facebook

Facebook Will Allow UK Election Candidates To Run False Ads

Facebook Will Allow UK Election Candidates To Run False Ads

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Louis Farrakhan

Farrakhan reacts to his ban on Facebook

Religious leader Louis Farrakhan is finding the audience for his message increasingly hard to reach, following his ban on Facebook. And he is angry.

“What have I done that you would hate me like that?” Farrakhan asked before an audience of more than 1,000 at Saint Sabina Church in Chicago on Thursday.

The head of the Nation of Islam — barred for years from Britain and blocked from mainstream TV — has been declared an undesirable by Facebook for his long record as an unrepentant merchant of anti-Semitism and homophobia.

Farrakhan’s black advocacy and mantra of self-reliance has lent him

Facebook CEO calls for updated internet regulations

Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg called on Saturday for regulators to play a “more active role” in establishing rules that govern the internet, as the world’s largest social media network struggles to defuse criticism.

Zuckerberg, whose company is under pressure for failing to adequately police content and protect user privacy on its platform, wrote in a Washington Post article that a “standardized approach” for removing content would help keep internet companies “accountable.”

READ MORE

Facebook to begin monitoring phone activities with new app

Facebook faces yet another privacy flap

This time, the company acknowledges that it mishandled sensitive passwords for hundreds of millions of its users, primarily those who use its Facebook Lite product. The disclosure casts doubt on the company’s abilities to protect its users’ information as it focuses more on privacy.
On Thursday, Facebook (FB) said it didn’t properly mask the passwords of hundreds of millions of its users and stored them as plain text in an internal database that could be accessed by its staff.
The company said it discovered the exposed passwords during a security review in January and launched an investigation. Facebook