The image was not taken after a climate strike and was not even taken in Australia
A hoax photo that claims to show rubbish left behind by Australian climate strike protesters is circulating on Facebook, despite being revealed as fake months ago.
Though it lacks any verification, and was debunked in April, the image and false caption have been shared 19,000 times in 12 hours, and thousands of times from copycats.
Continue reading...Removals are part of inquiry into how developers use data, which the company started after the Cambridge Analytica scandal
Facebook has suspended tens of thousands of apps from the platform for privacy reasons, it announced in a blogpost on Friday.
The removals come as part of an ongoing investigation into how developers use data, which the company started after the Cambridge Analytica scandal in March 2018. The news also reveals that the platform is home to more problematic apps than previously thought.
Continue reading...The information was stored in an online server that was not password protected, according to a report from TechCrunch
Hundreds of millions of Facebook users’ phone numbers were exposed in an open online database, the company confirmed Wednesday, in the latest example of Facebook’s past privacy lapses coming back to haunt its users.
More than 419m Facebook IDs and phone numbers were stored in an online server that was not password protected, the technology website TechCrunch reported. The dataset included about 133m records for users in the US, 18m records for users in the UK and 50m records for users in Vietnam.
Continue reading...Critics say face-swap app could spread misinformation on a massive scale
A Chinese app that lets users convincingly swap their faces with film or TV characters has rapidly become one of the country’s most downloaded apps, triggering a privacy row.
Related: The rise of the deepfake and the threat to democracy
Continue reading...Internal correspondence provides new insight into how Facebook staff reacted to concerns about use of user data by political campaign consultants
Internal Facebook correspondence from September 2015, released as part of a US government lawsuit on Friday, reveals new details about Facebook’s early knowledge of potentially improper data collection by Cambridge Analytica.
The existence of the internal discussion was first reported by the Guardian in March 2019. That report marked Facebook’s first acknowledgement that some of its employees were aware of concerns about improper data practices by Cambridge Analytica four months before the Guardian’s 11 December 2015 article exposed them.
Continue reading...Badiucao accuses the social media firm of violating the free speech of people who speak up against China’s bullying
A Melbourne artist who posted anti-Chinese government work has had it pulled offline by Instagram, while death threats against him have remained uncensored.
The censorship of Badiucao – and later restoration – by Instagram came as Twitter and Facebook suspended more than 200,000 accounts deemed to be part of a “co-ordinated state-backed operation” of misinformation from the People’s Republic of China.
Continue reading...Committee chairman suggested staff knew Cambridge Analytica had misused data before Guardian revelation
Facebook executives did not give contradictory evidence to a parliamentary committee investigating the Cambridge Analytica scandal, the firm has claimed, insisting that it learned of the misuse of data only when the Guardian reported it in December 2015.
The company was responding to Damian Collins, the chairman of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport select committee, who had sought clarification on points made by two Facebook executives before the committee.
Continue reading...Disinformation committee wants CTF Partners chief to detail its propaganda activities
Sir Lynton Crosby could be called to give evidence to a House of Commons select committee on disinformation after the Guardian revealed how his lobbying company, CTF Partners, was involved in running a propaganda network on Facebook on behalf of foreign states and major corporate clients.
MPs told the Guardian they would seek to summon representatives of CTF to discuss their role in running a disinformation network that reached tens of millions of people. It comes as trade groups seek to distance themselves from CTF and its activities.
Continue reading...Senator says bill aims to tackle features that ‘capture attention by using psychological tricks’
Autoplaying videos on YouTube, Facebook’s infinite newsfeed and Snapstreaks could be banned in the US under a proposed new bill.
The Social Media Addiction Reduction Technology (Smart) Act takes aim at techniques and features that, according to its author, Republican Senator Josh Hawley, are created to encourage and deepen addictive behaviours.
Continue reading...Study funded by Facebook aims to improve communication with paralysed patients
Doctors have turned the brain signals for speech into written sentences in a research project that aims to transform how patients with severe disabilities communicate in the future.
The breakthrough is the first to demonstrate how the intention to say specific words can be extracted from brain activity and converted into text rapidly enough to keep pace with natural conversation.
