Mark Zuckerberg criticised by civil rights leaders over Donald Trump Facebook post

Posted on June 2, 2020 by Admin

Activists say Facebook boss’s decision to leave ‘shooting threat’ up sets dangerous precedent

Civil rights leaders have criticised Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to take no action against a Facebook post from Donald Trump appearing to threaten to start shooting “looters”, after a Monday night meeting with the company’s executives ended in acrimony.

“We are disappointed and stunned by Mark’s incomprehensible explanations for allowing the Trump posts to remain up,” Vanita Gupta, Sherrilyn Ifill and Rashad Robison said in a statement. “He did not demonstrate understanding of historic or modern-day voter suppression and he refuses to acknowledge how Facebook is facilitating Trump’s call for violence against protesters.

Facebook employees hold virtual walkout over Mark Zuckerberg’s refusal to act against Trump

Posted on June 1, 2020 by Admin

Workers dissatisfied with decision to not remove the president’s post
An oversight board member is involved in a racist speech controversy

Facebook employees are staging a rebellion over Mark Zuckerberg’s refusal to act against Donald Trump, expressing their dissatisfaction with their boss on social media in a rare public display of dissent and, in some cases, staging a “virtual” walkout.

Disagreement came from employees at all levels of the company, including some senior staff. Particular criticism was levelled at Zuckerberg’s personal decision to leave up the Facebook version of a tweet sent by Trump in which the president appeared to encourage police to shoot rioters. By contrast, Twitter hid the message behind a warning.

Most online grooming offences in UK committed on Facebook-owned apps

Posted on May 28, 2020 by Admin

Data shows 55% of offences where the means of communication was given involved firm’s apps

More than half of online grooming offences recorded under a law that made it illegal to send sexual messages to children were committed on Facebook-owned apps, figures reveal.

The data, obtained by the NSPCC under freedom of information laws, show 10,019 offences of sexual communication with a child were recorded since the legislation was introduced in April 2017.

Iran’s state broadcaster meddled in Scottish referendum, says Facebook

Posted on May 5, 2020 by Admin

Fake social media accounts also used to support Ron Paul’s presidential bid and the Occupy movement

Iran’s state broadcaster experimented with using fake social media accounts to influence the outcome of the 2014 Scottish independence referendum and other western elections, according to a report from Facebook released on Tuesday.

The Iranian network, one of eight to be suspended for so-called “coordinated inauthentic behaviour” by the social media giant in April, points to efforts by state-linked groups to try to use Facebook to influence foreign democratic contests years before Russia’s alleged campaign against the 2016 US presidential contest.

WhatsApp to impose new limit on forwarding to fight fake news

Posted on April 7, 2020 by Admin

Restrictions on frequently forwarded messages intended to disrupt false Covid-19 claims

WhatsApp is to impose a strict new limit on message forwarding as the Facebook-owned chat app seeks to slow the dissemination of fake news, the company has announced.

If a user receives a frequently forwarded message – one which has been forwarded more than five times – under the new curbs, they will only be able to send it on to a single chat at a time. That is one fifth the previous limit of five chats, imposed in 2019.

British American Tobacco circumventing ad ban, experts say

Posted on March 17, 2020 by Admin

BAT seems to be running accounts to promote e-cigarettes after crackdown on hiring influencers

British American Tobacco (BAT) is marketing e-cigarettes and heated cigarettes with pictures of attractive models and using hashtags such as “I dare you to try it”, despite a crackdown last year after it paid social media influencers to promote its products.

BAT had come under fire after hiring young models to sell its products despite having an explicit policy banning under-25s from appearing in adverts.

Russian-led troll network based in west Africa uncovered

Posted on March 13, 2020 by Admin

Fake Facebook, Instagram and Twitter accounts seemed to aim to inflame divides in US

A newly discovered Russian-led network of professional trolls was being outsourced to Ghanaian and Nigerian operatives, according to Facebook and Twitter, who removed the network’s accounts on Thursday.

The network was small: just 49 Facebook accounts, 85 Instagram accounts and 71 Twitter accounts in question. But it marks the first time that a Russian information operation targeting the US has been found to be run from Africa.

‘I was hacked,’ says woman whose account claimed hospital boy photo was staged

Posted on December 10, 2019 by Admin

Woman denies posting false information that photo of four-year-old was political stunt

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A medical secretary has claimed her Facebook account was hacked after it was used to post false information claiming that a photograph of an ill boy on the floor at Leeds General Infirmary was staged for political purposes.

The woman denied posting the allegation that four-year-old Jack Willment-Barr’s mother placed him on the floor specifically to take the picture which became symbolic of the NHS’s troubles after it appeared on the front page of Monday’s Daily Mirror.

Leaked NHS papers ‘put online by posters using Russian methods’

Posted on December 2, 2019 by Admin

Questions about dissemination of documents do not mean they are fake, but poses new puzzle

Leaked documents said by Labour to prove that the NHS was “on the table” in trade talks with the US were initially disseminated online by anonymous posters operating in a way similar to a Russian information operation known as Secondary Infektion, according to a social media research firm.

A 19-page report published on Monday by the consultancy Graphika said that while it could not conclusively prove a Russian origin to the leak, the early distribution of the cache of files via Reddit, three German-language websites and an anonymous Twitter account reflected a method of operation seen repeatedly over recent years.