Alarm bells rang out across the tech world as recent research revealed that the social media giant Facebook listens to every word you speak in order to display related advertisements.
Professor Kelli Burns, a mass communication professor at the University of South Florida has claimed Facebook trends that clearly indicate that it is listening to users speak in the vicinity of their phones.
Burns' report claims her team has verified the fact that Facebook's mobile app grants itself access to your phone's microphone and possibly monitors your conversation to display more relatable advertisements on the news feed.
Burns had conducted this research with the help of a few journalists and had come to the conclusion that if a user would speak about a holiday in Africa, the Facebook application would display advertisements related to holiday packages or resorts in Africa.
However Burns also hedged her bets, admitting that she may have been searching online for the same things she spoke out loud – in which case Facebook was simply reacting to other data it has picked up on her habits.
However, Facebook has officially verified that their phone application's does access the microphone of the devices in which it is installed.
The social media major said in a 2014 press release, "When writing a status update – if you choose to turn the feature on – you’ll have the option to use your phone’s microphone to identify what song is playing or what show or movie is on TV."
However Facebook denied claims that the feature stored conversations or automatically posted whatever users were listening to, calling such claims "a myth".
In a report published in the Register, the company pointed out, "Facebook does not use microphone audio to inform advertising or News Feed stories in any way. Businesses are able to serve relevant ads based on people's interests and other demographic information, but not through an audio collection."
Well, whatever the case may be, one thing is evident after reading the reports - Facebook is capable of listening to whatever you say.