The myth has taken off so much in the last eight years because it feels like it could be true. You do get hyper-targeted ads on Facebook and Google, but it’s not because your phone is listening to you.
You may be typing your thoughts into your phone more than you realize. Yes, you talked about booking a trip to Hawaii, but did you also briefly Google how much flights cost? Did you ask Siri what the best hikes in Maui were? Did you text search on Instagram for beautiful restaurants inside a volcano? That information is sold to advertisers, and you probably tell your phone more than you think.
There’s a bounty of evidence that advertisers can use your search queries, social media usage, and cookies to build a superbly accurate picture of you. That information is tracked by advertisers, so they don’t need your microphone.
However, researchers from Northeastern University tackled this myth in 2018 and found it’s a complete bust. They tested Facebook, Instagram, and over 17,000 other apps, and the researcher found zero instances of an app unexpectedly activating your microphone and sending audio out when not prompted to do so.
So, whilst we know from the Facebook Cambridge Analytica scandal what does actually happen, the fact is there is still zero evidence about microphones being used to listen to all conversations. We’d like to believe it, so the myth does not get stopped. I also fell for this when it was “factually” stated that the advertiser had said it was happening and the webpage was then changed. But it seems now that the webpage never said that at all in the first place.
This sort of thing just makes people more paranoid for no reason. It’s why I always like to have any dissent backed up with some concrete report or evidence. IT is too easy to troll and disagree without reason, but such an argument has zero weight at all.
See https://gizmodo.com/your-phone-is-not-listening-to-you-1851220787