4 ms·

"Are you recording my conversations, Facebook?" "Of course not, silly! We don't listen to your conversations, we just identify the things you're listening to,

by sarreph 11y ago

"Are you recording my conversations, Facebook?" "Of course not, silly! We don't listen to your conversations, we just identify the things you're listening to, of course!" 0_O

donalhunt 11y ago
That was my reaction too. If there are conversations going on in the background, then YES! Yes... they will be recorded as a result of this. :/
anjc 11y ago
It's less ambiguous than this even. "Do you record my conversations?" "No, but we do listen to them sometimes"
jo909 11y ago
I'm not saying I'm comfortable with this either way, but I do see a difference between recording a conversation with the intent to keep that recording and extract the spoken content, and processing the audio "on the fly" for certain parameters to identify a limited set of things. Of course the problem is you can't control or check which of the two was done with the audio that got uploaded, and that is the scary part and reason enough not to allow anyone to record audio. But you can't just claim that facebook does in fact "listen" to your _conversation_ in any way we would understand as listening.
- forgetsusername 11y ago
  The problem is that the choice as to whether they actually "listen" to my uploaded processed audio is up to them, not me. At this point the only assurance is "we don't listen."
  - jo909 11y ago
    At the end it comes down to trust, laws and maybe occams razor. We can't personally check what exactly they do with our data (not limited to this particular feature), so either we trust in what facebook assures us, or trust that they follow laws that only allow certain usage, or at least assume that there is no orchestrated plot to record me farting on the sofa and that they really only do what they claim to do because that is the simplest explanation. That can change if someone has hints or factual proof that they don't. So far I have only seen asumptions that were not in any way connected to any objective argument or fact. Of course we can reason about why keeping as much information private as possible is a good idea, how users need to be in control of their data etc, and I agree with all of that stuff. I'm not a fan of facebook at all. For me opening facebook is a horrible experience filled with content I don't care about. And of course privacy is always an issue. But I can't see what is gained by making unfounded statemets that in essence claim "facebook is lying, of course they record our conversation".
sdoering 11y ago
So I have to ask permission of my friends to send the ongoing conversion to FB, if I want to use this feature, when typing my status surrounded by them? Or every stranger in a bar, that happens to be around me, when I post my silly "I'm wasted beyond believe" status? In my mind, there are ramifications beyond believe there. And I am not really sure, what to make of this.
- kuschku 11y ago
  And this might actually be insanely illegal in areas where recording conversations requires consent of both involved parties.
  - GregQuinn 11y ago
    There's no might about it. This would definitely be illegal in the UK.
    - DanBC 11y ago
      What UK laws are being broken? EDIT: I'm not saying it's okay. I'm just asking what law is being broken.
      - GregQuinn 11y ago
        It's not illegal to record a conversation between two parties. However if you share this recording with a third party (in this case Facebook) then you have to obtain the consent of the other party.
        DanBC 11y ago
        Under what law?
        GregQuinn 11y ago
        Try this: http://www.ofcom.org.uk/static/archive/oftel/consumer/advice/faqs/prvfaq3.htm http://www.ofcom.org.uk/static/archive/oftel/consumer/advice...
pdkl95 11y ago
> we just identify the things you're listening to, of course ...by recording the conversation so it can be uploaded to the server that does the recognition, because nobody is doing this kind of processing client-side. Just like the idea that "streaming" is somehow different than "downloading", the commonly-repeated claims that this kind of technology is only "processing" without mentioning where the data is processed is a carefully constructed lie designed to frame the discussion. The use of propaganda to confuse how their product works suggests that Facebook (et al) knows there would be resistance if they offered the same features plainly. In my opinion this should count as mens rea.
- remon 11y ago
  > because nobody is doing this kind of processing client-side. This is a half truth at best. Audio recognition can be based on one of two techniques. The first is audio watermarking which is completely client side (albeit not applicable for this FB feature) or fingerprinting. They'll likely use the latter which records a segment of audio, does the rough audio equivalent of a hash on it and then send it the server for an optimised pattern match. It's somewhat unlikely they'll send raw audio to their servers although that's an assumption.
  - Gnewt 11y ago
    I mean, it's an assumption that's got some known counterexamples. For example, Google Now stores the raw audio from every time you activate it / dictate a question on an Android device. It's not out of the question to expect that Facebook might be keeping raw audio data to process later / test.

