Facebook once again breaching user security
Facebook has done it again. Bloomberg reports that Facebook has been paying hundreds of outside contractors to transcribe audio messages from Facebook Messenger. Contract employees said they were hearing users’ full conversations. They couldn’t say, though, why Facebook might needs these conversations transcribed.
The company has confirmed it had been transcribing audio messages, but also said that it will no longer do it. The company announced that “much like Apple and Google, we paused human review of audio more than a week ago.”
The reason behind they employed real people to listen to private conversations was to “check whether Facebook’s AI correctly interpreted the messages”. It is unclear though why a social company would want to know what users are talking about.
Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, has previously denied in front of US Congress that his company was collecting audio from users to inform ads or help determine what people see in their news feeds, calling it “conspiracy theory” in a response to US Senator Gary Peters.
However, the company did confirm that it “only accesses users’ microphone if the user has given app permission and actively using a specific feature that requires audio.”