Does Facebook listen to conversations using your smartphone microphone? If you are worried about your privacy and want to prevent your smartphone from «spying» on your conversations through the apps installed, and then see again proposed themed advertising solutions on your favourite social networks, all you have to do is turn off the microphone! In this guide, we will see how to deactivate it on the Facebook app for Android and iOS and beyond!
If you use the Facebook app on Android you will most likely have the microphone option activated. This is usually activated by default at installation. To disable the microphone on the Facebook app for Android, you will need to proceed from your phone's configuration. This is the procedure to follow but it may vary depending on your device model.
Go to your Phone Settings (gear wheel) > Application > Permissions, choose Permissions > Microphone > Facebook app. In any case, once you have entered the microphone settings just move the slider next to the app in question and select Reject or Allow when you want to reactivate the option again.
On other smartphone models, on the other hand, the procedure to access microphone enabling or disabling could follow these steps: go to Settings > General > App & Notifications > App Permissions > Microphone > Facebook and deactivate the microphone.
Disable the Microphone on iPhone
For iPhone owners, go to Settings > Privacy > Microphone > Facebook/Messenger and disable the microphone.
Note: The procedure is valid for any application that uses the microphone as the aforementioned Facebook Messenger or following OK Google.
How to Deactivate OK Google
Open the Google app marked with the G icon:
From here you can access the menu. Tap on three horizontal dots at the bottom right corner of the screen. Then go to Settings > Google Assistant > Permissions > Microphone and here move the cursor to the left to disable the option. In the pop-up window, select Deny Anyway.
How to Manage Ads on Facebook
You can select which ads you see on Facebook by logging directly from the app to the Ad Session. Go to Settings > Account Settings > Listings and click on Listings Preferences here. From here, you can manage your shared information, choose which topics to advertise on and which topics to hide, which advertisers and companies you prefer.
This document, titled « How to Disable the Microphone on the Facebook App », is available under the Creative Commons license. Any copy, reuse, or modification of the content should be sufficiently credited to CCM (ccm.net).
