5 ms·

“That is kind of weird,” she laughed. “I’m still not so sure this isn’t just coincidence. I don’t think Facebook is really listening to our conversations.” Thi

“That is kind of weird,” she laughed. “I’m still not so sure this isn’t just coincidence. I don’t think Facebook is really listening to our conversations.” This is a terrible article. There's an easy way to figure out if it's a coincidence... repeat the experiment.

imakesoft 10y ago
I agree that the nature of the article is bad but still I would not be surprised to hear that Facebook is listening to phone conversations. That's why I don't use it. :P
- HappyTypist 10y ago
  I work for Facebook. This does not happen. If it does, I can assure you that one of the many thousands of engineers will speak out.
  - chdhxhhd 10y ago
    So far they've had no qualms with Favebook's other unethical activities, so I don't see why this would be any different.
  - tremon 10y ago
    What makes you so sure that many thousands of Facebook engineers would be aware of it?
  - emerongi 10y ago
    If something like this is going on, only a few select employees know about it. Facebook is not dumb. When it comes to "speaking out"... NSA started surveillance projects long before Edward Snowden was employed. There will always be people who will develop things like this and who will not speak out. It's just a matter of correctly selecting these few people.
capitalsigma 10y ago
99% sure this is not a coincidence, here's my theory: people's IRL conversations can be pretty reliably predicted by their Facebook conversations, so targeted ads based on messages tend to be surprisingly relevant to the next thing they talk about IRL. Example: my girlfriend was given a box of Flonase by her parents and immediately got a Facebook ad for it. She had not mentioned Flonase anywhere on Facebook ever. Spoopy eavesdropping? No --- she did talk on Facebook about her ENT appointment that morning. And what products might be relevant for someone going to an ENT doctor? Allergy medication. And in cases like that, it's very likely that your two recommendations from different sources will happen to match --- what brand of medication are your parents likely to recommend? A popular one that spends a lot of $ on advertising. What brand is likely to buy ads? A popular one that spends a lot of $ on advertising.
- dontstealmyname 10y ago
  See this seems reasonable.. however I was once playing Battlefield Hardline raving about how awesome the camera's were for whatever I was doing and was then presented with security camera ads shortly after while browsing Facebook on my desktop. I have no interest or need for security cameras or even any reason to source information about them online. I double checked my web history and couldn't find anything related either, plus I had not had any conversations about cameras on Facebook. I remarked about how creepy it was over Team Speak and had 2 other people comment about similar experiences recently (at that time) as well. They claimed the only device they had near them was a phone at the time and the conversation was spontaneous.
  - TryAgainMaybe 10y ago
    Sample size of 3. Evidence collected through anecdotes. I'm convinced.
  - witty_username 10y ago
    See frequency illusion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases#Frequency_illusion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases#Frequ...
- 10y ago
tremon 10y ago
Repeating the experiment wouldn't disprove the assertion. What you would be testing is "(a) Facebook is really listening to our conversations and (b) consistently responds to it in this way". A negative second test could never disprove (a), however a positive test would confirm both (a) and (b).

imakesoft 10y ago

I agree that the nature of the article is bad but still I would not be surprised to hear that Facebook is listening to phone conversations. That's why I don't use it. :P

HappyTypist 10y ago
I work for Facebook. This does not happen. If it does, I can assure you that one of the many thousands of engineers will speak out.
- chdhxhhd 10y ago
  So far they've had no qualms with Favebook's other unethical activities, so I don't see why this would be any different.
- tremon 10y ago
  What makes you so sure that many thousands of Facebook engineers would be aware of it?
- emerongi 10y ago
  If something like this is going on, only a few select employees know about it. Facebook is not dumb. When it comes to "speaking out"... NSA started surveillance projects long before Edward Snowden was employed. There will always be people who will develop things like this and who will not speak out. It's just a matter of correctly selecting these few people.

capitalsigma 10y ago

99% sure this is not a coincidence, here's my theory: people's IRL conversations can be pretty reliably predicted by their Facebook conversations, so targeted ads based on messages tend to be surprisingly relevant to the next thing they talk about IRL. Example: my girlfriend was given a box of Flonase by her parents and immediately got a Facebook ad for it. She had not mentioned Flonase anywhere on Facebook ever. Spoopy eavesdropping? No --- she did talk on Facebook about her ENT appointment that morning. And what products might be relevant for someone going to an ENT doctor? Allergy medication. And in cases like that, it's very likely that your two recommendations from different sources will happen to match --- what brand of medication are your parents likely to recommend? A popular one that spends a lot of $ on advertising. What brand is likely to buy ads? A popular one that spends a lot of $ on advertising.

dontstealmyname 10y ago
See this seems reasonable.. however I was once playing Battlefield Hardline raving about how awesome the camera's were for whatever I was doing and was then presented with security camera ads shortly after while browsing Facebook on my desktop. I have no interest or need for security cameras or even any reason to source information about them online. I double checked my web history and couldn't find anything related either, plus I had not had any conversations about cameras on Facebook. I remarked about how creepy it was over Team Speak and had 2 other people comment about similar experiences recently (at that time) as well. They claimed the only device they had near them was a phone at the time and the conversation was spontaneous.
- TryAgainMaybe 10y ago
  Sample size of 3. Evidence collected through anecdotes. I'm convinced.
- witty_username 10y ago
  See frequency illusion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases#Frequency_illusion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases#Frequ...
10y ago

tremon 10y ago

Repeating the experiment wouldn't disprove the assertion. What you would be testing is "(a) Facebook is really listening to our conversations and (b) consistently responds to it in this way". A negative second test could never disprove (a), however a positive test would confirm both (a) and (b).