Dust up over the Facebook Messenger app.

[Mooncatt]

I've seen many people lately complaining about being forced to install the Facebook messenger app to receive messages. I can understand users not wanting separate apps, but I've seen "news" reports saying fb is invading your privacy with the permissions of the messenger app. Even to the point I've seen several people on fb saying the messenger app can now listen in on phone calls and record you on camera without you knowing.

They site the permissions about app having access to the phone's mic and camera and jump to that conclusion. They seem to not notice in the app description that the messenger lets you record videos to share. So it makes sense the app needs those permissions. I've seen other spying/spamming claims with the other permissions that also have legit uses when you realize what the app is meant to do.

So my question is, is there any word on if fb is actually trying to spy and/or spam people, invading privacy, etc with the app? I'm thinking no, at least not that's been discovered anyway. It seems like the so called news sites reporting this are just repeating the permission list and descriptions associated with them that Google makes, without putting them in context of the app's feature list or that every other messenger type app would have those same permissions.

 

[STARGATE]

Could they spy on us, definitely.
Are the doing it, like you said nobody has found out.
I like to think they aren't. But we can only hope for the best or stop using technology.

Sent From The 5th Galaxy Inside The Time Vortex.

 

[Mooncatt]

Yeah, my thinking is they already do that enough by monitoring our usage for marketing purposes. Glad I rarely view it on my computer because the mobile site is largely ad free. On a related note:

I liked everything I saw on facebook for two days, and here's what it did to me.

 

[Timelessblur]

It is more it is easy click back.
Really if you at the stock Facebook app it has almost all the same permission.

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk