A FACEBOOK user has claimed that the social network is listening to his conversations after spotting a “weird” post on his feed shortly after.
The myth has plagued Facebook for years but there’s never been any solid proof of it happening.
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TikToker TJ Mills claims he was chatting to his other half about VR game arcades and mentioned that there aren’t any in the area.
However, the next day he was stunned to see a VR arcade in Birmingham advertised on his Facebook feed.
“Is Facebook listening?” he asked followers on TikTok.
“Is Facebook listening to our conversations?
“Or is it just me? Nah, that’s weird. They’re listening, shh… be quiet.”
Can Facebook listen to your conversations?
Facebook has repeatedly denied the claims, highlighting that it bases the ads you see on your interests and information from your profile.
A number of independent investigations have found no evidence that the firm secretly listens to its users.
Experts say that, while Facebook hoards plenty of data, it’s extremely unlikely that the company secretly records hundreds of millions of people.
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And crucially, Facebook doesn’t need to anyway, as it already knows quite a bit about what makes you tick.
Things like browsing data and profile information are enough to target you with very specific ads.
In TJ Mills’s case, it’s quite likely he and his partner’s apps have worked out what interests them based on their internet searches and other browsing online.
They may have previously searched about VR arcades too and forgotten about it.
Facebook is able to build quite a detailed picture of what makes us tick, so here the algorithm cleverly targeted them with an ad on VR arcades nearby.
Like many claims of Facebook hijacking phone microphones, the appearance of the ads was purely circumstantial.
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This post first appeared on Thesun.co.uk
