The Civilian March 2018

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THE

CIVILIAN CIVILIAN

A STUDENT PUBLICATION FOR THE LSU LAW CENTER COMMUNITY MARCH 2018 | VOLUME 15 | ISSUE 5

#DELETEFACEBOOK Cavett Feazel Staff Writer

Is Facebook spying on you through your phone’s microphone, or is this idea just another internet conspiracy run amok? While millions of people believe Facebook is using their phone’s microphone to listen in on private conversations, the social media giant has defended itself, with Rob Goldman, the head of advertising, tweeting, “We don’t—and have never—used your microphone for ads—just not true.”

The digital conglomerate admittedly uses your phone’s microphone, but not for the Orwellian purposes many would have you believe. As expected, Facebook claims they are not using your microphone to inform ads or change what you see in your newsfeed. The company says that a phone’s microphone is only accessed when a user has granted the Facebook app permission and is using a feature that requires audio, such as recording a video. It should come as no surprise to anyone that Facebook is collecting information on its userbase. The tech-giant is, in all senses, a collector of user data, which

they use to “provide, improve, and develop services.” The information is shared with a wide array of people, apps, and other companies to enhance user experience. However, anecdotal accounts of Facebook’s alleged spying practices have become rampant the past couple of years. You can easily find amateur experiments purporting to show that Facebook is indeed spying on you. These experiments often consist of people discussing a certain topic or placing their phone next to audio in foreign languages. However, these experiments lack any scientific value and a reasonable person would assume that the user has, in one way or another, granted Facebook some level of access to their phone. Most likely, users complaining of the spying allowed access to their phone and simply forgot about it; people do this regularly without questioning the implications. While the company does not spy on people through microphones, Facebook is in deep trouble concerning the ways in which they use and share the information they collect. To further their PR problems, Facebook is facing a scandal in

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