Facebook, are you kidding?

guest · Dec 11, 2019

Facebook is no longer one of the 10 best places to work, according to Glassdoor
...tumbling 16 spots to 23rd.
December 11, 2019
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/12/10/fac...n-glassdoors-list-of-best-places-to-work.html

Facebook’s ranking on Glassdoor’s list of best places to work slid for a second year in a row, tumbling 16 spots to 23rd.
Its desirability ranking dropped from 4.5 to 4.4 out of a perfect 5, according to employees who use the Glassdoor site to evaluate their employers anonymously.

It’s a precipitous fall for Facebook, which claimed the top spot in Glassdoor’s 2018 rankings. It fell to No. 7 in the 2019 list, following reports in March 2018 that political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica had improperly accessed the data of 87 million Facebook users.
Facebook’s drop comes as regulators put the social media company in the crosshairs of antitrust investigations. The 2020 Glassdoor rankings show that employees no longer regard working at the social media company as they once did.
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ronjor · Dec 12, 2019

Australia tells Facebook and Google to commit to competition rules, or else

Colin Packham December 11, 2019
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australia said on Thursday technology giants such as Facebook Inc (FB.O) and Google (GOOGL.O) will have to agree to new rules to ensure they do not abuse their market power and damage competition, or the government will impose new controls on them.
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guest · Dec 12, 2019

mood said: ↑

Facebook unveils its plan for oversight board
September 17, 2019
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-49735795

TechCrunch: Facebook’s new policy Supreme Court could override Zuckerberg
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Facebook delays naming oversight board members until 2020
December 12, 2019
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...rsight-board-members-until-2020-idUSKBN1YG1ZG

Facebook will not announce the first members of its independent oversight board this year as it originally expected, the company said on Thursday.

The board is one of Facebook’s high-profile efforts to respond to criticism over how it handles problematic content and transparency around its decision-making.
However, the board’s creation is behind schedule, the company confirmed in a blog post. It will now probably not name the board’s co-chairs and first members until after January 2020.

“This is not a ‘move fast and break things’ project,” Harris told Reuters in a phone interview, referring to the social media network’s early motto.
In a Thursday blog post, Facebook also said it had made an initial commitment of $130 million to the new trust, to cover operational costs for at least six years.
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Facebook: An Update on Building a Global Oversight Board

guest · Dec 13, 2019

Facebook: Your Oculus VR Data Can Now Be Used for Ad Targeting
December 12, 2019
https://uk.pcmag.com/news/124052/facebook-your-oculus-vr-data-can-now-be-used-for-ad-targeting

Oculus VR headset owners be aware: Your Oculus activity can now be used to serve up customized ads on your connected Facebook account.

So don't be surprised if you start encountering creepy Facebook ads encouraging you to play more VR games. On Wednesday, Facebook's Oculus VR division mentioned the change in a blog post introducing new chat and friend-finding features coming to the virtual reality headsets.

"As part of these changes, Facebook will now use information about your Oculus activity, like which apps you use, to help provide these new social features and more relevant content, including ads," it said.
Now the language has been changed to explicitly say the social network can tap "information about your use of Oculus products to provide, personalize and improve Facebook Company Products, including to personalize the ads you see on and off Facebook Company Products."

The policy tweak, which was first noticed by UploadVR, may make some users cringe.
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The company has created an extensive FAQ on what product owners can expect.
"People who log into Facebook on the Oculus platform will see more targeted ads across Facebook products, however please note, we do not currently display ads in Oculus VR headsets," a Facebook spokesperson told PCMag.
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Facebook: Introducing New Features From Facebook to Help People Connect in VR and an Update to Our Privacy Policy

guest · Dec 13, 2019

A thief took Facebook hard drives with payroll data from a worker's car
They contained payment info for around 29,000 current and former workers
December 13, 2019
https://www.engadget.com/2019/12/13/facebook-employee-payroll-data-theft/

It seems Facebook just couldn't make it through to the end of the year without another privacy-related incident. Only this time around, its own employees are affected. A thief broke into a payroll worker's car and stole hard drives that reportedly contained unencrypted payroll information for around 29,000 current and former US employees.
The theft took place on November 17th and Facebook noticed that the drives were missing three days later, according to Bloomberg.