Continue reading...Penalty by US government reflects scale of breach, first reported by the Observer
Facebook will pay a record $5bn (£4bn) penalty in the US for “deceiving” users about their ability to keep personal information private, after a year-long investigation into the Cambridge Analytica data breach.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the US consumer regulator, also announced a lawsuit against Cambridge Analytica and proposed settlements with the data analysis firm’s former chief executive Alexander Nix and its app developer Aleksandr Kogan.
Continue reading...Officials to look into whether Facebook, Google, Amazon and Apple are unlawfully limiting competition
The US justice department is opening a broad antitrust review into major technology firms, as criticism over the companies’ growing reach and power heats up.
The investigation will focus on growing complaints that the companies are unlawfully stifling competition.
Continue reading...The greatest economic threat facing Europe is of falling hopelessly behind the US and China in adopting the next generation of technology. That is the view of many across Europe’s industrial and financial sectors who watch with wonder the proxy battle between the US and Chinese administrations on behalf of their tech giants.
Business leaders from Dublin to Warsaw are open-mouthed – not so much at the often-bizarre tug of war between the two sides as at the fact that these economic blocs can lay claim to almost all the world’s tech giants.
Continue reading...Books by James Williams and Carles Boix offer fascinating takes on how we can combat anger and distraction online
We’re having problems with the internet and big tech, principally Alphabet (Google/YouTube), Amazon, Apple and Facebook. The government has taken note.
Related: 'Facebook is dangerous': tech giant faces criticism from Congress over Libra currency
Continue reading...The $5bn fine would be the largest ever levied by the Federal Trade Commission against a technology company
The Federal Trade Commission has reportedly voted to approve fining Facebook roughly $5bn to settle an investigation into the company’s privacy violations that was launched following the Cambridge Analytica revelations.
The Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post, both citing anonymous sources familiar with the matter, reported Friday afternoon that the settlement was approved by a 3-2 vote that broke along party lines, with Republicans in favor and Democrats opposed. The justice department is expected make a final approval of the fine.
Continue reading...Company’s own upbeat figures thrown into doubt by business analytics firm Mixpanel
Facebook usage has plummeted over the last year, even as the company continues to insist that its use has stayed stable or even grown in the same period, according to data seen by the Guardian.
Since April 2018, the first full month after the news of the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke in the Observer, actions on Facebook such as likes, shares and posts have dropped by almost 20%, according to the business analytics firm Mixpanel.
Continue reading...Artists, activists and models join in condemning confusing guidelines leading to account suspensions
Dozens of adult performers are set to picket Instagram’s Silicon Valley headquarters over guidelines about photos containing nudity. The inconsistency of the rules, they say, has led to hundreds of thousands of account suspensions and is imperiling their livelihoods.
Adult performers are leading the protest on Wednesday, but other users including artists, sex workers, queer activists, sex education platforms, and models say they have been affected by the platform’s opaque removal system.
Continue reading...Firm has uncovered emails that appear to show chief executive’s connection to potentially problematic practices, WSJ reports
Facebook has uncovered emails that appear to show Mark Zuckerberg’s connection to potentially damaging privacy practices at the company, the Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday.
The emails were uncovered as part of a Federal Trade Commission (FTC) investigation that began after the Guardian reported that the personal data of 50 million Facebook users had been improperly harvested by Cambridge Analytica, a data firm that worked on Donald Trump’s election team and the winning Brexit campaign.
Continue reading...Last month Facebook declined to remove a manipulated video of Nancy Pelosi even after it was viewed millions of times
A doctored video of Mark Zuckerberg delivering a foreboding speech has been posted to Instagram, in a stunt that put Facebook’s content moderation policies to the test.
Videos known as “deepfakes” use artificial intelligence to manipulate the appearance and voices of individuals, often celebrities, into theoretically real-looking footage. They are likely to become the next wave in the battles over disinformation online.
Continue reading...News Media Alliance says revenue was almost as much as that of entire online news industry, although some question methodology
Google made $4.7bn in advertising from news content last year, almost as much as the revenue of the entire online news industry, according to a study released on Monday.
According to the News Media Alliance, between 16% and 40% of Google search results are news content. Google’s revenue from its distribution of news content is only $400m less than the $5.1bn brought in by the United States news industry as a whole from digital advertising last year.
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