Facebook: “We definitely do not, not ever, listen in to your conversations, not ever.”

Real-life real-world coffee with my friend this morning and she tells me she sponsors a rat that detects landmines. My phone is in my pocket, unused.

Facebook just now:

I’m fairly tech savvy, I accept that all sorts of data gets tracked, I choose to use the tech nonetheless because I live in a digital world and I like being in that world. I hope fragmentation means no one company holds all my data. But this is just... ugh.

I’m perfectly prepared to accept coincidences between my real world conversations and my online ads. I’m also fine with the idea that anything I look for online will somehow end up fed back to me. This is just creepy, though.

(But I do actually want to sponsor a rat that can detect landmines.)

FWIW, the entire conversation with my friend came about because I was telling her about pigeons being trained to spot tumours and she told me about the rats. Sponsor a rat! https://www.apopo.org/en/adopt 
(or a train pigeon).

Would I be surprised if mega tech corps were listening in on our real-world conversations? Technologically, yeah, I’d be a bit surprised because it’s computationally expensive. Sociologically, lol, no, not surprised at all.

In conclusion, no, I’m not convinced FB is using the mic to spy on me. I do kniw I’m being tracked by dozens — hundreds — of bits of software that tie into location/proximity/fuck knows what. I’d love to know what triggered that particular ad and that time. But *shrug*

But hey: rats are flippin’ awesome. Rats > AI.

I have been manipulated by ad tech and peer pressure and I regret nothing.