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Comment by Nextgrid | Hacker News Reader

It’s ironic how Facebook uses all kinds of lies and dark patterns to steal data from their users but gets pissed off when someone else does it (or provides services for it as it is in this case).

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Yes, that's because phishing is an actual crime.

so is wiretapping, but in our household we have a running joke that if we're too lazy to google something, or say "ok google", we can just say "ok facebook bed frame bed frame bed frame" in the direction of our phones, and fb/instagram will start showing us ads for bed frames in a few hours. It works a surprisingly large amount of the time.

Wiretapping is only illegal if you don't give permission for it. By having a device that's always recording audio, you're implicitly giving permission for what you describe.

I can't speak for other platforms, but if you've ever developed apps for iPhone, you'd know this is pretty much impossible for FB to do.

Depends if you're sitting on a pile of exploits. Or just abusing loopholes to collect information from minors.

Is our memory really this short?

https://techcrunch.com/2019/01/29/facebook-project-atlas/

Doing this specific thing is quite easy, using public APIs, just by correlating data between signed in users.

I should be more clear: I'm referring to secretly recording audio.

This is not actually happening, and I'm sad to see how long this misinformation persists on HackerNews... Not only not technically feasible, it'd also get out in the numerous lawsuits that Facebook is involved in, which get access to internal information like this.

You’re imagining it. It’s crazy that this kind of disinformation is still going around.

It happened to me and other people I know too. How can people in the comments deny that when a lot of people have empirical evidence?

If you give the permission to Messenger to use the microphone, that is required to make voice calls, then I believe it's possible for it to use it anytime.

There is not a lot of empirical evidence for this, and even less evidence of any other kind.

What -does- have a lot of that, is the statement that humans are particularly bad at classifying random events.

Everyone worries about google. Google will become part of the public infrastructure after some external challenge forces it to. At what point does facebook turn hostile and start exposing personal secrets to the public unless you pay or at least come back and visit to change settings? You can feel it coming...

2 wrongs don't make a right. And sure, FB uses "dark patterns", but that's a lot more subtle than registering obvious phishing domains. There's simply no defense for that at all; it's obviously aiding and abetting criminal activity.

> it's obviously aiding and abetting criminal activity.

Criminal activity like election interference? Has Facebook been fined for that yet?

Pot calling the kettle blue...

One is illegal, the other is not. Apples and oranges.

Edit: what's with the downvotes? I'm not defending the practice, just stating facts.

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