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Facebook Wants To Spy On People Using Their Phone's Camera and Analyze Facial Emotions (thesun.co.uk)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Sun: The social network applied for a patent to capture pictures of a user through their smartphone. The creepy designs, which date back to 2015, were discovered by software company CBI Insight, which has been analyzing Mark Zuckerberg's "emotion technology." Patent documents contain illustrations showing a person holding a smartphone with a camera taking a picture from which "emotion characteristics" like smiling or frowning are detected. If the person appears to like what they're seeing, Facebook could place more of the same type of content in front of them. Patents don't always make it through to the end product, so it's not clear whether Facebook will bring out this new feature. Researchers at CBI Insights warned that the plans could put a lot of people off using the service. Facebook appears to have tested out similar technology to work out which emoji to send to people using a selfie.
This is why I always point my phone camera at my junk when reading Facebook.
I don't want anonymous people on facebook seeing my face.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
So does it display a penis emoji when the user is masturbating?
Would it be able to read hand gestures too? Because I know which one they'll get from my camera...
Researchers at CBI Insights warned that the plans could put a lot of people off using the service.
Bullshit. Facebook is already an unbelievably creepy source of intrusive personal surveillance, and people flock to it by the billions. They meet someone in real life they never told FB about, and suddenly see that person suggested as a FB friend, because FB detected their phones with he FB app installed came into close proximity.
Most people simply do not care. There is no level of creepiness that could ever put them off. This would be marketed as a good thing, and people would eat it up like they do every other form of spying.
> it's not clear whether Facebook will bring out this new feature.
Yeah, right. What's clear is, that whereas I've been putting a ten-foot pole between Pissbook[1] and myself, now I'm putting a fifteen-foot pole.
[1] That's how an Indonesian friend of me pronounces that. The first time I heard it, I thought "this man is right!".
This is just another step towards proving that. maybe the masses will never learn, maybe its too late, but at least i have started getting my friends and family to drop the app off of their phones. They are already spending more time outside and enjoying more of the world around them.
It also removes the performance anxiety that facebook creates.
Free your self from your voluntary slavery, facebook adds no net benefit to your life, only stress, anxiety and fake friends.
What would be interesting is letting AI observe the emotions and then letting it choose content to affect those emotions, to learn how it's actions affect the emotions. It's sort of a communication. Like you're talking to the news.
...we know why their webapp works so crappily on mobile browsers. Get the idiots to use the apps, which basically want root access.
I look forward to Facebook showing me more bukkake content.
Hopefully enough said. I also hope to live to see the day when Zuckerberg is tried and convicted for stealing from all of us. They are shit.
Maybe I should remember all of you that registering a patent doesn't mean shit.Companies register patents like this all the time "just in case".
Do you remember when Apple was going to disable our cameras remotely because they filled a patent? Well, this is the same. Clickbait and FUD.
If my phone can monitor my facial expressions while at work some AI is going to call the white coats on me or think I am about to go postal ;)
Resting bitch face. Because that's generally what happens to me when I'm on my phone.
there has to be prior art for a computer reading a facial expression. has. to. be.
not that we WANT there to be, because facebook would keep the 'feature' to themselves if the patent is actually valid. but i really doubt it would hold-up should it be granted and someone challenges it.
Being followed by an invisible clipboard wielding obsessive who knows everywhere you go and everyone you meet and everything you read or as close to this as possible and makes money by selling this info is totally not creepy.... don't have an account or don't install it on some of your devices, don't worry they have a shadow account for you anyway, and they are always working to link them to real individuals or main accounts!
Here is a handy Facebook client for Android that provides access to Messenger:
F-Droid Face Slim
The above client is a 3rd-party open source wrapper. It will not update itself automatically without asking. It will not suddenly drain your battery dry. It will not access any sensors on your device without your approval. It will not gather your contacts and upload them for recruiting and advertising.
Facebook does all of these things and more. Burn it off your phone with a blowtorch.
https://spideroak.com/articles/facebook-shadow-profiles-a-profile-of-you-that-you-never-created
https://blog.coryfoy.com/2013/07/facebook-shadow-accounts-for-non-facebook-users/
All voluntary!
