[mikeash]

It’s trivial to debunk by observing that many people who say they’ve experienced this are using iPhones. On iOS, apps can’t silently use the microphone in the background. A background app using the microphone is always accompanied by a red status bar saying that they’re doing it. This doesn’t show Facebook listening, therefore we can conclude that they’re not, at least on iOS.

It’s possible they might be doing it on Android, but once you show that a lot of people are imagining things, it’s a small leap to thinking that they all are.

[Terr_]

> It’s trivial to debunk by observing that many people who say they’ve experienced this are using iPhones. On iOS, apps can’t silently use the microphone in the background.

The same way people believed iOS background apps couldn't record your screen? [0]

When you cannot trust the operating system manufacturer to be impartial, it stops being trivial to debunk.

[0] https://gizmodo.com/researchers-uber-s-ios-app-had-secret-pe...

[gmemstr]

Android 7.0+ does ask for permission to use the microphone when requested, and can be turned off in the settings. I believe this is also on 6.0 but I'm not 100% sure.

[ben_jones]

Wasn't there just a story about Apple giving Uber special permissions (which were not turned off after they were no longer needed) so they could do stuff on the Apple watch? Is it that much of a stretch to think they would also give Facebook special permissions?

[mikeash]

Yes, it is that much of a stretch. Apple temporarily gave Uber that special permission in order to make their Watch app work better for their users. It’s extremely unlikely that Apple would give Facebook special permission in order to spy on users to no benefit to the people who actually pay Apple money. And somehow it’s gone unnoticed all this time.

[mikeash]

I didn't realize it when I wrote the above, but this makes my case much stronger: these special entitlements are listed as part of the app. It's far from obvious to the end user, but people who know how to look at them can do so. Either nobody knowledgeable has ever looked at Facebook's entitlements, or it doesn't have one that would let them do this.

[cryoshon]

given the below examples i'll contest that it'd be "trivial" to debunk on the iOS platform and also add that even if it were debunked on the iOS platform, that doesn't debunk the other platforms. why would they leave data on the table if they could scoop it up instead?