It's Possible that the Facebook App is Listening To You, Cambridge Analytica Whistleblower Says (theoutline.com)

Jon Christian, writing for The Outline: During an appearance before a committee of U.K. lawmakers today, Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Wylie breathed new life into longstanding rumors that the Facebook app listens to its users in order to target advertisements. Damian Collins, a member of parliament who chaired the committee, asked whether the Facebook app might listen to what users are discussing and use it to prioritize certain ads.

"That's probably a question for Facebook," Wylie said. But, Wylie said in a meandering reply, it's possible that Facebook and other smartphone apps are listening in for reasons other than speech recognition. Specifically, he said, they might be trying to ascertain what type of environment a user is in in order to "improve the contextual value of the advertising itself. There's audio that could be useful just in terms of, are you in an office environment, are you outside, are you watching TV, what are you doing right now?" Wylie said, without elaborating on how that information could help target ads.

Comments

everybody can say this

[geekymachoman]

I could've told you that, would be as much credible.

Call me when you actually confirm that they're listening in (without disclosing it in their terms of use or whatever)

Re:everybody can say this

[Eluan]

I can confirm that I (and close people) have received targeted ads related to stuff we merely TALKED about, with the phones in our pockets.

In more than one occasion it was awfully obvious that Facebook listens. It's not everyday that someone talks about wanting "red cookware" for her new house and a few minutes later I get spammed with ads for red cookware. This is ridiculous.

But you don't have to believe me. Even having screenshots of the ads is no proof because I don't record every live conversation I have in a day.

Re:everybody can say this

[6Yankee]

I've told the story before, but:

My boss and I have talked often, with our phones in our shirt pockets, about a device that uses liquid gallium. Nothing weird had happened as a result.

Then he talked about it in a meeting with me and someone from outside the department, her iPhone on the desk, and two hours later *I* got 20 grams of gallium at the top of my Amazon recommendations. Never seen anything like it in my recommendations before or since.

I wonder whether there's scope for a "reverse Buzzword Bingo" game, where the objective is to use as many words like "huge", "purple", "pleasure" and "vibrating" as possible, as close and as often as possible, around the boss...

Re:everybody can say this

[AmiMoJo]

If this were possible it would be an incredible technical feat.

Phone batteries don't provide enough energy to constantly record audio and look for speech, then transmit it back to Facebook or do speech recognition on the device. Not to mention the effect on your data allowance.

The way those always on "hay Siri" type things work is to have a special ultra low power chip that recognizes just "hay" and then wakes the phone to process the rest, with an appreciable effect on battery life.

I think more likely is that they do a couple of things. Firstly they are really good at connecting you with your close friend's desire to buy red cookware, and the app noticed that you were near each other with the usual location services so there is a fair chance you might be interested in red cookware too now. Creepy as hell still but based on established, practical techniques.

The other thing they could be doing is a little bit of Shazam style audio recognition. Shazam is an app that listens to a song and tells you what it is. Google has a similar feature on the Pixel 2 that uses audio fingerprint data stored on the phone, so it doesn't need to transmit any audio. Facebook probably only care about fingerprinting a small number of different TV/radio ads and detecting them when the app is open. Again, that's feasible with current tech and won't completely destroy your battery life, or give the game away by transmitting chunks of audio data periodically.

Re: everybody can say this

[nospam007]

"1) speak openly with your partner/mother about an act of armed insurrection against the US"

And pronto you'll get ads for assault rifles and fertilizer.
This is business not paranoia.

Re:If this is what being social is

[PeterGM]

That's what I did... become a hermit I mean.

It's getting awfully crowded.

Re:If this is what being social is

[PolygamousRanchKid]

That's what I did... become a hermit I mean.

Well, becoming a hermit helps a bit . . . but it doesn't prevent Facebook from compiling a thick dossier about you.

If two of your friends happen to use WhatsApp, and talk about you on it, Facebook now has that information and can now sell it.

Facebook is like the old East German secret police, the Stasi. About 10% of the East German citizens were working as "informal employees", in other words, "informants".

Facebook and WhatsApp users are today's "informal employees". Every time they use Facebook and WhatsApp . . . they are collecting information for the Stasi . . . Facebook.

If Facebook and WhatsApp users don't mind giving away their information . . . well, that's their decision.

What they don't realize, is that they are giving away potentially damaging information about others, as well.

It's getting awfully crowded.

Oh, well, maybe some venture capitalist will realize our potential, and start a social web site for hermits . . .

Re:If this is what being social is

[ripvlan]

Yes thank you. Everytime one of my "Friends" uploads their address-book to Facebook/LinkedIn (using those handy Sync features) - those companies learn all about me. Including the info that I DON'T share with them. I don't give out my private cell#, my real birthday, home address, or private email address (I have alias / virtual email/phone# and fake bdays that I use). But a friend may have my actual info. So it isn't about me controlling my info, apparently my friends can choose to share my data too.

I received a post-card advertisement in the mail the other day wishing me happy birthday. They were referencing my fake birthday used on Facebook/LinkedIn. I'll have to login to each site and change the month of my fake bday so that I can see where data comes from. I worked for a company years ago - we all volunteered to fill out a magazine subscription card with different magazines in order to test their advertising reach - we purposely misspelled our names with each one and used this as a Tracer Bullet for the junk mail that would be forthcoming.

Why do this when it's my info I want to protect and the rest of you can jump in the lake?!

Re: If this is what being social is

[c6gunner]

Last week I was debating getting a pizza and then drove by a billboard advertising pizza. It was a bit unsettling because the whole discussion took place in my mind.