Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Facebook denies 'listening' to conversations

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

341–350 of 415 posts

Re: Facebook denies 'listening' to conversations

#341

Post by thisacctforreal »

ggreer wrote: post #203
denzil_correa wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> https://imgur.com/a/ifaiT I can see "Messenger" and "Instagram" with access to microphone.

Those apps have voice and video features, so it makes sense that they'd request microphone access. (And iOS lets you disable those specific features if you want.) iOS also shows an indicator if an app is using the microphone. This is true even for built-in Apple apps like Voice Memos. There's no way to surreptitiously record.

This indicator only shows while the app using the mic is in the background.

The banner won’t show if the app using the mic is in the foreground.

Re: Facebook denies 'listening' to conversations

#342

Post by TeMPOraL »

photonios wrote: post #307
Cacti wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea that they're listening to your mic is rather ridiculous. I mean, we'd find out eventually, and the consequences of widespread illegal wiretapping would be severe for Facebook, they would really cease to exist. However, as you said, they don't need to. Localization and usage metrics alone can tell you an incredible amount of extremely detailed information.

I wish someone would actually write about how ridiculous these clames are in a way that non-technical people would be able to understand. There's so much bias, conjecture and downright false proof.

I agree. I'd love something shorter than having send someone to read half of the LessWrong Sequences. I wish CGP Grey or Kurzgesagt could do a video on that.

The basic thing you need to make people comprehend: to learn a fact X, you don't have to actually learn it - it's enough for you to learn about such Y that P(X|Y) >> P(X). And you don't have to learn Y either, you have to learn V and W such that P(Y|W) >> P(Y) and P(Y|Z) >> P(Y). Etc. This method applies recursively.

And once they comprehend the causality graph this forms, you need to make them understand just how much information we radiate all the time, and how humans are still very inefficient in doing the calculations mentioned above with all that data. Facebook is only the tip of an iceberg; it's only going to get worse from here, because modern technology keeps letting us explore the causality graph even further and faster.

Re: Facebook denies 'listening' to conversations

#343

Post by TeMPOraL »

tedunangst wrote: post #150
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…

Or it's coincidence? How many ads does Facebook show to how many people? It would be weird if zero of them were relevant.

This. With billion users being shown ads daily, coincidences are just bound to happen.

Re: Facebook denies 'listening' to conversations

#344

Post by unicornporn »

yazaddaruvala wrote: post #311
unicornporn wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We're not in 1984 https://m.imgur.com/vRBtL

"that Huxley not Orwell was right" Implies only one can be right. There doesn't have to be only one answer. Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I’ve tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice. Everytime we avoid one possible dystopia, the possibility for anot…

> "that Huxley not Orwell was right" Implies only one can be right.

You're very right about this observation. That being said, I'm kind of tired of the 1984 meme because the state of things and the way we seem to be heading looks nothing like the future presented in 1984. In fact, if we are expecting dystopia to present itself like the one portrayed in 1984 it might obscure the fundamental issues and complexities that our society faces. Brave New World, on the other hand, has a better chance of helping us reveal them.

Re: Facebook denies 'listening' to conversations

#345

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

glenstein wrote: post #77
denzil_correa wrote: post #73

> "I run ads product at Facebook. We don't - and have never - used your microphone for ads. Just not true," Mr Goldman wrote. Personally, I am so used to corp speak and word play by major companies that it is difficult to take anything at face value. Therefore, I think the nature of the question asked to Facebook should be different. It should be on what they do rather do they do X. So, here's my question - "What doe…

I was about to leave an extremely similar comment, but I was going to frame it in terms of the NSA "direct access" story. I got the impression from that story that immediate denials from tech companies, which seemed categorical, turned out to hinge on which magic words were used. In this case, when I read a sentence like "We don't use your microphone for ads" I end up doing that game where you re-read the sentence ov…

We don't use your microphone for ads

Re: Facebook denies 'listening' to conversations

#346

Post by CharlesDodgson »

I wonder do FB buy user ad preference data from 3rd parties, that may in turn buy them from another listening app.

If I was FB, I'd either process the audio on the device to avoid network traffic, or buy the results from a partner, to keep the actual listening at arms length.

It wouldn't be that hard to imagine another ad-tech company collecting the data in some other app and feeding the data back to FB. I can't imagine FB would be asking as many questions from a 3rd party as it would to internal teams.

Re: Facebook denies 'listening' to conversations

#347

Post by thisacctforreal »

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…

It’s useful to specify iOS or Android in the anecdotes. iOS will show a banner at the top of the screen when an app in the background is using the microphone. On Android, the last I’ve seen, this isn’t the case.

Re: Facebook denies 'listening' to conversations

#348

Post by Shinchy »

Why don't we just try this out, get a fresh device and block location services then create a new Facebook account. Make sure you don't search for the thing you're aiming to get Ads for (Cat Food, Carpets, Jumper, etc.) on the device itself or nearby devices. Then just talk about those things and see if the ads come up.

Re: Facebook denies 'listening' to conversations

#349

Post by aembleton »

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…

Why do you give the Facebook permission to access your microphone?

Re: Facebook denies 'listening' to conversations

#350

Post by thisacctforreal »

firefoxd wrote: post #51

They do record your conversation [1] > Here’s how it works: if you choose to turn the feature on, when you write a status update, the app converts any sound into an audio fingerprint on your phone. This fingerprint is sent to our servers to try and match it against our database of audio and TV fingerprints. By design, we do not store fingerprints from your device for any amount of time. And in any event, the fingerpr…

The length of the audio snippets they fingerprint is pertinent information.

If it’s syllable- or word-length fingerprints it’s not much solace that they won’t be able to get the original audio.

Post reply on HN