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Why Does Facebook Need To Read My Text Messages?

Posted by timothy on from the is-facebook-played-by-scarlett-johansson? dept.

DavidGilbert99 writes "Facebook updates its Android app quite a lot, but the latest version asks for some rather odd permissions. Rolling out in the UK this week, some users have noticed that it now wants permission to read your text messages. While most suspected Facebook wanted to access the data to try and serve you more targeted ads, Facebook says it is only so it can facilitate two-factor authentication...apparently."

1 of 293 comments (clear)

  1. Actually one of my beefs by tthomas48 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Android needs to add two levels of permissions for much of this stuff. You basically have to ask for everything or nothing. I wanted to check network state in my current app, which requires asking for permission to change the user's networks. I don't want to change their networks. I just want to see if the network is up.