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> There is widespread suspicion that Facebook Inc already does this (they deny it, but I've heard and experienced too many anecdata to believe them). Why sprea

> There is widespread suspicion that Facebook Inc already does this (they deny it, but I've heard and experienced too many anecdata to believe them). Why spread an easily testable lie? People have checked, they don't do this.

rattray 6y ago
Source? I haven't seen anything persuasive. And I'm not sure how this could be "easily testable" if they are being sneaky about it (using undocumented APIs in obfuscated ways, etc). BTW, I didn't claim that they do this, only that I and others suspect they do. Personally I've seen cases were a topic was discussed aloud which was not searched/browsed by either party and received ads very shortly thereafter. Extremely specific stuff, like you randomly talk about life insurance and then get a life insurance ad.
- NavinF 6y ago
  If they did that, your battery would be dead from on-device ML or you'd notice the large uploads of audio.
  - rattray 6y ago
    Indeed, I and many others have noticed that the FB app drains the battery when not in use! Source: https://www.lifewire.com/how-facebook-messenger-apps-drains-battery-3880043 https://www.lifewire.com/how-facebook-messenger-apps-drains-... > Facebook and Facebook Messenger apps for iOS and Android devices consume a lot of battery life. Besides complaints from people worldwide, authorities and analysts conducted tests. They affirmed that both are battery hogs even when the apps aren't in use. I'm not sure how one would be expected to notice a "large upload of audio" since most people don't monitor their network activity, and slowdowns get blamed on a bad connection. I'd also expect smart FB engineers would be able to figure out how to minimize network activity (eg; sampled, low-fidelity audio). EDIT: To be clear, I don't mean to say, "they use lots of battery therefore they must be spying", just that lack of battery drain isn't convincing evidence that they're not doing some sort of conversational spying.
- carmen_sandiego 6y ago
  Well first and foremost, as an app on iOS/Android, you can't just access the mic whenever you feel like it. There's also an available audit trail for when it is accessed. So it's trivial to know whether the Facebook app uses the mic without being asked to do so by the user. Unless you think they are 'being sneaky' by developing zero day exploits to break permissions boundaries and prevent logging on both Android and iOS. What's more likely is that: (a) we're all a lot more predictable than we'd like to admit, and (b) you underestimate the multitude of data sources available to Facebook and piped over to its ecosystem. Just because an ad is on Facebook, doesn't mean Facebook is the one providing all the targeting data.
  - rattray 6y ago
    > Unless you think they are 'being sneaky' by developing zero day exploits to break permissions boundaries and prevent logging on both Android and iOS. Pretty much, yes. Perhaps only one of the two operating systems, and perhaps not all versions. I'm not confident they've done that, but it'd be hard to prove they haven't, and frankly it seems like the kind of thing FB might do (I'm sure not everybody would agree). It's certainly possible that FB is just wildly superior at understanding/predicting people than humans are. Their targeting is, after all, really good.

rattray 6y ago

Source? I haven't seen anything persuasive. And I'm not sure how this could be "easily testable" if they are being sneaky about it (using undocumented APIs in obfuscated ways, etc). BTW, I didn't claim that they do this, only that I and others suspect they do. Personally I've seen cases were a topic was discussed aloud which was not searched/browsed by either party and received ads very shortly thereafter. Extremely specific stuff, like you randomly talk about life insurance and then get a life insurance ad.

NavinF 6y ago
If they did that, your battery would be dead from on-device ML or you'd notice the large uploads of audio.
- rattray 6y ago
  Indeed, I and many others have noticed that the FB app drains the battery when not in use! Source: https://www.lifewire.com/how-facebook-messenger-apps-drains-battery-3880043 https://www.lifewire.com/how-facebook-messenger-apps-drains-... > Facebook and Facebook Messenger apps for iOS and Android devices consume a lot of battery life. Besides complaints from people worldwide, authorities and analysts conducted tests. They affirmed that both are battery hogs even when the apps aren't in use. I'm not sure how one would be expected to notice a "large upload of audio" since most people don't monitor their network activity, and slowdowns get blamed on a bad connection. I'd also expect smart FB engineers would be able to figure out how to minimize network activity (eg; sampled, low-fidelity audio). EDIT: To be clear, I don't mean to say, "they use lots of battery therefore they must be spying", just that lack of battery drain isn't convincing evidence that they're not doing some sort of conversational spying.
carmen_sandiego 6y ago
Well first and foremost, as an app on iOS/Android, you can't just access the mic whenever you feel like it. There's also an available audit trail for when it is accessed. So it's trivial to know whether the Facebook app uses the mic without being asked to do so by the user. Unless you think they are 'being sneaky' by developing zero day exploits to break permissions boundaries and prevent logging on both Android and iOS. What's more likely is that: (a) we're all a lot more predictable than we'd like to admit, and (b) you underestimate the multitude of data sources available to Facebook and piped over to its ecosystem. Just because an ad is on Facebook, doesn't mean Facebook is the one providing all the targeting data.
- rattray 6y ago
  > Unless you think they are 'being sneaky' by developing zero day exploits to break permissions boundaries and prevent logging on both Android and iOS. Pretty much, yes. Perhaps only one of the two operating systems, and perhaps not all versions. I'm not confident they've done that, but it'd be hard to prove they haven't, and frankly it seems like the kind of thing FB might do (I'm sure not everybody would agree). It's certainly possible that FB is just wildly superior at understanding/predicting people than humans are. Their targeting is, after all, really good.