<story><title>Facebook denies &apos;listening&apos; to conversations</title><url>http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-41776215</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>madeofpalk</author><text>How could they respond to remove all doubt they&amp;#x27;re listening?&lt;p&gt;Edit: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.theverge.com&amp;#x2F;2016&amp;#x2F;6&amp;#x2F;3&amp;#x2F;11854860&amp;#x2F;facebook-smartphone-listening-eavesdrop-microphone-denial&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.theverge.com&amp;#x2F;2016&amp;#x2F;6&amp;#x2F;3&amp;#x2F;11854860&amp;#x2F;facebook-smartpho...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    In a statement issued on June 2nd [2016], Facebook said it &amp;quot;does not use your
    phone’s microphone to inform ads or to change what you see in News Feed.&amp;quot;
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
That&amp;#x27;s pretty fucking clear to me.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Original comment:&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;If they had said something like &amp;quot;We don&amp;#x27;t use microphones to gather data to drive personalisation on users profiles&amp;quot; there would be comments here on HN complaining about corporate speak and how they didnt just flat out deny using it for advertising.&lt;p&gt;Apps get busted for doing dodgy things all the time. The Facebook app has been decompiled and network traffic inspected and studied so often that if this actually was true then it would have been proven by now. Instead, all we have is this weird &amp;#x27;survivorship bias&amp;#x27; where &lt;i&gt;one time&lt;/i&gt; someone said something out loud there was a tangentially related ad on FB.&lt;p&gt;Today I was looking up bars in Budapest and found one on Google. I started looking at images, at the only one that loaded so far on the slow internet was of food. &amp;quot;Wow, Google knows me so well. All I care about right now is food and the first image it loads is of food&amp;quot; I said out loud to my friend. Eventually the internet caught up and the rest of the images that loaded were of food. It only showed me food photos (in a bar thats more known for its decoration and alcohol). Nothing more than a coincidence.</text></item><item><author>denzil_correa</author><text>&amp;gt; &amp;quot;I run ads product at Facebook. We don&amp;#x27;t - and have never - used your microphone for ads. Just not true,&amp;quot; Mr Goldman wrote.&lt;p&gt;Personally, I am so used to corp speak and word play by major companies that it is difficult to take anything at face value. Therefore, I think the nature of the question asked to Facebook should be different. It should be on what they do rather do they do X. So, here&amp;#x27;s my question - &amp;quot;What does Facebook use data gathered from user microphones across any devices for?&amp;quot;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>denzil_correa</author><text>My question was NOT &amp;quot;Does Facebook use the phone&amp;#x27;s microphone to inform ads or change what we see in the News Feed?&amp;quot;. It seems you have misunderstood my question. Let me repeat my question again :&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;What does Facebook use data gathered from user microphones across any devices for?&amp;quot;</text></comment>
<story><title>Facebook denies &apos;listening&apos; to conversations</title><url>http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-41776215</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>madeofpalk</author><text>How could they respond to remove all doubt they&amp;#x27;re listening?&lt;p&gt;Edit: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.theverge.com&amp;#x2F;2016&amp;#x2F;6&amp;#x2F;3&amp;#x2F;11854860&amp;#x2F;facebook-smartphone-listening-eavesdrop-microphone-denial&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.theverge.com&amp;#x2F;2016&amp;#x2F;6&amp;#x2F;3&amp;#x2F;11854860&amp;#x2F;facebook-smartpho...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;    In a statement issued on June 2nd [2016], Facebook said it &amp;quot;does not use your
    phone’s microphone to inform ads or to change what you see in News Feed.&amp;quot;
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
That&amp;#x27;s pretty fucking clear to me.&lt;p&gt;&lt;i&gt;Original comment:&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;If they had said something like &amp;quot;We don&amp;#x27;t use microphones to gather data to drive personalisation on users profiles&amp;quot; there would be comments here on HN complaining about corporate speak and how they didnt just flat out deny using it for advertising.&lt;p&gt;Apps get busted for doing dodgy things all the time. The Facebook app has been decompiled and network traffic inspected and studied so often that if this actually was true then it would have been proven by now. Instead, all we have is this weird &amp;#x27;survivorship bias&amp;#x27; where &lt;i&gt;one time&lt;/i&gt; someone said something out loud there was a tangentially related ad on FB.&lt;p&gt;Today I was looking up bars in Budapest and found one on Google. I started looking at images, at the only one that loaded so far on the slow internet was of food. &amp;quot;Wow, Google knows me so well. All I care about right now is food and the first image it loads is of food&amp;quot; I said out loud to my friend. Eventually the internet caught up and the rest of the images that loaded were of food. It only showed me food photos (in a bar thats more known for its decoration and alcohol). Nothing more than a coincidence.</text></item><item><author>denzil_correa</author><text>&amp;gt; &amp;quot;I run ads product at Facebook. We don&amp;#x27;t - and have never - used your microphone for ads. Just not true,&amp;quot; Mr Goldman wrote.&lt;p&gt;Personally, I am so used to corp speak and word play by major companies that it is difficult to take anything at face value. Therefore, I think the nature of the question asked to Facebook should be different. It should be on what they do rather do they do X. So, here&amp;#x27;s my question - &amp;quot;What does Facebook use data gathered from user microphones across any devices for?&amp;quot;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>keketi</author><text>Modify their apps to not request microphone permission.</text></comment>