Is Facebook Secretly Listening to Your Conversations?

We never got hoverboards, but we did get thin slabs of plastic that can access the entirety of human knowledge, plus Tinder. Apps get us food on demand. Games keep us entertained. Social media services let us connect with friends and loved ones.

As philosopher Paul Virilio once said, “When you invent the ship, you also invent the shipwreck.” So, what disasters lay in wait for our tech-obsessed culture? It could be argued we’ve already seen the worst of it. Facebook seems to have been an unwitting accomplice to Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election. Internet comment boards consistently shine a light on humanity’s baser instincts. Our president controls the media cycle by bashing out crude, and often misspelled, micro-statements on Twitter.

There’s one shipwreck that has long floated underneath the surface of Internet life, popping into our collective consciousness every now and then, like a sudden outbreak of acne. Surveillance.

Sure, the National Security Agency can spy on us without a warrant, as Edward Snowden so famously revealed, but what about our favorite social media platforms? Phones and computers are equipped with state-of-the-art cameras and microphones, after all.

One married couple claims to have conducted an experiment and reached a harrowing conclusion. They say Facebook is listening to our conversations and adjusts their ads accordingly.

With phones close, the couple talked incessantly about cat food for an entire day in July..

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