Earlier this week, Gamers Nexus, Level1Techs, and independent security researchers detailed some alarming findings about how LG’s TVs are logging and uploading data on its users. Now the company is pushing back against those allegations, saying that “Some recent media coverage may have contributed to misconceptions about how LG smart TVs work.”
LG released a statement in which it claims that its “TVs do not continuously record or transmit users’ conversations,” and that wake-word detection is all processed locally. However, the word “continuously” is doing a lot of heavy lifting here as Gamers Nexus demonstrated an LG TV keeping extensive logs of ambient conversations long after one would assume its AI assistant had stopped listening.
I saw the video of Gamer’s Nexus… Man is like 10 times worse than I thought…
If they were actually wrong about anything, LG would be suing the pants off them right now.
Instead LG are “debunking” claims that weren’t actually made.
Exactly this.
If any of GN’s claims were false, it’d be a very serious case of false allegations. LG could easily sue them, win quickly, get a couple million dollars in damages, and more.
The fact that they’re not suing tells us all we need to know.
Yeah, even then lots of times courts are used in asymmetrical economic situations against the smaller party so not always a tell with shitty actors.
Not addressing the other areas amounts to confirmation
TL;DW: LG is using very weasely wording to misrepresent what they’re doing, and GN calls their bluff (with data and receipts)
After the recent controversies, I added a bunch of blockers for LG trackers to my pi-hole, to stop my 8 year old TV from collecting data. It blocked a lot at first, but then suddenly nothing, I investigated a bit and saw that it had started sending only to their Vietnamese servers, which were missing from my blocklist.
Make sure you block all regions!
It might help a few people if you shared the domains you blocked.
Is there a good way to see if you are affected by this based on your model? Is the microphone in the TV itself, the remote, or both?
“We investigated ourselves and found nothing wrong.” -LG
Yet another company going “NO WE DIDN’T”, expecting us to believe.
Gamers Nexus: We’ve documented the entire process. There’s irrefutable proof demonstrating that your TVs log conversations.
LG: Nuh-uh.
“We own the glass” is enough for me to never buy an LG again. I own two never contacted to the internet, but Jesus that’s gross.
I suspect all the smart TVs are doing it to similar levels.
Buy a dumb Tv
BTW I see the “but a dumb tv” advice, but what are some dumb tvs in 2026?
I only see smart TVs in store, and I know the side I’d look for signage TVs but I don’t know if they have good audio with a sound bar, or good colour presentation.
Look at commercial displays, like the ones used in retail environments and digital signage.
They are built to last and the smart features are an seperate module.
The response: “we hear you!”
One thing I think a lot of people tend to miss when dealing with executive interviews, PR statements, and company advertising is that often times how a company defines a given term and how the actual dictionary and everyone in the world defines that term are not the same thing unless it is legally required.
Textbook examples:
Telsa, Musk, and self driving: Musk and Tesla define it as essentially what everyone else called lane assist. Then they have “full self driving” for what is supposed to be the thing everyone else would think of as self driving.
OpenAI, Sam Altman, and AGI (artificial general intelligence): No one in the AI industry has an agreed upon definition of what AGI even means. The AI labs just throw it out there for hype and funding rounds and tweak the meaning to them as they need. To most normal people I would suspect AGI means “a machine that knows its a machine and is at least as smart as the average person”.
Point being when LG says “ its TVs do not continuously record or transmit users’ conversations,” that can mean literally anything they can twist human communication methods to mean in their specific context. And it is usually the one that makes them the most money.
at least as smart as the average person.
Ooooh. So that’s why they’re eroding public education: to make AGI achievable sooner!
“its TVs do not continuously record or transmit users’ conversations”
Because we all know voice activation isn’t a thing…
It’s not continuous if certain things have to happen for it to start…
PR statements always make me think of the sample sentence “I never said you did that,” which can have different implications depending on which word is emphasized.
So, their fix for spying is gaslighting?
They’re not trying to fix the spying, they’re trying to fix the accountability.
Always has been.
There is also a response to that response up on Gamers Nexus and its something along the lines of: 🖕 + going through the legal agreements detailing what they (may) do with your data + more 🖕
We investigated ourselves and found no wrong doing.
Nuh-uh! -LG
I personally have no misconceptions about the intrusive data collecting, aggregating, identifying and reselling that LG is doing with their residential customers via their televisions, nor about the entitled way LG and its corporate representatives and officers have spoken about their right to gather it.
“We own the glass,” they repeat, as though that means they also own whatever is spoken beyond the glass in the same house. In reality, they own neither.
Nor am I misled by LG’s weasel words that address problems not ever specifically raised, while completely swerving around actual problems publicly demonstrated with their products.
But I will say they are laboring under a serious misconception if they think I will ever buy one from them. They can fuck ALL the way off with that shit.
