context they were shown next to? The other explanation is Facebook has data sharing agreements with the payment instrument you used for the wipes.

I had been to Lenscrafters, but, there were no location services (no wifi, gps, or bluetooth) turned on...just my cell phone data. By contextual ads, I mean, "News stream ad/in game ad" -- basically, anything that had been targeted to be sent to my device. I believe I read something about Facebook using DataLogic info (which tries to tie payment instruments to advertising clients), but, apparently the music supplier…

Rather than contextual, I think “native ad” is closer to what Facebook’s ads are versus Google’s old system that tried to match ads with the content they were shown next to.

Re: Facebook denies 'listening' to conversations

#332

Post by netsharc »

Vinnl wrote: post #320
cvwright wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You make a very good point. However, in this case there is very strong evidence that Facebook is also listening to the microphone . Coincidentally, I recently had a friend convey a story where the Facebook app suddenly recommended a new connection immediately after certain information was spoken in a verbal conversation. This instance was particularly damning because, due to the sensitivity of the information that wa…

I consider it likely that this is merely just another example of people underestimating how much data they're leaking. I would wager to guess that there would have been far easier methods of deducing that new connection other than listening to your conversation and somehow inferring it from that stream of noise. You just don't know which, but it's not unimaginable that that certain information was leaked in another w…

Maybe the other party looked the friend up.

Once Facebook recommended me to connect to guy with an interesting name, and I wondered where I saw this name before. I looked up my emails, and I saw that I bought something from him on eBay several years earlier. I know I never gave Facebook access to my mail account, but guess what, I'm pretty sure the guy gave access to his. Facebook saw that we sent mail to each other, and it asked me if I wanted to be FB friends with this random eBayer...

Re: Facebook denies 'listening' to conversations

#333

Post by libertyEQ »

dx034 wrote: post #303
branchless wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My suspicion on this is that stores offer "reward cards" so they can get you to sign something that allows them to gather and sell your data.

That's true and credit card companies are very open about it (at least if you read their reports for investors). The advantage of store cards is that the store knows exactly which products you bought, whereas they only know the total if you used a Mastercard/Visa.

>whereas they only know the total if you used a Mastercard/Visa

This is simply not true with respect to the big retailers in the US. This started as far back as '06, though the details of the implementation have changed a bit.

Re: Facebook denies 'listening' to conversations

#334

Post by lolc »

hellweaver666 wrote: post #312
tfinniga wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last year there were 29,000 categories that could be targeted. If an ad sales rep wanted to close a deal, how difficult would it be to add one more for recent burn victims, or people who recently bought a specific product? From the links that m_ke posted, facebook already has ties to loyalty card information, so it's very possible that they didn't need to do any inference, they just had the data directly. In any case…

What would the point be in advertising a burn cream to someone that just bought a burn cream? It's not like it's a common reoccurring purchase (like Toothpaste for example). Like the article says, it's probably just the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon* at work. It's like when you buy a new car - you suddenly start seeing that same model of car everywhere. * https://www.damninteresting.com/the-baader-meinhof-phenomeno...

I think the proposed logic here is "a person like you buys burn cream so we advertise burn cream to people like you." In this scenario the person who actually bought the item will get the ad too.

To me, advertising a product to people who already bought it is a sound strategy. I see no contradiction. I'd rather like to hear a cogent argument as to why that is wasted effort, as is usually implied.

In your example, maybe I left the bottle of burn cream at the office. So I will want to get another one on the way home. It's effective to get reminded in my Facebook about that item (and the brand) isn't it? Yes it's creepy but it works.

Re: Facebook denies 'listening' to conversations

#335

Post by martin-adams »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #131
rickhanlonii wrote: post #103

They're listening, but not to your voice or with a microphone. Facebook is listening to your data--to all of our data, all at once. They have locations, searches, clicks, messaging, photos, hashtags, and any other form of browsing patterns for everyone in your country, everyone in your neighboorhood, everyone in the same room as you. They have enough data with such advanced analysis that on occasion they can get real…

So... Why should we care? If I had to give my father some reasons why this should concern him, I'd come up blank. Maybe you can fill in a few.

For me the fear is insurance companies denying cover or increasing premiums based on some random search, share or like that actually has no relevance to the cover, then not telling you why they made that decision.

Re: Facebook denies 'listening' to conversations

#336

Post by underwoodley »

IanCal wrote: post #185
cyberferret wrote: post #149

I was totally skeptical when I first heard stories about people's feeds being curated to suit what they were talking about in front of their computers, but then a couple of things made me rethink my views. I was in the car with my friend once (both our phones were in the car with us too), and we were driving and it started raining. His wiper blades were shoddy and doing a bad job of clearing his windscreen. We had a…

This is called the "Frequency Illusion" (also often called / a similar thing is called the "Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon").

The problems with this 'psychological explanation'

1. It is just as unscientific as saying that Facebook MUST be listening, without finding any evidence in the workings of phones, app source code, etc. Almost by definition, there is no experimental evidence for the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon.

