Is Facebook eavesdropping on your conversations? Welcome to the scary world of big data
About a month ago, my fiancee told me a strange story. According to her, she had been having a verbal discussion with her sister about purchasing an oven. A short while later, while she was perusing her Facebook news feed, the site served her an advertisement for the exact kind of oven she had been discussing earlier. I wasn't overly impressed with this argument, considering how we often search for the most random things online and forget about them later. An oven is a fairly popular product, I thought, and she must have searched for it at some point on Google or Facebook, or even watched a video on YouTube about baking, setting off a targeted ad. However, she stuck to her claim, but eventually the conversation tapered out and I forgot about the incident.
Until I stumbled across this post on Medium shortly after, which I'd recommend you read for some context (4 min read):
https://medium.com/@damln/instagram-is-listening-to-you-97e8f2c53023
Okay then. Instagram, as you probably know, is owned by Facebook, as is WhatsApp, though the fact that conversations on the latter are end-to-end encrypted offer a modicum of relief from this sense of growing paranoia (though Facebook may still have access to who you have those conversations with). The content of this article seems pretty damning. The writer is familiar with technology, and unlike my fiancee, has substantially more evidence to back up his claims. The odds that Mark Zuckerburg could be the catalyst for an Orwellian future seemed a lot more plausible at this point.
As this story also started to fade from memory (us modern humans have surprisingly relaxed reactions to claims with potentially major implications), one of my favourite podcasts, Reply All, touched upon the issue in an episode aptly titled 'Is Facebook spying on you?' You can listen to it at the link below, and I would recommend following the podcast if you enjoy great stories centered around technology.
https://megaphone.link/GLT8773340180
In this particular episode, the hosts of the show talk to multiple people who believe the same thing, and try to come up with logical explanations for how Facebook could target so precisely without having actually overheard the conversation. Host Alex Goldman even has a chat with Antonio Garcia Martinez, one of the minds that created targeted advertising at Facebook, and found out about how the company is able to get so good at figuring out what products to push to you.
Basically, Facebook collects a LOT of information from your profile, breaking it down into hyper-specific categories. The sheer number of these categories, the level of specificity they go into, and the number of algorithms at work crunching all this information means that sometimes even Facebook employees can't give you a satisfactory answer as to how you got served the ad that creeped you out. A lot of this information is actually accessible on the Facebook app, inside the Settings menu that has slowly been expanding without us noticing. and you even have some control over what your interests are to be served better ads. You can even see some of the categories your Facebook profile has been listed under (Account settings>Ads>Your information>Your categories>Review and manage your categories). I, for example, prefer high value goods, am interested in console gaming, and am a 'close friend of expats'.
About a week after the episode aired, Martinez himself wrote a piece on Wired explaining in further detail how targeted advertising has got so good. The quick takeaway from the post, which is linked below, is that while Facebook could theoretically snoop on you using your microphone, the amount of data this would consume and the meagre amount of advertiser-friendly info this exercise would provide is just not worth the effort.
https://www.wired.com/story/facebooks-listening-smartphone-microphone/
So no, Facebook is not really listening in your conversations, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't be concerned about how much predictive power our data holds. The Internet has been abuzz with stories of how Facebook helped connect relatives who did not know of their relation, or how Target figured out one of its customers was pregnant based on their buying patterns. Big data can make connections our human minds would not think to make, and most of us give away this precious data with barely a thought.
If this concerns you, take a long, hard look at your privacy settings, particularly on your phone. Check app permissions and revoke any that have no business being there. Run through Facebook's settings with a fine-toothed comb and change anything you deem fishy. Clear your browser cookies often, conduct sensitive financial transactions, flight bookings etc. in Incognito Mode, and of course, do not let your browser store any personal information like your credit card details, no matter how convenient this feels to the shopaholic within you.
The secret war for our data has been raging for years, and it's time we got back the upper hand - as best we can.
(Image credit: Pixabay | geralt)