
Facebook Does Not Use Your Phone’s Microphone for Ads or News Feed Stories - LukeB_UK
http://newsroom.fb.com/news/h/facebook-does-not-use-your-phones-microphone-for-ads-or-news-feed-stories/
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xviia
Good thing everyone has been so honest about data capture of Americans ...

“What I can say unequivocally is that if you are a U.S. person, the NSA cannot
listen to your telephone calls and the NSA cannot target your e-mails.”
President Obama, June 16, 2013, on the Charlie Rose Show

During a March 12, 2013, Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, Sen. Ron Wyden
asked DNI Clapper if the NSA collected any type of data on millions of
Americans. Clapper said: “No, sir.”

“We don’t hold data on U.S. citizens.” DNI Clapper speaking at the American
Enterprise Institute on July 9, 2012

“Provides the government the same authority in national security
investigations to obtain physical records that exits in an ordinary criminal
case, through a grand jury subpoena.” Senate Intelligence Chairwoman Sen.
Dianne Feinstein speaking on the Senate floor on May 22, 2011

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obamaway
What is particularly bothersome about Obama is that he is very good at
misleading with lying. He says "NSA cannot target your e-mails" when he knows
that NSA is actively collecting emails, but not by specifically targeting.

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Cyph0n
I'm sure his staff are the ones that come up with the exact wording, but he's
definitely partly to blame.

~~~
xviia
Truly the most transparent administration in history.

~~~
jdavis703
Any examples of ones that were more transparent?

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matt4077
Many, I believe, even as quite the Obama-fan. Secret courts & laws is a pretty
recent development, so is the reliance on controlled social media vs.
uncontrollable media.

I just met George Packer (writer @Atlantic) who said the greatest failure of
Obama may end up not dramatically downscaling the scope of the Oval office
while he still had the chance. The office has grown so powerful it's a
dangerous tool in the hands of anyone less benevolent than the current
officeholder.

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0x0
"Does not use your microphone (..) to inform ads or change what you see in
news feed" leaves a lot of room for other uses. Does it change what you see in
other places? Does it affect your advertisement preferences without notifying
the advertisers? (what does "inform ads" even mean?)

Why not just say "Does not use your microphone without tapping a record
button" (and make sure it's implemented like that).

~~~
chipperyman573
>Why not just say "Does not use your microphone without tapping a record
button" (and make sure it's implemented like that).

Because it does. From the article:

"We only access your microphone if you have given our app permission and if
you are actively using a specific feature that requires audio. This might
include recording a video or using an optional feature we introduced two years
ago to include music or other audio in your status updates."

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harry8
No it doesn't.

"Might include..."

They want you understand that without having to be pinned to having said it.
This is really carefully worded to get you to think exactly what you did. Why
not just say "Doesn't use your microphone without tapping a record button"?
It's reasonable to assume because that statement would be false.

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cortesoft
I think these rumors are just a side effect of how good these companies can be
at predicting what you are, or will be, interested in. People think it must be
listening in when it is just using other bits of info about you.

Like when Target knew the guy's daughter was pregnant before he did:
[http://www.businessinsider.com/the-incredible-story-of-
how-t...](http://www.businessinsider.com/the-incredible-story-of-how-target-
exposed-a-teen-girls-pregnancy-2012-2)

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MichaelGG
Coming after "Facebook doesn't have bias in news" and "Facebook news is purely
algorithmically generated", hopefully this will give people pause.

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slackstation
Facebook manages the public and private lives of over a billion people and is
publicly traded. They will use the former every way legal plausibly deniable
to help the latter.

This much power, I'm surprised that people are surprised. At this scale, I'd
put a high estimation that there are multiple abuses from: 1) Private citizens
who work there 2) Hackers with undisclosed access to their infrastructure 3)
Governments around the world that have jurisdiction to suboena them 4)
Governments that they want curry favor with (ie Germany, EU, USA)

I would guess that there were breaches that would be a scandal but, were
caught quietly and handled internally and never made it out.

They have billions of dollars in the bank, some of the smartest people on the
planet and a CEO that wants to change the world.

It's not like a conspiracy. It's just simple math. With software written by
humans being as fragile and imperfect as it is and that much information as
centralized as it is, it's crazy to trust that it's always stayed safe in the
hands of Facebook and that your view of the world through Facebook's filter
isn't being changed at all.

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marricks
That's a pretty good blanket statement, hard to see how they could be twisting
words here except as jvehent said, they may in the future.

That being said, it is unsettling they have the feature. A lot of people, me
included, were upset when Google started reading our emails for ads. Slowly,
people started accepting that was the norm, and there is a lot less fuss over
it now, bigger other battles to fight with the NSA and other privacy issues.

Whose to say what we say out loud is more private than emails? It really could
be a matter of time until that expectation of privacy of the spoken word is
diminished with the rise of Alex and the like.

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aninhumer
There are a lot of useful things a smartphone could do with an always on
microphone. It could hear you arranging to meet up with a friend, and offer to
create a reminder based on the details. It could warn you if the restaurant
you're going to is closed. It could keep notes on all your conversations for
all those times you forget something your friend said yesterday.

It could be pretty awesome, if only we could trust anyone to do this kind of
thing.

