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 have an LG tv and I use the Prime streaming app. I recently started working out after about a year of not. Never googled anything or told anyone or anything, just said out loud to myself to get out my floor mat for pushups and whatnot, and not just use my rug. The very next day, I’m suddenly getting Kachava ads on Prime again, which is a healthy liquid meal thing.
“allegations”? the thing they state to do to in their EULA, privacy agrement and whatcer other garbage no one reads? what else now? google spies on you? apple spies on you? water is wet?
Hearing about it is one thing. Seeing someone put it to the test and showing the extent of the surveillance and data harvesting is another.
North Korea must be having a field day talking about what it sees as Southern chaebol capitalism hypocrisy.
Darn, they are better at mass surveillance than we are. Damn oligarchic capitalism.
Are there any affordable TVs with 4K with good features without spying with Nexflix & Disney Apps?
Most of the things I’ve seen basically say ‘no’.
There are commercial displays that don’t have spyware / connectivity, but they tend to have significantly lower refresh rates / HDR / etc. even if they are 4k. And they’re several times the price of consumer TVs, at least in part because they aren’t being subsidized by selling them at a loss to make money on ads.
Unfortunately, it’s either this or get a smart TV and never connect it to the internet and use a streaming device or computer. However with the computer option, some platforms like Netflix won’t let you stream 4K without meeting their strict requirements.
Or just become a pirate and never deal with streaming services again.
No. Everything is spying. Look at what Gamers Nexus said LG makes more money selling data then selling TVs.
So, their fix for spying is gaslighting?
Always has been.
They’re not trying to fix the spying, they’re trying to fix the accountability.
I bought one of their monitors a few years ago. Regretted that purchase on day one. It had a stuck magenta pixel that never went away. I should’ve returned it but I would’ve had to drive all the way back to microcenter. Now it’s affected by shit like this. The future is dumb.
“Nuh-uh” - LG
We investigated ourselves and found no wrong doing.
Haha very happy my LG C1 has never met an Ethernet cable or WiFi connection but honestly wouldn’t be surprised to hear they’re doing shady things anyway like trying to access unlocked connections or recording everything for the future anyway
There’s a conspiracy theory that LG TVs - in the absence of an internet connection - attempt to create an ad-hoc mesh network with any nearby LG sets.
No evidence for that but as conspiracy theories go, it’s believable and juicy, no?
They’re adding a forced arbitration clause to their upcoming ToS, clearly the actions of innocent people
Luckily forced arbitration is not legal in the EU.
Because it’s a civilized place not whatever the USA is
this is fine, everyone file seperately
Yet another company going “NO WE DIDN’T”, expecting us to believe.
“Nuh-uh”
- PR department
Gamers Nexus: We’ve documented the entire process. There’s irrefutable proof demonstrating that your TVs log conversations.
LG: Nuh-uh.
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.
“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…
at least as smart as the average person.
Ooooh. So that’s why they’re eroding public education: to make AGI achievable sooner!
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.
The response, “Look Bryan, you should be the last one to accuse anyone of terrible things when you just casually keep a vibrating replica of smurfette’s genitals in your guest bedroom, in the bottom drawer of the left nightstand.”
Anyone know where I can get one?
“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.
I have an LG C3 that I never connected to Wifi or plugged an ethernet cable into. I only use it with my nvidia shield running lineage OS, am I still affected by this / anything I should do?
Yes you’re still effected.
It’s not unreasonable to assume it may have been connected to the internet unbeknownst to you if there’s been an unsecured network close by that your tv could connect to.
An attacker could (and gamers Nexus demonstrated this) connect to your television and read transcripts of things you’ve said in your house when you didn’t realise your tv was listening. If you’ve never used the voice recognition wake word around your tv you might be ok, but an attacker can also change the wake word to something you might casually say (they showed this too)
If you do own an LG tv it’s worth watching the gamers Nexus video to fully be aware of what is happening.
Effect: a thing: particle effects, fireworks, special effects
Affect: something is changed: affected by politics, smoking in public affects others, affected by the amount of love from your parents
It’s literally in the comment they are responding to…
Nah, they used the wrong one. It’s not a big deal, but I like having easy ways to help remember common misspellings or weird things. Like on two axis graphs, the X and Y coordinates sometimes get confusing. So, in order to remember which coordinate is which, X and then Y, and then you have to RUN (horizontal, X) before you JUMP (vertical, Y). I heard that from some teacher when I was a kid and never forgot.
I agree that they used the wrong one, I’m just saying the comment they are responding to used the correct one :)
Ohhh, my bad. I didn’t even notice that.
Wait, I’m the guy you corrected. What’s the easy way to remember affected vs effected? You just told me which is which, but do you have a trick like you do for the X vs Y axis on a graph?
Honestly? No :( I wish I did. Maybe I could make a shitty one?
A comes before E in the alphabet, and A-number-1, the most important person is affected.
Thanks, that’s better than nothing :)
I don’t have one for you but that’s called a mnemonic
