
Facebook collected and transcribed users’ audio without permission - sahin-boydas
https://techcrunch.com/2019/08/13/facebook-contractors-said-to-have-collected-and-transcribed-users-audio-without-permission/
======
harryh
This title isn't great. Users knew their audio was being collected and
transcribed. The issue is that users (might have) thought that the
transcription was automated vs being done by real humans.

Apparently FB, at least in some instances, had people do the transcriptions
(possibly just to double check the automated transcriptions).

~~~
rhizome
Unless FB's speech recognition has made award-winning improvements, humans are
double-checking virtually all of it. Even so, I'm skeptical that FB's wording
of any notice was clear, whatever the arrangement.

------
throwaway051755
According to Bloomberg the transcripts were opt-in:

> The company said the users who were affected chose the option in Facebook’s
> Messenger app to have their voice chats transcribed. The contractors were
> checking whether Facebook’s artificial intelligence correctly interpreted
> the messages, which were anonymized.

~~~
annadane
I don't know too much about this so apologies if this misses the mark, but how
much of this was due to it being opt out? Or hidden behind confusing options?

~~~
traek
The article explicitly says it was opt-in. How could that be "due to it being
opt out"?

~~~
annadane
[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-15/facebook-...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-15/facebook-
transcription-opt-in-says-nothing-about-human-listeners)

------
sahin-boydas
original link:
[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-13/facebook-...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-08-13/facebook-
paid-hundreds-of-contractors-to-transcribe-users-audio)

