facebook

Facebook And Associated Platforms Report Outage

November 28, 2019 2:22 pm

Facebook suffered an outage Thursday affecting the social platform and its other platforms such as Instagram.

As of 1700 GMT they had been down for several hours.

“We’re aware that some people are currently having trouble accessing Facebook’s family of apps. We’re working to get things back to normal as quickly as possible,” a Facebook spokesman said.

Read Also: Facebook Apologizes After Black Workers Complain Of Bias

Many users, often wryly, took to Twitter to comment on the crash.

Downdetector, which monitors outages on the Internet, said users of all Facebook platforms started having trouble at 1345 GMT.

As is …

Facebook Wipes Billions Of Fake Accounts

November 13, 2019 5:13 pm

Facebook on Wednesday said it has taken down some 5.4 billion fake accounts this year in a sign of the persistent battle on social media against manipulation and misinformation.

Amid growing efforts to create fraudulent accounts, Facebook said it has stepped up its defenses and often removes the accounts within minutes of being created.

“We have improved our ability to detect and block attempts to create fake, abusive accounts,” the internet firm said in its latest transparency report.

“We can estimate that every day, we prevent millions of attempts to create fake accounts using these detection systems.”

…

Facebook Apologizes After Black Workers Complain Of Bias

November 9, 2019 8:09 am

Facebook apologized on Friday after black employees anonymously shared feelings of workplace bias in an online post.

The post shared at Medium by a “FB Blind” profile laid out perceived slights by managers, white colleagues, and the human resources department.

“No one at Facebook, or anywhere, should have to put up with this behaviour,” corporate communications vice president Bertie Thomson said in response to an AFP query.

“We are sorry. It goes against everything that we stand for as a company. We’re listening and working hard to do better.”…

Facebook Will Allow UK Election Candidates To Run False Ads

Facebook Will Allow UK Election Candidates To Run False Ads

November 5, 2019 3:20 pm

London and New York (CNN Business)A controversial policy allowing politicians to run false ads on Facebook will extend to the United Kingdom as the country prepares to vote in a historic December election, Facebook confirmed to CNN Business.

The policy is being championed by Facebook executive Nick Clegg, the former deputy prime minister of the United Kingdom who himself once complained about “lies” spread during the 2016 Brexit referendum.
The company will not fact-check ads run by British political parties and the thousands of candidates running for election to the House of Commons. Ads from other political groups, like
…
Cambridge Analytica Scandal: Facebook To Pay $500,000 Fine

Cambridge Analytica Scandal: Facebook To Pay $500,000 Fine

October 31, 2019 10:45 am

Facebook will pay a £500,000 fine imposed by the UK’s data protection watchdog for its role in the Cambridge Analytica scandal. As part of the deal, Facebook will make no admission of liability.

The US firm said it “wished it had done more to investigate Cambridge Analytica” earlier. Facebook’s legal team underscored that the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office has not discovered evidence EU user data was transferred to Cambridge Analytica but committed to cooperate with the ongoing investigation on the use of data analytics for political purposes.

Read Also: Facebook And Instagram Bans Sexually Suggestive Emojis

Cambridge researcher Dr Aleksandr …

Facebook And Instagram Bans Sexually Suggestive Emojis

Facebook And Instagram Bans Sexually Suggestive Emojis

October 31, 2019 3:17 am
Facebook and Instagram have banned some emojis for being too sexually suggestive. The banned emojis include aubergine, peach and the water drip characters.
The aubergine and peach emoji were originally created to represent foods, however the characters are mostly used for the sexual connotations associated with them.

The change is part of an update to Facebook’s Sexual Solicitation Community Standards , which are aimed at sex workers who use the platforms to sell their services.

