My favorite is when they listen in on conversations, and report back keywords, like in Facebook Messenger and Alexa, ostensibly for targeted advertising but who knows what else. On some devices - it's a pretty clear pattern of A/B testing, and likely done this way to get more info on how to disguise what they're doing before rolling it out to the userbase entire.
Then maybe sell more than ad buys - I can think of a few governments who would like to know when their citizens are being disloyal and disrespectful, and who have deep pockets.
This is a myth. Messenger doesn't listen in on your conversations. (bold text links to: https://newsroom.fb.com/news/h/facebook-does-not-use-your-phones-microphone-for-ads-or-news-feed-stories/
I can't help but notice that article was written by Facebook, and that it was written back in the golden days of summer 2016--before Facebook acknowledged Russians and others were harnessing the power of the platform for nefarious purposes.
I've tested this out, and whether or not it was Facebook, some damn thing was listening in and spit out FB ads at me: I said a phrase in my car I've likely never said before. Something like "wrench bottom." Sure enough, within an hour, I saw FB ads for "wrench bottom."
(I quit Facebook a month ago.)
" Messenger doesn't listen in on your conversations. "
The Facebook-written text you link to doesn't actually say they don't listen, just that they do "not use your phone’s microphone to inform ads or to change what you see in News Feed.". They're very specific about what they don't do and very vague about what they do do.
They then say:
We only access your microphone if you have given our app permission and if you are actively using a specific feature that requires audio. This might include recording a video or using an optional feature we introduced two years ago to include music or other audio in your status updates.
It might include those things, or it might include many other things, by their wording.
Data point about how Facebook definitely reads/scans Messenger content (apart from all the weird 'why am I seeing this ad about something I mentioned once over chat to a friend?' type of coincidences): in discussing the Charlottesville riot with a friend, I asked him, "Have you seen the Vice video?" Within an hour, the message had been deleted from both of our logs, replaced with "This message has been deleted due to harmful or abusive content." My wording might be slightly off, but regardless, the message was innocuous and neither of us reported it. I submitted a report to Facebook asking how this had happened and why, though they never responded to it.
Like an above poster, not long after, I permanently deleted my Facebook account.
I am not on Facebook.
I have never been on Facebook.
I run NoScript and Ghostery and multiple ad blockers.
I am sure Facebook still knows a shit ton of stuff about me. Probably almost as much as they'd know if I had joined.
Because what are my friends and relatives doing? They're putting up pictures of groups at parties, and identifying the people in them. They're talking about things we did together, with the other people I know. They are letting Facebook scrape their contact list. I'm sure Facebook is collating all that and is ready and waiting for me to join. They'll already have enough info to (correctly!) suggest huge numbers of friends to me, and to advertise to me, and send me the news stories for my particular political bubble, before I ever even click "Like" for the first time. I am sure it will be instantly cozy there.
They know us all, whether we join or not.
This is a myth. Messenger doesn't listen in on your conversations.
When anecdotal evidence becomes actual data. Happened to me, happened to more than one other person in the thread. Google, Amazon and Facebook are straight up lying when they claim they're not listening in on your everyday convos while pretending to be idle, and absolutely taking action on what they heard.
"Wrench bottom" is a good one. Mine I won't share, but it was similarly unique, and the intimate nature of it... fuck.
Goddamn. I'm a no-kidding network security expert. CISSP, advance certs from the big edge network appliance vendors and cloud security vendors.
This is a huge fucking deal and paid professionals have no idea how to counter it. We're mostly pretending it doesn't exist, and if it does exist, it doesn't affect us, and if it does affect us, it's not so bad.
Fffffffffuck.
A couple of weeks ago, my co-worker and I went to get coffee. We each had our phones and were discussing a particular appliance; I mentioned a particular store I had seen an ad in that day's newspaper (dead tree edition). When we got back to our desks, she navigated to a news site and got an ad for that particular appliance; I opened Instagram and there was an ad for the store I had mentioned. Someone was listening.
I kind of...don’t understand people’s skepticism.
Can these companies listen in on your conversations if they want?
Is anything stopping them?
If yes and no, then of course they are.
I mean...What in the history of this capitalist century leaves you to believe they wouldn’t do it if they could? Or try to find a way to monetize the ability?
http://www.metafilter.com/170479/Al-Franken-We-are-not-tech-giants-customers-we-are-their-product