Is Facebook listening to your conversations?

Is Facebook tapping our microphones? The ads we often see are extremely specific. Sometimes they even advertise things we just talked about with friends. How does Facebook target us with such on-point ads? Ashley Carman reports on this episode of Gadget Myth Busting.

[TheVerge]

Have you ever gotten a weirdly specific ad?

[westonkenyonmusic]

My mom was watching an exercise video on the desktop with the internet off. Her phone was sitting on the desk near it. When she later went on Facebook, she got a whole bunch of ads for the same fitness thing she was doing and she said she hasn't gotten them in a long time.

[foxglove]

it's kinda crazy how I can have a conversation in my own apartment about some obscure topic, then minutes later refresh my facebook feed and just happen to see a sponsored ad relating to whatever we were talking about. Doesn't happen often but frequent enough to seem like more than a coincidence.

[nipunsharma]

Why are we not discussing the same thing about Google? The biggest company that started it all and has ad revenue as it's explicitly mentioned business model.

Even hardware manufacturers like Apple and Samsung use their voice assistants to collect data about users. Whether they sell it or not is a different thing. Google does that, however.

[ByteReview]

Cool to see an inside shot of the verge office, enjoyed the videography in general on this one :)!

[jmmacalalag]

They do it with messages... I was talking with my friend about roast pork and all of sudden I see roast pork ads.

[Podcastage]

I see a Blue Snowball on that desk. =)

[samushunter]

It's at the point that we use the Internet for everything so it's hard for us to try avoid these companies from tracking us no matter how many ways we try to prevent it. That's just the sad truth about it all unfortunately.

[rahoolv]

All the time. Lately, I have started seeing ads on Facebook from the websites that I have browsed on a different browser in which I haven't even logged-in on Facebook, EVER!

[amandeep]

It has happened many times to me. When I am talking about something with my friend and I open facebook and suddenly my feed starts showing ads related to the topic I was talking about.
Also, they definitely track your browsing history.

[aherprasad]

ZUCC Boi knows what I'm thinking right now.

[bricemilleson]

Wrong, Facebook is 100% using our microphones to place ads. I recently was on the phone with my girlfriend and mentioned an attraction I wanted to take her too and 5 minutes later after ending the call, an AD for this attraction showed up on my feed. No searches or anything, all I did was say the word of the attraction over the phone. This has happened MANY TIMES

[TheVerge]

Hey! Thanks for watching! So here’s the thing: deleting your account won’t stop Facebook from tracking you. Learn about shadow profiles, the data Facebook collects even without an account, below. -Ashley Carman

[_C_FL]

Twitter reads texts and banking info. I once bought a Coke with my debit card then was texting a friend about having tacos later that night. 10mins later, I get an add: “Coke goes great with tacos!”

[DemiImp]

Facebook wouldn't need tons of processing power. They can parse the audio information directly on the phone.

[Majestros]

I was talking about getting a worm farm this morning with my wife. I just saw an ad for it on my wife's phone hours later. I have never seen a worm farm ad on fb before this

[bossmarko]

cno dito ang pmunta dahil kay claro the third like nyo to kung ikaw ay isa sa pumunta

[TheShagans]

I know several friends that have had ads shown to them based on things they’ve said when the app isn’t even open nor searched for anything in this regard. I definitely believe they tap the mic.

[DZDNDR]

I'd like to see some more!! Keep up the good work. And by the way, where's the first season at?

[castrochristian]

I believe fb is really doing everything they can to know our every move.