Facebook explained that:

“People use Facebook to discuss and draw attention to sexual violence and exploitation. We recognise the importance of and want to allow

…
Facebook Takes More Heat For Enabling Political Falsehoods

Facebook Takes More Heat For Enabling Political Falsehoods

October 29, 2019 5:36 pm

Facebook came under fresh criticism Tuesdayfor its hands-off approach to political speech, as a group of employees and US lawmakers called on the social network to apply fact-checking for politicians spreading misinformation.

A letter from Facebook employees urged the company to crack down on “civic misinformation,” saying the spread of debunked claims is a “threat” to what the company stands for.

“We strongly object to this policy as it stands. It doesn’t protect voices, but instead allows politicians to weaponize our platform by targeting people who believe that content posted by political figures is trustworthy,” said the letter first

…
Facebook probe by U.S. Expands To 47 Attorneys General

Facebook probe by U.S. Expands To 47 Attorneys General

October 22, 2019 4:34 pm
An antitrust investigation into Facebook ramped up on Tuesday with the announcement that 47 state attorneys general from across the U.S. have joined the New York-led probe.

The New York Attorney-General, Letitia James, said in a statement in New York.

Those chief legal officers of states and territories “are all concerned that Facebook may have put consumer data at risk, reduced the quality of consumers’ choices, and increased the price of advertising,’’ James said.

She added that the inquiry aims to “determine whether Facebook’s actions stifled competition and put users at risk.”

READ ALSO: NYSC Opens New Mobilisation Area Office

…
Facebook cancels event in South Africa

Facebook cancels event in South Africa

September 12, 2019 11:50 am
Technology giants, Facebook have cancelled their upcoming event in Cape Town, South Africa scheduled for October 3rd, 2019 due to ‘unforeseen circumstances’.It is unclear, however, if the cancellation is related to the attacks on foreign businesses that has rocked South Africa in recent weeks.

“Due to a number of unforeseen circumstances, we have had to cancel the Facebook ID8 event in Cape Town on October 3rd, 2019. We hope to bring the event to the region later in the year,” Facebook said.

The social media company which connects over 139 million in Africa organised the event for developers and

…
Facebook cancels event in South Africa

Facebook hit with $5b fine over privacy violations

July 13, 2019 3:18 am

The US Federal Trade Commission has voted to approve a fine of about  five billion dollars  for Facebook over privacy violations, according to a report.

It comes after an FTC investigation into allegations that the social media platform inappropriately shared the information of 87 million users with Cambridge Analytica.

Cambridge Analytica, a British political consulting firm, is now closed.

Read Also: Nigeria sharia police arrest four over ‘Facebook’ marriage

The Wall Street Journal reported that the vote was 3-2 along party lines, with Republicans in support and Democrats in opposition to the fine.

In most cases the Justice Department’s civil …

Facebook to begin monitoring phone activities with new app

Facebook to begin monitoring phone activities with new app

June 13, 2019 10:19 am

Social media giants, Facebook will once again begin paying people to monitor their phone’s activities through a new application called Study.

Study will monitor which other applications are installed on a person’s phone, the time spent on them, your location, additional data, among other things. Facebook says it won’t see any specific content including messages, passwords, and websites you visit, thereby adhering to a somewhat reasonable privacy rule.

The launch comes several months after the company’s last user-tracking research application, Facebook Research, was shut down due to a pair of controversies.

Read Also: Farrakhan reacts to his ban on Facebook…

TRENDING

Breaking

𝐀𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐚 𝐃𝐢𝐠𝐢𝐭𝐚𝐥 𝐍𝐞𝐰𝐬, 𝐍𝐞𝐰 𝐘𝐨𝐫𝐤, is a nonpartisan online news portal founded on the truth to provide you with weekly, insightful articles written with precision and current updates on current events from Africa in particular and the rest of the world in general. All of our reports undergo extensive fact-checking to ensure their veracity, and we adhere strictly to the facts, no matter whose ox is gored.

follow on social media

Facebook Twitter Youtube Telegram Linkedin

subscribe to newsletter

© 2018 - 2020 Africa digital news, New York
Powered by

People and Polity