Facebook has been working with law enforcement, and while the drives haven't been recovered as yet, it has seen "no evidence of abuse."
The employee whose car was broken into wasn't supposed to remove the hard drives from Facebook's office, and the company says it has "taken appropriate disciplinary action."
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guest · Dec 13, 2019

Facebook, privacy activist Schrems battle nears end on Dec. 19
December 13, 2019
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...rems-battle-nears-end-on-dec-19-idUSKBN1YH1Z7

Austrian privacy activist Max Schrems’ seven-year battle against Facebook reaches a crucial point on Dec. 17 when an adviser to Europe’s top court will issue his view on whether tools used by companies to transfer data abroad are legal or not.

Schrems, an Austrian law student, who successfully fought against the EU’s previous privacy rules called Safe Harbour in 2015, challenged Facebook’s use of standard clauses on the grounds that they do not offer sufficient data protection safeguards.
Facebook’s lead regulator, the Irish Data Protection agency, took the case to the Irish High Court which then sought guidance from the Luxembourg-based Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU).
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ronjor · Dec 18, 2019

Facebook fails to convince lawmakers it needs to track your location at all times

Lauren Feiner@lauren_feiner Dec 17 2019
Key Points
In response to a letter from Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., Facebook explained why it tracks users’ locations even when their tracking services are turned off.
The lawmakers now say Facebook should give users more control over their data.
Facebook said it used location data to target ads and for certain security functions.
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guest · Dec 19, 2019

The software behind Facebook’s new Supreme Court for content moderation
New details on Facebook’s independent oversight board
December 19, 2019
https://www.theverge.com/interface/...-oversight-board-case-management-tool-details

[...] — a Supreme Court for content moderation. When it launches next year, the board will hear appeals from people whose posts might have been removed from Facebook in error, as well as making judgments on emerging policy disputes at Facebook’s request. And the big twist is that the board will be independent of Facebook — funded by it, but accountable only to itself.

Recently I went down to Facebook’s headquarters in Menlo Park to meet some of the people working on the project. Milancy Harris, manager for governance and strategic initiatives, and Fay Johnson, who is the lead product manager on the oversight team, talked to me about how they have approached the unique assignment of devolving content moderation power from the company to an independent board.
Here are some of the things I learned from Harris and Johnson.
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guest · Dec 19, 2019

Facebook Is Still Prioritizing Scale Over Safety
Facebook often uses its vast size as an excuse for its failures
December 17, 2019
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/articl...of-scandal-facebooks-unhealthy-obsession-with

Facebook's growth at any cost mentality has birthed innumerable scandals over the past decade — election meddling, political discord, privacy invasion. Yet today, after repeated apologies and promises to do better, that mentality remains largely unchanged.

This emphasis on growth, particularly as it’s tied to performance evaluation, encourages Facebook’s employees to focus on growth above all else, sources close to the company told BuzzFeed News.

“Working at Facebook made me aware of how you can reprogram humans,” one ex–product manager who recently left the company said. “It's hard to believe that you could get humans to override all of their values that they came in with. But with a system like this, you can. I found that a bit terrifying.”
Facebook calls its product managers’ ability to hit their metric “impact,” and impact can count for high percentages of product managers’ evaluations, though it varies by position and level. At the end of the evaluation process, each individual is assigned a rating by a manager — ranging from “doesn’t meet expectations” to “redefines expectations” — which is algorithmically tied to their compensation.

Charles Obih, a Facebook employee who left this fall, said the system itself is imperfect and prone to manipulation. “Any system that can be gamed, will be gamed,” he said.
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guest · Dec 19, 2019

mood said: ↑

Facebook fined $5 billion by FTC, must update and adopt new privacy, security measures
July 24, 2019
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/tech/...llion-fine-u-s-privacy-violations/1812499001/

Reuters: Facebook to pay record $5 billion U.S. fine over privacy violations but critics call it a bargain
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Facebook separates security tool from friend suggestions, citing privacy overhaul
December 19, 2019
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...estions-citing-privacy-overhaul-idUSKBN1YN26Q

Facebook Inc will no longer feed user phone numbers provided to it for two-factor authentication into its “people you may know” feature, as part of a wide-ranging overhaul of its privacy practices, the company told Reuters.

