Facebook Inc. has denied that it spies on what users are saying via their smartphone microphones to deliver targeted advertising, despite many users suggesting that it does just that.

Rob Goldman, vice president of ads products at Facebook, defended the company in a response to a tweet by a tech podcast presenter calling for people’s stories on why they believe Facebook may be listening in on their conversations, saying simply: “I run ads product at Facebook. We don’t — and have never — used your microphone for ads. Just not true.”

According to the BBC, a number of Twitter users responded to the original request, with one saying that “a co-worker got an ad saying, ‘So you popped the question!’ minutes after he proposed, before he told anyone it had happened.” Another wrote that “at work, happened to me though earlier this year. Working as a barista, got a burn, talked to my partner in person about it, went to Target, bought the burn cream, and saw an ad on FB for the exact product I purchased. Never searched for product either.”

In another tweet in which a user asked whether Facebook was listening to users via Instagram, Goldman also denied that such activity takes place.

The idea that Facebook spies on users via their microphone isn’t a new one. The social networking giant previously denied that it accesses a user’s microphone back in 2016. At the time, it said it “does not use your phone’s microphone to inform ads or to change what you see in News Feed” and it shows ads based only on people’s interests and other profile information.

It’s potentially possible that Facebook has honed its machine learning and artificial intelligence to deliver targeted advertising in such a way that it can predict what people may require before they’ve even typed a query into their computer smartphone.

But not everyone is as trusting. Kelli Burns, a professor of mass communications at the University of South Florida, claimed in 2016 that the Facebook app was listening to discussions to serve users with relevant advertising. She said had successfully tested the theory by discussing certain topics around the phone and then found Facebook showing ads related to what she had been discussing, though Facebook denied targeting advertising then as well.

Photo: Megapixel