TLDR: they have so much recent time data on you from various sources that they can make you believe that you are being listened
this post was submitted on 26 Apr 2025
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privacy
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So there are more than 9000 apps that take screenshots because somehow that's in the permissions list that neither Apple nor Google check when they claim to provide security - especially Apple when they claim that locking you in is better for you.
There are news reports of people getting add before babies were born simply because of what people were buying. Sometimes the people didn't know they were pregnant themselves! That's how embedded they are in our lives and people go "well, nothing to hide, right?" and don't even flinch. Imagine being sent to jail because an SD agency detected you were pregnant but aborted it and you live in an antiabortion state.
"Nothing to hide"
They are absolutely listening, I had a family member start getting credit card offers for an unborn baby that wasn't even named officially yet.
Why would that need listening? I imagine if one is pregnant you are searching for lots of information online: symptoms, physicians, due date etc.
It doesn't need to listen to you when it already controls what you talk about.
Yep, if they can control thought patterns, they can control what you do, and then they can control what you want
The end result being "well why wouldn't I want ads that show me personalized ads? I'm likely to give more of a shit", not knowing that you're signing yourself up for potentially even limiting your nuances Surveillance Capitalism style
So you may adamantly claim Facebook must have listened in on your private conversation yesterday about a friend’s wedding and then served you an ad for tailored wedding suits because you have not googled anything wedding-related in years. But there are scores of other data points the system has on you to determine what you should see at any given point. Not only does the system know exactly where you are at every moment, it knows who your friends are, what they are interested in, and who you are spending time with. It can track you across all your devices, log call and text metadata on Android phones, and even watch you write something that you end up deleting and never actually send.
I read the article. I can tell the author was paid to write an article to gaslight the theory, but actually managed to illuminate the truth. Thank you, literary artist