Facebook acquired internet-based messaging platform Whatsapp in 2014, and since then it has been re-tweaking its features to enhance its global popularity. As of July 2021, two billion people were using the messenger on the monthly basis. Had Whatsapp been a country, it would have been one of the heavily populated countries in the world.

Facebook’s Stance on The Issue

Facebook had time and again maintained the stand that it doesn’t – and cannot read the messages sent between the users of Whatsapp owing to its end-to-end encryption feature. But, the latest investigation by ProPublica suggests that Facebook’s claims are nothing, but a giant farce. The investigative report goes on to say that Facebook is spending millions to read the messages sent over Whatsapp and to moderate the content therein. As per the report’s findings, California headquartered multinational technology firm, employs a staff size of more than a thousand across Austin, Texas, Dublin, and Singapore solely for this purpose.

The Big Picture

These contractors spend their day sieving in the pieces of content. Something, Facebook strongly denies about. As per its spokesperson, Facebook can only access Whatsapp messages, when a user hits the report abuse button. This feature, as per the spokesperson, helps in improving the quality of messages, cleanliness of the platform and minimizes threats to a considerable extent. Recently, Whatsapp using several forms of communication such as advertisements has stressed its end-to-end encryption aspect. It has emphasized the fact that the texts can be scrambled and unscrambled by the sender and receiver. The now updated ProPublica report also mentions that the company acknowledged using the services of Whatsapp Content Moderators, only when a red flag was raised. Facebook’s definition of content moderation looks arbitrary on the surface, but at the core, it is designed to safeguard a user’s privacy – even from Facebook.

When Facebook burst onto the scene all those years ago, it changed the way we live forever. Well, it seems as though the tech giant is at it again as Facebook believes their AR glasses could give people super hearing.

Augmented Reality

It might seem like something from a futuristic science fiction movie, but augmented reality glasses are just around the corner. Augmented reality (AR) changes the visual reality around you to replace things with digital images.

Facebook has reportedly been developing their own set of AR glasses since 2017, and they come with an unexpected bonus. The glasses that the social media company are working on could give people super hearing.

Future Goals

Facebook’s Reality Labs Research shared its latest developments in a blog and explained that they were working on two major things for the AR glasses. Firstly, they want to create virtual sounds that cannot be distinguished from reality, and secondly, they wish to “redefine human hearing.”

To change how we hear, Facebook’s research team has analyzed how our brains determine what sounds are and where they come from.

They will use this knowledge to allow people to hear better in noisy rooms by determining what it is you want to listen to. The AR glasses can filter out loud background noises while augmenting someone’s voice from across the room.

Look And Listen

Facebook’s AR glasses will figure out what you want to listen to by analyzing where you are looking. The tech company plans on doing this by capturing sounds around research subjects by using multiple microphones and registering your head-eye movement patterns. These patterns will teach the tech which sounds people are more interested in listening to, effectively giving them super hearing.

While Facebook might be best known for its social media platform, it could soon be providing people with what is essentially a superpower through its AR glasses.