this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2024
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[–] [email protected] 20 points 2 months ago (17 children)

A market agency claiming they do something of the sort isn’t proof that conversations are being monitored en masse. Security researchers can and probably have tested for this and found no clear, verifiable evidence, otherwise we would have known. Also, this stuff can be blocked at the OS level and I find it hard to imagine (esp. without solid proof) that Google or Apple would jeopardize their reputations to this extent by enabling such unauthorized listening in on users’ conversations.

Of course it’s good to keep watching this space but we shouldn’t jump to conclusions.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Anybody that's ever spoken to a salesperson knows that they're talking out of their arse most of the time, and I doubt this is an exception.

He's said this because he thinks that the people he's talking to will give him more money if he does.

If it was happening at all you'd have seen proof by now. Like people pulling apps apart and finding proof, not just "I spoke to Bob last week about cameras and now I'm seeing ads for cameras".

The truly terrifying part is they don't need to listen to your conversations to know what you want.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (17 children)

They have it's very easy there are free programs that monitor all data traffic.

This claim that Facebook listens to you on your phone has been around for years. It has been investigated numerous times and has never turned out to be true. Until recently the processing capacity required would have been insane and you would have an incredibly high noise to signal ratio. It's just not an economical way of gathering data for advertising.

Why bother anyway when people put their entire lives on Facebook, for free, in easily processable text?

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

What ? A corporation that earn money in selling personal data, that don't want to share its code that run on a device with a microphone, actually use it ? I'm shocked

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

Title is basically clickbait given it's Cox Media Group doing this, not Facebook. They're partnered with a bunch of companies.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 2 months ago (4 children)

What's the last "bombshell scandal that would ruin a company" that actually ruined a company?

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Enron? Maybe the SBF thing? Seems like financial scandals are the only thing that matters.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 months ago

Cambridge Analytica, but only because what they were doing was so monumentally illegal. I'm sure the government would have let them get away with it if they could have thought of a way out for them. A lot of them mates were involved in that scandal.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 months ago (6 children)

There were whole threads of people saying this stuff doesn't happen. They would say it just didn't make sense that companies would do this, it's not worth it to them. That all the ads I was seeing at convenient times were just a coincidence.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

There are simps in this thread trying to say "uuuuhmmmm AKSHUALLY it's not Facebook directly" like that's fucking relevant to the problem.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

I have my camera and microphone deactivated on the OS level because Youtube and Spotify would show me things workmates mentioned way too often.

I didn't notice it since.

Could still be a major coincidence though, the biggest of them.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The next iteration of gaslighting is already here: That it's no big deal anyway since you can just use an ad blocker. Riiight, let's all just turn our eyes away to make the monster go away. Surely, it'll get bored and stop listening and recording, and surely, it will not sell its collected data off to banks, insurance providers, the government, law enforcement... right?

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (3 children)

These companies absolutely do use your microphone to listen.

My wife and I have tested this and you can too.

Have a conversation near your phones about purchasing something offbeat. We used a kitchen garbage disposal in our test. Talk about them for a few minutes, about needing to buy one, different brands, etc.

Almost immediately you'll be served garbage disposal adds.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (2 children)

I even got an email out of nowhere right in my inbox from Dell the same day I was talking about Dell laptops with my book club. I would be so shocked if these examples are mere coincidence

Having worked on the tech side of email marketing campaigns I would actually be impressed

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago (2 children)

This has been common knowledge for several years now.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 2 months ago

There are deniers. They're wrong.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 months ago (14 children)

And there have been push back against the idea by naive, trusting people who think the toggles for that do anything. The fact that there's leak conversations now of advertisers admitting they do it will sink any counter argument against it.

Also, if advertisers are doing it, you can bet that the government can too.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 months ago

At this point it doesn't even matter if it's real or not, after Snowden no sane person believes big tech since they were all in on PRISM.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 2 months ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Except it's not Facebook doing this, it's Cox Media Group.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Android only solution, I think. Admittedly I don't know I iPhone very well.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Anecdotally, it's not even a solution. I've run into "coincidental" ads without having the FB app installed (visiting FB via browser).

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 months ago (2 children)

It is pretty easy to verify whether you've granted Microphone access to Facebook. If you have, revoke it.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The problem with closed source apps is you don't know what else is going on in the background and what else it might have installed or connected to, unless you have debug logs for everything it did and know how to interpret all of that. I wouldn't install any app from the facebook company on any device I use

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

Shocked, I tell you!

[–] [email protected] 54 points 2 months ago (1 children)

They really need to name-and-shame beyond "Facebook Partner" considering we're talking about fucking Cox Media Group.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago

Fuckers got my entire complex's Internet shut down (I am a renter not the owner)

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