
Facebook is using the iPhone’s camera as users scroll their feed - hellofunk
https://thenextweb.com/apps/2019/11/12/facebook-camera-ios-iphone/
======
LinuxBender
I'm sure nobody will like this idea, but cameras and microphones should have a
physical switch that kills the power and data feed, in my opinion. So you
would have airplane mode and trade-secret sharing mode. Power should be
diverted to an LED so that people can see you have disabled camera and
microphone.

~~~
xyzzy_plugh
Jeff Bezos wanted this (though unsure if it was his idea) for the original
Amazon Echo. The "mute" button was originally transparent, revealing the
circuitry of the switch, enabling users to visually verify that the circuitry
of the button severed the microphone in order to power the red mute LED.

I don't think it's that nobody _likes_ the idea, I think the problem is that
very few people really care. You see this in products everywhere. Rough edges
sacrificing the user experience which could be technically solved but are
punted in favor of More Important Things.

~~~
kardos
> Jeff Bezos wanted this (though unsure if it was his idea) for the original
> Amazon Echo.

What happened to this feature? If Bezos wanted this it would be there.

~~~
8bitchemistry
> What happened to this feature? If Bezos wanted this it would be there.

Maybe the Echo team said it was too hard, and Bezos had to "disagree and
commit".

~~~
hamandcheese
Wouldn’t it be the echo team who must disagree and commit?

~~~
8bitchemistry
"This isn’t one way. If you’re the boss, you should do this too. I disagree
and commit all the time."

\-- Bezos in his 1997 letter to shareholders

------
jtokoph
Apple should add a status bar icon that appears whenever your camera is on and
in use. Or even color the status bar similarly to how they do for GPS,
tethering and calls being active.

~~~
krausefx
It doesn't solve all the problems, the status bar can be hidden or faked
unfortunately [https://krausefx.com/blog/ios-privacy-watchuser-access-
both-...](https://krausefx.com/blog/ios-privacy-watchuser-access-both-iphone-
cameras-any-time-your-app-is-running)

~~~
alkonaut
I'm quite fine with only malicious apps spying on me _to begin with_. I'm
pretty sure Facebook or other large players wouldn't use that kind of trick.

Obviously that might not be enough for everyone, but it's by far the best
solution that works with existing hardware. Tomorrows phones might have
indicator LEDs or hardware switches, but my current one doesn't.

------
codeulike
dont install their app, just use it in the browser

edit: and they wont let you use messenger that way, for no good reason. So
just use messenger on desktop or in desktop mode. edit: or mbasic.facebook.com
for messenger

~~~
drcongo
Just delete your account. They'll only find a million other ways to violate
you.

~~~
floatrock
New favorite way to perma-delete your account: start posting eggplant/peach
emojis.

Unlike the "delete my account" button which actually just deactivates your
account until you're ready to come home, triggering the algorithms' sex-
account ban is the cortez-burn-your-ships approach to account deletion.

~~~
edoceo
Turns out this is not a joke.

[https://gulfnews.com/lifestyle/fb-instagram-ban-eggplant-
pea...](https://gulfnews.com/lifestyle/fb-instagram-ban-eggplant-peach-as-
sexual-emojis-1.1572411550840)

~~~
EForEndeavour
I don't say this often, but I can't believe it. What an absolute farce.

~~~
andrei_says_
Voter manipulation, hate speech, sales of guns, anti-vaccination propaganda
are quite OK though.

Just watch your veggies.

------
samat
Giving & taking back photos & camera access is pain in the ass.

Apple already solved this exact issue with location, where you can grant it
for one time only and be re-asked next time.

Hope they use the same mechanics with camera & photos.

~~~
traskjd
They're so user hostile that they don't even allow you to copy and paste
pictures. You MUST save them, giving them access.

Honestly, I have no idea how one company can be so horrible. It's like they
read the site about Dark Patterns and asked themselves: What if we combined
them ALL?

~~~
IgorPartola
Have you read anything from or about Zuck? Remember when he said that everyone
around him is sheep? And then there was a brief period of time when everyone
thought he grew up? And then turns out he didn’t. Oops.

~~~
orev
Why would he? The way he does things is very clearly working, as he is one of
the most successful people on Earth by typical measurements. Everything he has
done has been validated as “the right thing” by the market.

~~~
hvm
Sorry for getting all political on this but we need to stop associating
success only with financial wealth.

He is successful at amassing billions of dollars. From my point of view, his
success in the grand scheme of things is below zero. His actions have degraded
quality of life and hurt future generations.

------
time0ut
The narrative is that the app using the camera is a bug. I don't know what to
think about that yet. On one hand, I expect Facebook (and many other things)
to spy on users in every way possible. On the other, it seems to be the rear
facing camera being activated and I would think they'd get more value out of
the front facing camera. Who knows though. Guess it's time to go all Snowden
on my phone. Or maybe just full RMS...

~~~
kd3
Full RMS. Always go full RMS

------
ihuman
IIRC The app used to have a feature that allowed you to swipe to the right to
quickly bring up the camera. I wonder if this bug is a remnant of that
feature.

