[about_help]

You should be, the Facebook app explicitly does listen to the mic unless you opt out. It has also come out that Google and Amazon are storing people's personal voice requests, and aside from that the mics are always on waiting to hear the trigger words. This means by default that the apps are listening and analyzing everything, though how much of the non word-triggered speech gets recorded is unknown.

Facebook's initial foray into the app/mic biz was troubled and their statement was "we only listen for popular music / TV in the background in order to help you." It also came out that they mine personal messages between users.

"I’m not paranoid to think they are listening to the microphone but the coincidence is super uncanny."

We need to get past the block where we label people as paranoid for thinking these big corps might invade user's privacy.

[RandallBrown]

The Facebook app, on iPhone at least, requires you to opt in to giving it microphone access.

I've seen the myth that Facebook is targeting ads based on what it hears debunked several times. Do you have a source that shows that it is in fact listening?

I think it's more likely that the same reason someone is talking about something (they're in a demographic interested in that thing) is the reason that Facebook gives you ads for that thing. Add in the Baader-Meinhof effect and it seems like Facebook is listening to your conversations.

[ghostbrainalpha]

I am so frustrated by this "debunking", because it defies logic and experience.

Let's say Facebook NEVER listens to you... I'm 100% on board with them and their honesty. It still doesn't matter.

If you let ANY third party app listen to you, and identify you, for example the latest Candy Crush game, then your information along with preferences are being uploaded to databases for re-targeting.

When I do a big campaign in Facebook, or any sophisticated marketer does, I don't ask Facebook for users who like Cats and are looking for brands of organic cat food. I PROVIDE them a pre-vetted list of people looking for cat food that I generated and the emails associated with those Facebook accounts.

Facebook has NO WAY to know how I came up with my list, and no possible way to find out. It could have been from listening to conversations while someone played Candy Crush, or it could have been from a form submitted on my website.

One of these days I'm just going to actually document myself doing this and publish it to a website so more people understand what is happening and how easy it is to use data from people's conversations.

TLDR: Any time you buy a list of potential customers from a market research company, that data could have been gathered with conversation tracking. It's not Facebook's fault, it's just the reality.

[shostack]

You're not wrong. "Data laundering" is a thing. There's a lot of industry concern around the quality/accuracy of 3rd party data segments from various brokers, DMPs and DSPs, but often times they are complete black boxes in terms of their source data.

[on_and_off]

same on Android .. and microphone is among the permissions I very rarely give to any app.

Thinking about it, I might just remove it from Google as well since I don't really use voice search.

[photojosh]

> The Facebook app, on iPhone at least, requires you to opt in to giving it microphone access.

I just double-checked, and I have mine turned off. So, "requires"?

[colbyh]

"You should be, the Facebook app explicitly does listen to the mic unless you opt out."

Evidence? Every time someone claims this it gets debunked.

[Kiro]

Give me one reliable source for any of your claims.