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The myth is that the devices are streaming audio back to be ingested into ad/recommendation algorithms, which is testable and generally not true. I really wish
by micromacrofoot 1mo ago
The myth is that the devices are streaming audio back to be ingested into ad/recommendation algorithms, which is testable and generally not true.
I really wish these conversations would shift to the scarier truth: companies collect so much metadata on everyone that they can make pretty good guesses without processing what you're saying.
If you think "oh hey I was just talking about socks, how did they know to show me an ad for socks" it's likely because they accurately predicted based on your behaviors that you are highly likely to be in the market for socks right now.
- bflesch 1mo agoFacebook/Google have a history of abusing hidden iOS APIs and exploiting weaknesses in the app isolation. It's plausible they found a way to read the output stream of the text-to-speech module from their apps, until Apple was forced to fix it. None of the companies would have an incentive to report it.
- sandcat_ 1mo ago> If you think "oh hey I was just talking about socks, how did they know to show me an ad for socks" Or you’re talking about socks because of the previous ad for socks you saw. I suspect ads drive our collective behaviour more than we realize.
- micromacrofoot 1mo agoOr you were at a friends house and they googled socks yesterday I'm not kidding about how insidious this is... there's so much metadata to exploit that these companies know who you're with, when you're with them, how often you're there, etc they don't even need to explicitly ask for location because they can pick it up based on network info. In some cases they probably could tell you more about a person than that person could tell you themselves.
- socalgal2 1mo agogenearlly not true except LG just got caught making it true
- micromacrofoot 1mo agoright, generally not true but still something we need watchdogs regularly checking