{"id":64968,"date":"2015-10-12T12:00:58","date_gmt":"2015-10-12T11:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=64968"},"modified":"2015-10-12T07:50:18","modified_gmt":"2015-10-12T06:50:18","slug":"manipulating-reality-facebook-is-listening-to-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2015\/10\/manipulating-reality-facebook-is-listening-to-you\/","title":{"rendered":"Manipulating Reality: Facebook Is Listening to You"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Illustration: Joelle L \/ Flickr via Creative Commons Illustration<\/p><\/div>\n

One thing we have become all too used to is that our reality can be manipulated to create the appearance of something else entirely. Invading another country is defensive, rigged elections are passed off as democracy in action, more guns (or more nuclear weapons) ensure the peace, trade and foreign investment increase jobs at home.\u00a0 Orwellian logic has become commonplace.<\/p>\n

What I am reporting on here is another kind of manipulation: How Facebook and other social media use the information we for the most part unknowingly provide it\u2014including even words we speak in the privacy of our own homes\u2014to advertise products that we didn\u2019t request and almost certainly don\u2019t want, and pass data on to the government.<\/p>\n

I am hardly the first to discover this extraordinary capability.\u00a0 A number of other people have expressed their astonishment and anger when they became aware that key words they used in Facebook and Twitter communication, such as messaging, location, and status, as well as in private conversations anywhere in their homes, were being picked up and almost instantly converted into ads.\u00a0 You mention a particular sport and a ticketing agency\u2019s ad appears.\u00a0 You say you would love to drive a Lexus and up pops a Lexus ad.\u00a0 You talk about a vacation, and a Facebook ad refers you to a Hawaiian beach or a small Paris hotel that\u2014lo and behold\u2014you had actually mentioned just yesterday!<\/p>\n

Is this paranoia?\u00a0 Is Facebook (or Instagram, Google, or Yahoo) capable of listening in on our conversations?\u00a0 Facebook readily admits that its business model relies on the data we enter or transmit online, that once we join the data essentially becomes Facebook\u2019s property, and that (as Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, has argued) most people don\u2019t care all that much about their privacy anyway. Of course Facebook et al. defend their model by telling you they are merely responding to your wants, and that if you wish they can reduce (but not eliminate) advertising if you\u2019ll simply check a list provided in their program settings.\u00a0 But as to actually\u00a0listening in, Facebook contends<\/a> that only you control the microphone, and (according to the head of Facebook security) you must give permission to Facebook to activate it.\u00a0 Does anyone recall being asked for permission?<\/p>\n

You apparently\u00a0can\u00a0disable the microphone function<\/a> in Windows or the Facebook mobile app on your smart phone or tablet. \u00a0But does \u201coff\u201d actually mean completely off?\u00a0 Apparently not<\/a>. My wife Jodi\u2019s and my own experiences\u00a0after<\/em>\u00a0we turned off the microphone on her computer say otherwise.\u00a0 Note that the ads appeared within seconds of our speaking.<\/p>\n