~~~
marricks
There's the rub, I think the NSA revelations and everyone collaborating with
them, wittingly or unwittingly, proves we never can.

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dredmorbius
Why do phones, tablets, laptops, etc., not come _at the very least as an
option_ in a form _WITHOUT_ integrated microphones, and with cappable lenses?

If I want a mic, I'll plug in a goddamned headset.

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killbrad
Well, since Facebook said it, it must be true, and immutably so.

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hoodoof
Yeah, it's not like members of Facebook's board of directors do anything in
secret to harm the interests of others.

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riprowan
Of course not.

Audio processing is handled by a third party.

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logn
Assuming they're honest here, is it possible it's other apps tapping the
microphone, correlating it with your Facebook account, and somehow placing
items in your newsfeed/etc.? I'm not familiar with the capabilities of FB ad
platform to know if this is feasible. Otherwise, like someone else here said,
it's probably contracted out to a third-party doing the mic listening.

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raddad
I've always said Facebook is a government agents, pedophiles, stalkers and
burglars dream come true. All that information freely given away to whoever
wishes to collect it. Now with the audio video aspect, Facebook can branch out
into amateur porn.

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compiler-guy
Facebook Does Not Use Your Phone's Microphone for Ads or News Feed Stories...

...right now.

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kamiller201
Beyond what everyone else is saying about the limitations on what the actual
language indicates, both the length and the tone of this message sound
questionable...

~~~
astrange
This is the kind of comment you could just post for any article without
reading it.

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Joof
So what do they use the data for?

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carsongross
Said facebook.

That's awfully specific.

~~~
xufi
Is that why it's asking me to use it everytime I somehow end up tapping "Send
a audio message" button?

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jgalt212
Peter Thiel approved this message.

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amaks
([http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/100652-Facebook-
CE...](http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/100652-Facebook-CEO-People-
Who-Trust-Me-Are-Dumb-F-cks))

Zuckerberg: They "trust me" Zuckerberg: Dumb f*cks.

~~~
Dr_tldr
Yes, always take the private chat logs of a socially awkward guy in his early
twenties trying to sound flippant/cool in front of his friend as a complete
and eternal expression of someone's innermost character. How substantive, how
insightful!

And in fairness, there are very few people from 18-25 who would not be
classified as "dumb" when it comes to thinking through privacy, consequences,
and boundaries.

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franciscop
yet

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randartie
Amazing levels of cynicism here on HN.

~~~
harry8
It's not cynical. No really it isn't. Anymore that it's cynical to assume the
mafia are involved in crime. Any other approach is just plain idiotic because
evidence.

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Nursie
No, it doesn't, because it will never be installed on my phone!

~~~
morganvachon
I can't prove whether or not the Facebook app is listening and reporting back
to the mothership, however I do know that I've seen my battery life more than
double since I deleted the FB app and switched to using the mobile website
(which is extremely well implemented, btw) instead.

After removing the FB app, FB Messenger app, Instagram (which I never used
anyway) and WhatsApp (ditto), I've gone from 20-30 hours between charges to
60-70 hours between charges. This is on an iPhone 6 that admittedly isn't used
for much more than SMS, RSS, music in the car, and light browsing. Now, I
can't say with certainty that removing those apps removed any battery-hogging
24/7 microphone monitoring, but no matter what it's clear the FB apps were
draining the battery. Again, I'm still accessing FB just as much as I did
before (about twice a day, for about 10 minutes at a time) but it's via the
web browser.

Also, my data use has dropped, though not as significantly as battery life;
where I was using about 1.5GB of data per month, now I'm just under 1GB/month
(estimated based on the ~450MB used in the two weeks I've been FB-free)

~~~
Nursie
This is one of the reasons I won't install them. The other is I have severe
privacy concerns well before any idea that it might be listening - FB are
always trying to scrape more data from you anyway, letting them have access to
lots more by being resident on the phone seems a bad plan.

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hetfeld
Facebook Does Not Use Your Phone’s Microphone for Ads or News Feed Stories Yet

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jvehent
Let me fix that for you: "Facebook Does Not [yet] Use Your Phone’s Microphone
for Ads or News Feed Stories"