2. It posits that everyone who has experienced this is unsophisticated and ignorant about cognitive distortion. Clearly, some people who believe that Facebook is listening to them talk also believe that there were no planes on September 11th, etc. However, many many people today have a good understanding of psychology, are well aware of (basic) cognitive biases, have thought about these experiences. People also have experiences of unlikely events but which have well understood or easy-to-estimate probabilities, which didn't occur much historically. Lots of people can distinguish quite well between their own illusory biases and events which are coincidental, but not 'in the mind'. Some of these people seem to also believe their speech has found its way into advertisers' profiles.

Re: Facebook denies 'listening' to conversations

#337

Post by VMG »

cma wrote: post #277
cyberferret wrote: post #149

I was totally skeptical when I first heard stories about people's feeds being curated to suit what they were talking about in front of their computers, but then a couple of things made me rethink my views. I was in the car with my friend once (both our phones were in the car with us too), and we were driving and it started raining. His wiper blades were shoddy and doing a bad job of clearing his windscreen. We had a…

> But the next day, for the first time ever, I started seeing ads for wiper blades on my feed. They disappeared after a few days, but it was spooky, as it was for an item that I have never ever discussed, or seen on my feed before, or since. Could be something like this: Facebook knows from location data you were driving/riding together. Soon after your ride, your friend searches for wiper blades. Facebook then shows…

Also very creepy.

Re: Facebook denies 'listening' to conversations

#338

Post by isostatic »

gnulinux wrote: post #326
Cacti wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I think people really underestimate how much data they leak all day long, and how strong the pattern is. Simply emitting bluetooth and wifi, nevermind cellular, all day long can expose an incredible amount of stuff, provided someone can piece it all together (which is exactly what Facebook and other ad companies do). We like to pretend we're unique and powered by free-will but the reality is most things you do a…

> The difference between us and 1984 is only really one of intent I'm not convinced intent isn't there; I'm also confused why'd you assume that. As a free software activist, I wonder have you every checked EFF or FSF websites. I'm not saying EFF and FSF are saving the world (no, they are not) but if you browse what they're dealing with, you can easily see the intent is there. It is simply hard to do all these without…

> ads are such an integral part of our lives

I'll skip the futurama reference for now, but for me ads are far rarer than in the 90s. Adblock handles most things online, iPlayer, Netflix and amazon don't really have adverts on TV (they have a graphical menu but I would call that an advert), Spotify doesn't have adverts. Sure there are a few adverts if I go to somewhere like london, and Sainsbury's advertise their own deals in store, and of course products on the shelf are adverts in of themselves, but the only advert I have seen in the last 24 hours was one raising awareness of cistic fibrosis in a billboard outside of Sainsbury's. Oh and the train announcement saying "the on board shop is open for teas coffees and light refreshments". There wouldn't have been any product placement in the episode of once upon a time I watched last night either.

The TV jingles I remember from childhood are still etched in my brain, the adverts I see in this decade are ones I hunt out depberatly (the John Lewis Xmas advert for example, or film trailers, or something about amazon delivery people stealing your sofa that was recommended at work)

I did see adverts on Saturday night when we went to see Thor. I don't recall what was advertised other than odeon limitless, the trailers are adverts too of course, alas they don't really work - we'd rather see more films at the cinema than we do now, but getting babysitting is a pain. We missed Spider-Man and kingsmen for example.

If anything there are more opportunities to avoid adverts than ever before.

Re: Facebook denies 'listening' to conversations

#339

Post by thisacctforreal »

julien_c wrote: post #241
tedunangst wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apparently people think there's a secret backdoor that lets an iPhone app record audio without turning the status bar red. You could deny mic permission and people would still think it's the secret backdoor.

Recording audio from an iOS app does not turn the status bar red, FYI.

It does for me while outside the app; tested with FaceTime (Built-in), Voice Recording (Built-in, recording not streaming), Snapchat, and Discord.

Inside the app I believe they can record whenever, without the banner appearing.

Re: Facebook denies 'listening' to conversations

#340

Post by rimliu »

null0pointer wrote: post #227
brad0 wrote: post #97

> "At work, happened to me though earlier this year. Working as a barista, got a burn, talked to my partner in person about it, went to Target, bought the burn cream, and saw an ad on FB for the exact product I purchased. Never searched for product either," wrote Brigitte Bonasoro. Facebook has data sharing agreements with many, many companies. It's most likely that the cream was bought with a card then linked togeth…

I have a similar anecdote. Girlfriend was having some symptoms, we briefly talked about it then walked to the pharmacy and bought a pregnancy test. Maybe 30 minutes after purchasing the test we watched a youtube video on her phone. The ad on the video was for the exact test we bought. I figured that youtube got the credit card info from the purchase but I was shocked at how quickly that translated into something show…

Do credit card companies get the list of items you purchased, not just amount and the place?
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