by sarreph 11y ago

"Are you recording my conversations, Facebook?" "Of course not, silly! We don't listen to your conversations, we just identify the things you're listening to, of course!" 0_O

donalhunt 11y ago

That was my reaction too. If there are conversations going on in the background, then YES! Yes... they will be recorded as a result of this. :/

anjc 11y ago

It's less ambiguous than this even. "Do you record my conversations?" "No, but we do listen to them sometimes"

jo909 11y ago

I'm not saying I'm comfortable with this either way, but I do see a difference between recording a conversation with the intent to keep that recording and extract the spoken content, and processing the audio "on the fly" for certain parameters to identify a limited set of things. Of course the problem is you can't control or check which of the two was done with the audio that got uploaded, and that is the scary part and reason enough not to allow anyone to record audio. But you can't just claim that facebook does in fact "listen" to your _conversation_ in any way we would understand as listening.

forgetsusername 11y ago
The problem is that the choice as to whether they actually "listen" to my uploaded processed audio is up to them, not me. At this point the only assurance is "we don't listen."
- jo909 11y ago
  At the end it comes down to trust, laws and maybe occams razor. We can't personally check what exactly they do with our data (not limited to this particular feature), so either we trust in what facebook assures us, or trust that they follow laws that only allow certain usage, or at least assume that there is no orchestrated plot to record me farting on the sofa and that they really only do what they claim to do because that is the simplest explanation. That can change if someone has hints or factual proof that they don't. So far I have only seen asumptions that were not in any way connected to any objective argument or fact. Of course we can reason about why keeping as much information private as possible is a good idea, how users need to be in control of their data etc, and I agree with all of that stuff. I'm not a fan of facebook at all. For me opening facebook is a horrible experience filled with content I don't care about. And of course privacy is always an issue. But I can't see what is gained by making unfounded statemets that in essence claim "facebook is lying, of course they record our conversation".

sdoering 11y ago

So I have to ask permission of my friends to send the ongoing conversion to FB, if I want to use this feature, when typing my status surrounded by them? Or every stranger in a bar, that happens to be around me, when I post my silly "I'm wasted beyond believe" status? In my mind, there are ramifications beyond believe there. And I am not really sure, what to make of this.

kuschku 11y ago
And this might actually be insanely illegal in areas where recording conversations requires consent of both involved parties.
- GregQuinn 11y ago
  There's no might about it. This would definitely be illegal in the UK.
  - DanBC 11y ago
    What UK laws are being broken? EDIT: I'm not saying it's okay. I'm just asking what law is being broken.
    - GregQuinn 11y ago
      It's not illegal to record a conversation between two parties. However if you share this recording with a third party (in this case Facebook) then you have to obtain the consent of the other party.
      - DanBC 11y ago
        Under what law?
        GregQuinn 11y ago
        Try this: http://www.ofcom.org.uk/static/archive/oftel/consumer/advice/faqs/prvfaq3.htm http://www.ofcom.org.uk/static/archive/oftel/consumer/advice...

pdkl95 11y ago

> we just identify the things you're listening to, of course ...by recording the conversation so it can be uploaded to the server that does the recognition, because nobody is doing this kind of processing client-side. Just like the idea that "streaming" is somehow different than "downloading", the commonly-repeated claims that this kind of technology is only "processing" without mentioning where the data is processed is a carefully constructed lie designed to frame the discussion. The use of propaganda to confuse how their product works suggests that Facebook (et al) knows there would be resistance if they offered the same features plainly. In my opinion this should count as mens rea.

remon 11y ago
> because nobody is doing this kind of processing client-side. This is a half truth at best. Audio recognition can be based on one of two techniques. The first is audio watermarking which is completely client side (albeit not applicable for this FB feature) or fingerprinting. They'll likely use the latter which records a segment of audio, does the rough audio equivalent of a hash on it and then send it the server for an optimised pattern match. It's somewhat unlikely they'll send raw audio to their servers although that's an assumption.
- Gnewt 11y ago
  I mean, it's an assumption that's got some known counterexamples. For example, Google Now stores the raw audio from every time you activate it / dictate a question on an Android device. It's not out of the question to expect that Facebook might be keeping raw audio data to process later / test.