Facebook listens to user voice messages, Bloomberg investigation

Another scandal involving Facebook on the way: the company admitted that they gave third-party contractors access to the voice messages of their users.

Facebook admitted to wiretapping

How it was: Facebook tested its own artificial intelligence, designed to translate voice recordings into text. To do this correctly, AI needs training, and they decided to train the car on user records.

The verification took place as follows: Facebook attracted a number of companies whose responsibilities included listening to voice messages and checking compliance with the text written by AI. In this case, voice recordings were used only of those users who themselves gave their consent. This is the official position of Facebook itself.

Bloomberg conducted its investigation and came to the conclusion that in practice everything is not so smooth. After talking with contractors who were engaged in wiretapping, the publication found out that they themselves were not aware of why they were engaged in decoding voice messages. Moreover, employees of these companies say that these records were not always innocent in nature.

Of course, Facebook paid good money to these contractors, although the exact numbers were not disclosed. The company assured that they no longer do this, but the problem does not become less relevant.

Finally, Bloomberg decided to check Facebook’s statement of user consent for wiretapping voice messages and shoveled the user agreement. It is written in abstruse formulations that a company can use any information that a user transmits, but there are no references to audio messages separately. Nor does it say about the company's right to transfer this data to third parties.

I think this situation does not surprise anyone. The entire financial success of Facebook revolves around the use of our personal data. If overnight the company stops doing this, it will become something like Tumblr without pornography, that is, nothing.

Publication date 08/14/2019
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