 There's a new bout of "Facebook are listening to you through your microphone to serve targeted ads, no really we have proof now!" discourse, and I'm revisiting my long-term hobby of trying (and failing) to convince people that this isn't happening It's fascinating to me how hard it is to talk people out of believing this one - there was a podcast episode about exactly this challenge back in 2017 and it's still true today https://gimletmedia.com/shows/reply-all/z3hlwr 13 comments
Here's the ad sales pitch deck in question - my "this is a total scam" antenna were vibrating like crazy when I read it https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25051283-cmg-pitch-deck-on-voice-data-advertising-active-listening  @simon I worked out that a certain type of person, with a very specific tattoo, liked one of a few sentences about their tattoo. I didn't know them. I didn't need to have listened to them. This tattoo, meant I could use a few lines. All the "ads are listening" folks are saying is "How are the ads being targetted at me?". @simon  @simon Here is CMG's "denial" from last December. Note the way this denial is phrased which still allows third-party apps listening & then sharing either the audio or the data inferred from it with CMG. - They say "do not LISTEN" instead of "do no ANALYZE" conversations.  @simon I think it's so resilient because it's technically feasible and believable that they would. I know it's not happening,but I completely believe they would  @simon I've fallen for this one... Since Cambridge Analytica my "unethical bullshit vs unethical mvp" sensor is badly skewed towards false positives  @simon Do you have theory where do these "false positives" came from? @severak I think it's coincidence. Anyone who speaks out loud likely carries a phone with them. Every day that phone is present for hours of spoken conversation. A few times a year, people go "wow, that targeted ad is suspiciously similar to something I said out loud just now". They're not taking into account the thousands of hours of audio which did NOT coincide with a relevant ad.  @simon I think people just can't fathom how much data Meta have amassed, and how the ads could possibly be so targeted. From what I've heard, they do have some super spooky abilities, like take any device MAC address (e.g. from shopping mall Wi-Fi) and be able to both identify the owner as well as their interest cohort @benschwarz right - people would be shocked at the amount of information that genuinely gets aggregated about them, so it’s not surprising that they believe the bits that aren’t true considering how much more complex (and opaque) the stuff that’s true is @simon Related Tildes conversation about that subject: https://tildes.net/~tech/1ijs/in_leak_facebook_partner_brags_about_listening_to_your_phones_microphone_to_serve_ads_for_stuff_you |
Gregory's Server
Here's one thread on Lobste.rs - triggered by a new story about that thing from December last year where an ad sales team at Cox Media Group were caught lying to their customers about having "active listening" technology that targeted ads based on recorded audio: https://lobste.rs/s/mf7guc/leak_facebook_partner_brags_about