~~~
ga-vu
The feature still exists. It's for their Stories support. Basically, the iOS
app is prematurely pulling up the camera view. Nothing super shady as the
linked (garbage) article implies.

~~~
egdod
Facebook is not entitled to the benefit of any doubts.

~~~
s17n
The article is clearly crap though.

------
38932ur98u
Somebody explain this to me, as I've never worked at a large company. Facebook
has tens of thousands of employees. How is more not known about the extent
that they track you like this (and other slimy practices)? I imagibe if
somebody leaks something it would be impossible to pinpoint who exactly did
so. Does really nobody whistleblow?

~~~
throwaway987666
I work for Facebook.

Most of internet articles about Facebook is complete trash and over
exaggeration. And most HN commenters are paranoids.

There are no leaks because there’s actually nothing to leak. Thousands of
engineers routinely perform thousands of experiments on different features
(including both UI and data), and there’s no mastermind who designs or even
approves all these changes. Sometimes bugs happen, sometimes bug in data
handling happen (like tables joined which are not supposed to be joined).

Also, I don’t know about Facebook’s significantly slimy practices. Facebook
collected my phone number and matched it to something? I don’t care, because
the worst can happen is I will get more interesting ads. I know that Facebook
(despite these endless accusations on HN) does not sell data, my credit card
won’t be stolen, I won’t get unwanted phone or email spam, and that’s good
enough for me.

~~~
ahartmetz
Besides refuting some maybe overly dramatic criticism, you also have nothing
to hide. Why are you using a throwaway account?

~~~
lazypenguin
So ironic. Exercises his right to privacy/anonymity but questions those that
lament the loss of theirs.

~~~
dang
Please keep personal swipes out of your comments here.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

------
skizm
Why doesn't Apple turn on a green light when the camera is in use, just like
their laptops do when using the webcam? Or even something like the GPS
indicator you see when an app is using your GPS? Seems like a pretty easy fix.
Could even do it in software.

~~~
saagarjha
Well, there is no green light to turn on at the moment.

~~~
spike021
Eh, they could put a camera icon in the status bar just like they do with the
location icon if a service/app is trying to access the user's location.

~~~
saagarjha
I believe you can hide that programmatically.

------
moooo99
Honestly, I never thought that I'd be defending facebook, but I honestly think
its a bug.

It always takes some time until the camera is initialized and the first frame
rendered on the canvas. I bet the Instagram app, Snapchat, Twitter and
WhatsApp are doing the same thing. I honestly think it is a feature to improve
the user experience when starting the camera.

That being said, while they are already using the camera, they'd probably be
able to do some on device ML to detect faces, emotions etc. But I'm pretty
confident they're not constantly streaming your private camera feed.

------
neonIcon
Like the article says, in the meantime revoke the camera permissions in order
to circumvent this colossal cluster*uck..

------
chrismeller
Really I related I suppose, but if you’ve never attempted to use the camera or
microphone in the FB app it doesn’t even show those permissions in the app
settings, just basic Locations, Photos, etc.

Is that normal?

~~~
machello13
Yes, the way the Settings app works, it doesn't show permissions until the app
requests them (the idea being, I suppose, to avoid cluttering up the settings
screen for apps that will never need access to certain things).

~~~
spurgu
So if I don't see the Camera settings, it means Facebook hasn't been using
them?

~~~
antsar
Correct, assuming they haven't found some side-channel to bypass the
permission system.

~~~
kevinventullo
Abusing a side-channel like that is an easy way to get booted from the App
Store.

~~~
antsar
_Getting caught_ abusing a side-channel like that is an easy way to get booted
from the App Store.

FTFY. Also, it's Facebook. Surely they have some strategic/political strings
they can pull?

~~~
colejohnson66
Apple revoked Facebook’s enterprise certificate when they were found to be
abusing it. Apple holds the reins here.

------
lalos
I thought this was common knowledge ([https://simplecapacity.com/wp-
content/uploads/2016/07/Mark-Z...](https://simplecapacity.com/wp-
content/uploads/2016/07/Mark-Zuckerberg-Tapes-His-Camera-And-Audio-Jack-With-
Pieces-Of-Tape.-THIS-Tells-You-Something....jpg)). Not affiliated in anyways
but EFF (non profit) offers removable stickers for blocking cameras, not to
mention that it’s also a donation. This is one set
[https://supporters.eff.org/shop/laptop-camera-cover-set-
ii](https://supporters.eff.org/shop/laptop-camera-cover-set-ii)

Down side is that on newer iPhones you’ll have to cut it down to not block all
the screen, small price to pay for a little extra privacy.

Also why does iOS have a blinking status bar when the camera is on or at least
provide on the settings app how much camera was used per app (in minutes or
frames and at what time stamps), this way one can easily validate if the app
is using the camera without the user prompting for it.

~~~
uoaei
I implore you to enter the nearest dive bar or Applebee's and ask people what
is "common knowledge" with respect to digital privacy.

Yes, we are surrounded by people who live and breathe these sorts of details.
For many of us, it's our day jobs.

We have to uphold some sense of decency and ethics at the highest levels in
order to protect those who are otherwise unaware of the threats.

------
unkclelanny
I’ve long suspected this as the Facebook app in particular causes the phone to
get hot around where the main camera module ic is located. It is also a
battery drain. They appear to be doing this in collaboration with Apple as the
battery usage for the camera does not increase despite the camera constantly
being initiated while using the Facebook app. I’ve also noticed that when
certain ad platforms inject their code into Safari taboola/outbrain the same
heating occurs. This would make sense as taboola and outbrain appear to be
linked to Israeli intelligence. I guess they not only don’t care about our
privacy they also don’t care about our battery life / health of our devices
either. It sort of reminds me of how windows would spin up your HDD In the
middle of the night and scan through your entire hard drive causing it to
prematurely fail. All under the guise of windows update or whatever the cover
was for what I consider criminal damage.

~~~
colejohnson66
Or maybe the main processor is near the camera? It’s not a conspiracy.

------
tripzilch
... and I was only joking when a few years back, I asked my then girlfriend if
she could maybe not check her Facebook feed lying next to me in bed, "because
who knows, Zuckerberg might be watching us through that little camera".

I was _joking_ , damnit.

------
vmurthy
Has a bunch of PMs or whoever decided that they'll f __* up the business in
the long term chasing OKRs? It looks like they introduce these sort of
"features" every now and then which should spark more outrage but looks like
people don't care even if they are aware. I am unfortunately in the minority
who cares enough not to use FB/IG :-(

Also, the hypocrisy [1].

[1] [https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/22/mark-
zuck...](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/22/mark-zuckerberg-
tape-webcam-microphone-facebook)

------
oliyoung
this is either priming the video feed to make it quicker when you want to
access it, or it's malicious.

i mean, it's Facebook, no way it's malicious right?

------
EGreg
A week later:

“Apple announces apps will no longer have access to the camera for more than a
minute after authorization, will have to tell call new iOS methods to say when
they’re done using the camera, indicators will appear in the status bar when
camera is on, ...”

When they could have just had a green light like macbooks, at least on the
front (or if they care about rights of others to know when they are being
recorded, the back too)

------
cyrksoft
It's something new they are working on. Something about augmented reality ads
or something like that (I have a friend working at Facebook).

~~~
cwkoss
That somehow sounds more dystopian than covert surveillance

------
swamp-agr
Paste content from link below to your /etc/hosts file:

[https://pastebin.com/raw/FAV2f9eA](https://pastebin.com/raw/FAV2f9eA)

On Android you could prevent Facebook by blacklisting same hosts via Firefox +
NoScript.

------
nycticorax
"We further noticed the issue only occurs if you have given the Facebook app
access to your camera." Are there any good reasons for FB to be asking for
this, or for people to grant it?

~~~
lou1306
It allows the user to snap and post a picture in-app, rather than using the
system camera app.

------
jdlyga
Just disable permissions for camera and microphone in the Facebook app. It
doesn't affect uploading photos, and you can still use Messenger to take
selfies and send voice messages.

------
IgorPartola
Delete that thing off your phone. I use Instagram pending a better platform
but Facebook is useless to me.

~~~
rantwasp
Instagram is Facebook

~~~
derwiki
That's why I started posting photos to LinkedIn

------
ct0
Get out of my personal business Mark.

~~~
williamxd3
Just dont use his products.

~~~
devicetray0
It's been reported many times that Facebook creates shadow profiles for
everyone who does not use FB, and still tracks them across the web. So
avoiding them is harder than "just dont use his products"

~~~
sparker72678
But you can at least avoid having your own camera/mic turned on all the time
if you're not using the app.

------
an2911k
Genuine Question: How is Apple's review system also not at a fault here?

------
schainks
The web browser version of FB is half decent, use that if you must.

"I don't know why. They "trust" me. Dumb fucks." — Mark Zuckerberg
([https://www.businessinsider.com/exclusive-mark-
zuckerbergs-s...](https://www.businessinsider.com/exclusive-mark-zuckerbergs-
secret-ims-from-college-2012-5))

~~~
packetslave
I'm sure YOU never said anything stupid over IM when you were 19.

I'm sure YOU'VE not changed a bit in the past 16 years (the Zuck IMs were from
2003).

Yeah, it was a stupid thing to say, but again... 19.

[disclaimer: FB has no interest in me speaking on their behalf, unofficially
or otherwise]

~~~
Nextgrid
On the other hand, if I was at the head of a company the scale of Facebook I'd
just admit my past mistakes, apologise and do my best to regain people's
trust. To the best of my knowledge, Zuckerberg hasn't done any of that and
tried to cover up other potential mistakes by deleting all his past IMs from
people's messaging histories [0] (something normal users still can't do).

[0]: [https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/6/17203114/facebook-mark-
zuc...](https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/6/17203114/facebook-mark-zuckerberg-
messages-deleted-messenger-inbox)

