There is a popular conspiracy theory floating about regarding Facebook where it is claimed that the company uses your smartphone’s microphone to listen in on users. Based on this the company can then help to push targeted ads to users based on what they might be interested in at the moment.We’re sure that many users can sort of see the point of the conspiracy where you open Facebook only to be faced with ads about a product/service that you were just talking about. Facebook has previously denied doing this but the conspiracy just won’t seem to die, so much so that it was brought up again during Facebook’s CEO’s testimony in front of Congress.
Mark Zuckerberg was asked by Senator Gary Peters about targeted advertising, and whether or not it is based on audio obtained from mobile devices to target users, in which Zuckerberg replied by saying, “We do not. Senator, Let me be clear on this. You are talking about the conspiracy theory passed around that we listen to what is going on on your microphone and use that. We do not do that.”
He then notes that the only time audio is recorded is when people use the app to record videos to upload onto Facebook. “We do allow people to take videos on their device and share those. Videos also have audio. We do, while you are taking a video, record that and use that to make the service better by making sure that you have audio. That is pretty clear.”
We’re not sure if his statement is enough to make the conspiracy theories go away, but at the very least it is on public record.