Facebook, why are you showing me adverts for [!!!]

So, I started getting adverts for [!!!]*** in my feed recently, and my first thought after I haven't been searching for that, was I haven't been talking about that. That pub conversation about the creepy ads that pop up suggesting something discussed earlier that day, like an over-eager personal assistant trying to anticipate needs you never thought you had, that happens nowadays. And I don't think it's just internet pareidolia, seeing order and intent in the random straw-scatter of commercial trolling. Although I'm still not sure why the internet is bringing me [!!!].

So, I'm fairly loose with my permissions on my phone - I'm a Google Guide, I have a timeline, I run phone games with sweeping permissions, linked up to my Facebook. Bixby's only partially set up (my assistant app) but I use google to identify music quite a lot, so it's used to listening. I should be a nice visible smear of data to the main data-brokers, with a location, interests, soundtrack and oh, waaay more. But could it really be listening?

Sure, I think so. I'm not even sure it would be hard. I'm while I'm not an expert in this area by any means here is my hypothesis.

All listening apps (and Facebook is one, because you can use it for phonecalls) keep a small amount of audio in buffer at all times (and Google is one, so you can run audio searches) so it can check for activation phrases (and Apple is one so it can run Siri) and become better at understanding your voice (and honestly, I could go on here for a while). Google knows where these files live. Possibly, lots of programmes know where these files live. If your phone and operating system are aligned (oh, and they have to be, so that audio can be improved on phone calls with poor connections) then those files can be accessed, analysed and used, perhaps to improve speech recognition technology (Google are open about doing this) and perhaps to give you a pair of jeans that might match the conversation you had about them earlier.

You'll notice I'm not saying this in a tone of any great panic. Part of the nature of buffered information is that it is both disposable and rapidly disposed, and audio is data-heavy. The vast bulk of this audio information will be dumped, though (as various experiences with web-cam data breaches have taught us), there are probably some bits and bobs retained as baseline, sample and reference, blah blah blah. That little ripple of activity around the data food source of the noise you're making is a weak and evanescent signal, not strong enough to do more than tweak an ad or improve a location report.

Who's listening? Mainly algorithms and analysis software, though good old Amazon puts samples to human ear. And what's it linked up to? If you visit that article (again - you probably read it once already) you'll note that it came from a whistle blower worried that they had neither reporting mechanism nor capability for troubling audio content. They couldn't identify the users as data was stripped of identification data on the way to the human listener, so no mechanisms for reporting data according to concerns about the individual was included in the business process. Protecting privacy and avoiding responsibility often do go hand in hand; and I suspect that you may insert qualifiers into that sentence. But it isn't always about what's possible. It's also about what's practicable.

So: algorithms filtering my audio wormcast for actionable data that my be used to fine-tune my advertising offer before said audio is dispersed by the tides of automated data cleansing? Practicable.  My phone listening in on my every word and alerting a third party when I make produce concerning content? Possible, and sadly I do know that there are apps for that, which are often used in the context of abuse, grooming and domestic violence. But doing that for everyone? Neither practicable (we don't have the resources for follow-up) nor possible (the processing power required would not be available) nor profitable (signal to noise ratio all wrong).

Tech giants listening to everything I say and using it to build a profile of me that could be used to deepfake my identity? In my dreams. No, seriously, I dream of having that much processing power dedicated to replicating my identity. It's a sort of tech immortality. Or not, I guess. Would you care?

To return briefly to [!!!], ****I should clarify that [!!!] in this case does not refer to the band. It's just a thing, you know. But not a thing I'd discuss in a public context. Never mind here's some music

jam yesterday

This is my Jam announced its closure late last night. I came late to it (a long time after I gave up on my previous semi-social music recommendation randomiser, blip.fm, which went during the early days of Flash instability, following one too many terrifying jackhammer soundcard lean-on-the-power-button errors) and I'm intermittent on everything nowadays, so I'd barely cracked 20 jams. I feel like I just arrived in time to see the closing down signs.

The reasons boil down to three -- fast evolution in its feeder services, creating a need for impossibly constant development of the interface tools; an increase in these services denying sharing (which sometimes seems to be down the artist wanting that, as in the case of Prince; but in the case of artists trying to get their songs up the charts, seems more likely to be as a result of the administrative burden of enabling sharing in a world where the companies involved are beginning to set sharing to "off" as standard);  and the lack of enthusiasm, time, legislative force and money to do it again for mobile.

Sat as I am, right at the end of development on a mobile-first, social-integrated website, this chills me a little. Of course, in my sector, there's no venture capital or straining to be the next big thing; but is the approach of trying to integrate with Social Networking Sites (because that's where people are™) and designing "mobile first" (with the full awareness that the fast and divergent development of the different operating systems  means that you can only really design for a few mobiles first, and they probably won't be the ones next year's users will be using) a fool's game?

Not much to do about it, I suppose. It's the game we're in.

While I was writing this, I listened through my latest jam-list. Halfway down, I spotted a track off the new Chemical Brothers album (I'm considering purchase, and being both old fashioned and keen to support a local indie record store, do sometimes buy physical CDs, especially when there are added inducements) which I made a mental note to listen out for.

Alas, the playlist skipped straight from



to


which I struggled to feel sad about, as the degradation occurred without fuss or stutter, and both tracks were a lovely listen.

A quick visit to Youtube confirmed that the Chemical Brothers track had been scrubbed off Youtube, and the video labelled with the track name was instead a small random video of a snippet of music you could mistake for the beginning of a track, with many ads appended (hooray the internet).

Twitter, will you please stop badgering me about cricket

My phone, admittedly, is on its last legs, memory-wise. It left contract before Christmas, but when I headed back into the shop it had been given an Apple store makeover (white, about three products on sale, prices and information tidied away into 9pt type, grey on white) and I turned on my heel and left, impossibly irritated by the fact that a brand choice I had made because it was cheap, cheerful, simple and yet still offered acceptable product options appeared to have dumped the last three of those in a desperate attempt to pretend they are not the first. Which they still are. Cheap, albeit increasingly expensive with it.

So, it's an old phone. Which means two things. One, it struggles to run the apps, especially when an advert fires off. Two, the adverts being served to me are old person adverts. Twitter, since the adverts began to really ramp up (in common with many people working in my sector I recently went on a Twitter Analytics seminar which was essentially an hour's worth of pointing out that (in common with the other well-populated social network) small advertising spend = huge increase in exposure) has been a particular pain to run on the phone. The auto-loading promoted tweet at the outset is verging on cripple-ware (and I'm a regular user of advert-supported Words with Friends, so my bar is very low when it comes to what is acceptable, ad-wise) and it is as the moment always and without exception for bloody cricket.

Don't get me wrong. I have no problem with the fact that cricket happens, that people care about it, that people follow it, But I, I do not follow cricket. My sports preference is actually explicit on Twitter (I follow a few professional cyclists plus some of the more amusing commentators) but even setting that aside, nothing about my age, sex, interests or other demographic information would suggest I am likely to be interested in cricket. Why, Twitter? Why must you persist in banging on about cricket, like that friend of your Dad's who is recently divorced, getting on a bit and congenitally unable to notice when anyone is bored, or might wish to talk about something else?

Last week, for the first time, I noticed a tiny x next to the promoted Tweet, and a finger-prod provoked the hover-tip "Dismiss". Finally! I thought, I can get rid of the cricket! This morning, though, brought an email. About cricket. From Twitter. Personally addressed, just to bring home what great chums we are. "XXXXX XXXXX, experience the quarter finals of the cricket world cup!"

Oh, I am experiencing them, Twitter, I am. Whether I want to or not, it seems.