08/21/2019 / By Ethan Huff
There’s really no good reason why Facebook executives like Mark Zuckerberg aren’t in prison, let alone why Facebook still even exists. Nevertheless, they’re all still roaming free, and the platform still operates, with Facebook’s day-to-day functionality apparently now including a collection of audio recordings taken from users without their knowledge or consent.
That’s right: Facebook is right now engaged in a shady, and potentially illegal, operation whereby it secretly and without permission collects the audio of its users talking, and pays “hundreds of outside contractors to transcribe” it all for some unstated purpose – and Congress has done absolutely nothing to stop it, thus far.
According to reports, a handful of “rattled” contract employees with consciences decided to sound the alarm after learning that what they were being paid to do was not outlined in the Privacy Policy of Facebook. Unlike Zuckerberg, these individuals aren’t comfortable with spying on people for no good reason, and without their knowledge or consent.
“They’re hearing Facebook users’ conversations, sometimes with vulgar content, but do not know why Facebook needs them transcribed,” reports explain about what these private contractors have been tasked with doing.
Once news about this was leaked by these contractors, who chose to remain anonymous, Facebook responded by claiming that it has “paused human review of audio more than a week ago” – the company’s use of the word “paused” suggesting that, at some point, the operation will be un-paused at some point, and will proceed as Facebook intends.
To keep up with the latest news about Facebook’s ongoing assault on personal privacy, and the need for this company to be broken up and dissolved by lawmakers, be sure to visit Facebook.Fetch.news and Corruption.news.
While Facebook would probably never come right out and say it, the Zuckerberg-led operation would seem to be aiming for a top spot in the government’s mass-spying apparatus, potentially replacing the National Security Agency (NSA) at some point in the future.
“… in its attempt to cozy with the government, and replace the NSA, Facebook ran out of in-house spies and was forced to hire outside privacy violators in its quest to make a mockery of user privacy,” is how Zero Hedge puts it.
Just like Amazon, Apple, and many others, Facebook continues to get away with violating user privacy without consequence. Despite forking over $5 billion in a recent settlement – this is just a drop in the bucket for the company – Facebook is forging ahead with even more privacy violations, even as Facebook users ignorantly continue to use the spying platform.
Not only is Facebook violating its own Privacy Policy with these egregious operations, but Zuckerberg himself lied before Congress about them, claiming that it’s a “conspiracy theory” that Facebook is listening in on the private conversations of its users.
“We don’t do that,” Zuckerberg stated plainly, as this apparent android-human hybrid infamously and nervously sipped a glass of water during congressional hearings.
In a follow-up hearing, Zuckerberg changed his tune, admitting that Facebook does access users’ audio, but only when users have “given our app permission and if they are actively using a specific feature that requires audio, like voice messaging features.”
At no point has Facebook ever disclosed what it actually does with this audio, however. And even in the latest update of Facebook’s data-use policy, which is supposedly “more understandable” for users, it is not mentioned anywhere that Facebook even collects such data, let alone disclose what happens to it.
“… judging by the non-existent reaction in the stock price following the Bloomberg news, nobody will be losing much sleep over yet another flagrant violation of personal privacy by the company which hopes to soon control not only all global media, but also money, thanks to its Libra initiative,” points out Zero Hedge.
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Tagged Under: audio, Congress, evil corporation, Facebook, mark zuckerberg, personal data, privacy, privacy watch, private conversations, secrecy, spying, surveillance, technocrats, violations, zuckerberg
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