Doesn't mean they will use it.
If they have a patentable invention, they'll patent it. Patents have value. Other companies might want to licence it, or it might be something that can offer as part of a negotiation or settlement with another company.
Maybe they will. Maybe they won't. Depends on whether they think this will make money.
... people will see this as being a great idea. All hail facebook and their endless stream of brilliant ideas!
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Facebook, Microsoft, and Adobe seem to be competing with each other to determine who can be most abusive to customers. Google is in the competition, but trailing.
So they write a patent after watching a movie... Lame
Facebook is creepy, they don't ask for permission to follow you around, at least within the web, they make shadow profiles without permission. The fact that this bit appears opt in does not make the rest of their behaviour better. Also given their history on-line why should I trust it not to do facial recognition of other people in frame at the same time, more data for their shadow profiles!
Given their track record, if facebook says they want to do this, chances are they're already doing it somewhere as a test.
Facebook should be banned and Zuckerberg should be strung up by his thumbs in a public square for people to throw rotten vegetables at
Facebook applied for a patent.
If the patent is granted, only Facebook will be able to spy on you like this. Or at least, it will require other parties do deal with Facebook first before they can implement this technology for themselves.
And if you are privacy conscious, you probably don't use Facebook, so that's a win.
http://www.zdnet.com/article/firm-facebooks-shadow-profiles-are-frightening-dossiers-on-everyone/
https://www.groovypost.com/news/facebook-shadow-accounts-non-users/
lots more if you do it yourself
I refuse to install the Facebook and Messenger app, in part for crap like this. So previously if I had to respond to a FB message on the go, I would open up Chrome and go to Messenger.com, no problem. Now, when I do, and type, something weird happens - only one word appears. When I type a second word, the first disappears, and just that word is there. I can't type out a sentence. I tried it with Firefox, and can't even log into Messenger.com - it just hangs on the main page saying "Sign in with Facebook to get started", and I'm signed in on another tab, but it doesn't log in or progress...wtf??
If Facebook interfaces with a continuous blood flow monitor, people would proudly broadcast their harmone levels to the whole world.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
If you keep stopping computers from watching your emotions in the background, you're never gonna have cool science fiction wonders like the Ash, David, and HAL 9000 lines.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
...just like you do on your home PC. It's your life. Control your own privacy as best you can, if you still choose to use a smart phone.
When you want to do selfies, fine, it's your choice, and then uncover the camera, otherwise, keep the camera covered.
For the really hard-core, do not even own a smart phone. Use the free-with-your-plan models that just voice and text and camera, and have a removable battery. Keep the phone in a case that covers the camera lens, blacking it out, and making any attempts to covertly take pictures when you do not want it to, not possible. Remove the battery when not in use.
Uh, Linux geek since 1999.
As if I needed another reason not to have a Facebook account...
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
You forgot Shodan.
His advice? In no uncertain terms, delete your account immediately.
This is far from a unique opinion.
Smartphones need an activity light (i.e., the little light that shows the camera is active/recording) like fucking yesterday. Every time I'm doing something on my phone I have no idea if the fucker is watching me back.
See above. The only application that I allow to access my phone's camera (knowingly, anyway) is the camera application.
Does Facebook even realize that many companies don't allow camera on the premises? Heck, I can recall it was nearly ten years ago sitting in company meetings where sensitive business plans were to be discussed and everyone was asked to turn off their phones and put them away. And it wasn't because of the potential for an annoying ringtone interrupting the meeting. Corporate espionage aside, the invasion of privacy that something like this potentially opens up is mind boggling. It sure seems to me that they're not thoroughly thinking through these ideas before making them public.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
All these approaches to "read" emotion from people's faces are going to fail because faces don't broadcast emotion. Recent research shows that emotions are constructed differently from person to person, from situation to situation.
Maybe Facebook's business model is based on patenting ideas stolen from dystopian literature (e.g. 1984, Farenheit 451, Brave New World, etc.)?
... an subject or person will cause said person/subject to appear more or less. I bet they track mouse actions as well. Facebook will be able to predict how you feel about most subjects to a pretty high percentage very soon... if not already