Facebook just announced a new feature to its app, which will let it listen to our conversations and surroundings through our own phones’ microphone. Talk about a Big Brother move.

Facebook says the feature will be used for harmless things, like identifying the song or TV show playing in the background, but by using the phone's microphone every time you write a status update, it has the ability to listen to everything.

Not only is this move just downright creepy, it’s also a massive threat to our privacy. The feature is opt-in, but many won't even read the warnings. If we act now, we can stop Facebook in its tracks before it has a chance to release the feature.

Tell Facebook not to release its creepy and dangerous new app feature that listens to users’ surroundings and conversations.

Facebook says it'll be responsible with this feature, but we know we can't trust it. After all, just a few months ago Facebook came under fire for receiving millions of dollars for working with the National Security Agency’s PRISM, a wide-scale and highly controversial public electronic data surveillance program -- something its CEO Mark Zuckerberg initially denied. This is also the company that lied about its now-scuttered Beacon program -- an advertisement system that sent our “private” data from external websites to Facebook.

It seems like every few months, there's another big Facebook privacy scandal, and yet the social media giant is pushing this new app anyway. Why? The information it gathers by listening to its 1.2 billion users worldwide can be sold for huge profits to advertisers and corporations looking for better information on consumer tastes and preferences.

Facebook is acting in the best interests of its bank account, not its users. This has gone too far - we have to stop it now.

Facebook: This is an extreme invasion of your users’ privacy. Do not release this new feature, and do not listen to us through our phones’ microphones.

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More information:

Facebook Microphone Update To Store Data: Social Media Giant Confirms New Feature Will Aggregate Information International Business Times, May 22, 2014.

Facebook Wants To Listen In On What You're Doing Forbes, May 22, 2014.

Facebook's response