For years, many smartphone users have believed a persistent theory that apps secretly eavesdrop through microphones, listening to conversations to serve eerily accurate ads.
The suspicion usually arises when a product is casually mentioned aloud and soon after, an advertisement for it appears on Instagram or Facebook.
Instagram head Adam Mosseri has once again addressed these claims, stating that the company does not use microphones to track or listen to private conversations.
He explained that such an operation would be easy to detect because devices have built-in indicators for microphone use, it would drain battery life, and it would be challenging to conceal from users.
Mosseri’s comments come at a time when Meta is changing its advertising systems. The company is turning toward signals generated by AI interactions, suggesting that conversations with AI models can provide more accurate insights into user interests than overheard audio ever could.
This shift means microphone surveillance would not only be unnecessary but also inefficient compared to the predictive power of AI-driven data.
Meta has been forced to defend itself against allegations of microphone spying for nearly a decade. In 2016, the company publicly denied the practice, and later, CEO Mark Zuckerberg repeated that denial under questioning in the U.S. Congress.
Despite these assurances, many users remain unconvinced because the coincidences of ad targeting feel too precise to be accidental.
According to Mosseri, part of the mystery can be explained by psychology. Ads often appear before a user discusses a product, but the memory of seeing it on Instagram may not register.
When the topic arises later in conversation, it can feel as though the device was secretly listening, creating the illusion of surveillance.
“You might have actually seen that ad before you had the conversation and not realized it,” he points out. “We scroll quickly. We scroll by ads quickly. And sometimes you internalize some of that, and that actually affects what you talk about later,” Mosseri says.
Still, reactions to Mosseri’s latest remarks show that skepticism runs deep. From the comments to his post alone, many people dismissed his explanation, insisting that the uncanny accuracy of Instagram ads cannot be written off as coincidence or subconscious recall.
For some, the repeated denials only fuel suspicion, reinforcing the belief that tech giants are hiding the true extent of their data collection practices.
Even if microphones are not in play, Meta’s ad business still relies heavily on extensive data signals. User activity across websites, apps, and demographic categories feeds into targeting systems.
With AI now providing new ways to interpret behavior, these models could become even more powerful at predicting what people are likely to want or need.