Facebook initiated the updates in connection with its $5 billion settlement with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, which required it to boost safeguards on user data to resolve a government probe into its privacy practices.
The FTC order, which is still pending approval in court, said Facebook failed to disclose that the phone numbers provided for two-factor authentication also would be used for advertising, and specifically barred that approach to security tools.

The change - which is happening in Ecuador, Ethiopia, Pakistan, Libya and Cambodia this week and will be introduced globally early next year - will prevent any phone numbers provided during sign-up for two-factor authentication from being used to make friend suggestions.
Existing users of the tool will not be affected, but can de-link their two-factor authentication numbers from the friend suggestion feature by deleting them and adding them again.
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guest · Dec 21, 2019

mood said: ↑

Facebook, privacy activist Schrems battle nears end on Dec. 19
December 13, 2019
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...rems-battle-nears-end-on-dec-19-idUSKBN1YH1Z7
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Facebook Wins an EU Privacy Ruling
December 20, 2019
https://www.databreachtoday.com/facebook-wins-eu-privacy-ruling-a-13529

Facebook's sharing of data on European users with the U.S. is legal and provides enough protections, the legal adviser to the EU's top court said on Thursday.
Although the decision is nonbinding, some legal experts say opinions from the advocate general are typically followed by the court in a majority of cases.

Arguing that transfer of data to the U.S. could lead to mass surveillance in violation of EU privacy law, Schrems' efforts led to the replacement of the Safe Harbor rules with the "Privacy Shield" system in 2016. But Facebook said it would not use the "Privacy Shield" and instead rely on standard contractual clauses.
Reaction
Reacting to the ruling, Schrems said: "Problem is that the advocate general is proposing a lower level or privacy protections for "national security" under the European Convention of Human Rights, not the EU's Charter of Fundamental Rights."
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Meanwhile, Facebook said in a statement that it was "grateful" for the opinion and said standard contractual clauses "provide important safeguards to ensure that Europeans' data are protected once transferred overseas."
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guest · Dec 27, 2019

You can no longer use a phone number to sign up for Facebook Messenger
December 27, 2019
https://www.xda-developers.com/facebook-messenger-phone-number-support-removed/

In a bid to bring more users to the platform, Facebook has now removed support for phone number logins on Facebook Messenger. According to a recent report from VentureBeat, the company now requires users to create a Facebook account in order to use Messenger. In an email to the publication, a Facebook spokesperson wrote,

“If you’re new to Messenger, you’ll notice that you need a Facebook account to chat with friends and close connections. We found that the vast majority of people who use Messenger already log in through Facebook and we wanted to simplify the process. If you already use Messenger without a Facebook account, no need to do anything.”
The change only applies to new users who haven’t signed up for Messenger before.

Facebook’s move to remove phone number sign-ups on Messenger foreshadow’s the company’s plan to unify all its messaging platforms.
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guest · Dec 27, 2019

Facebook Security Debacles: 2019 Year in Review
December 27, 2019
https://threatpost.com/facebook-security-debacles-2019-year-in-review/151306/

2019 was a tumultuous year for Facebook as it continued to grapple with privacy fallout after Cambridge Analytica, as well as dealing with a slew of security challenges.

Facebook spent the past year both trying to deal with the consequences of the Cambridge Analytica scandal that rocked its public relations in 2018, as well as other issues afflicting the social media platform – from data security challenges to political misinformation campaigns. Following are the biggest Facebook security and privacy stories of 2019.
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guest · Jan 9, 2020

A closer look at Mark Zuckerberg’s ‘next decade’ manifesto
Reading between the lines of his manifesto for 2030
January 9, 2020
https://www.engadget.com/2020/01/09/a-closer-look-at-mark-zuckerberg-s-next-decade-manifesto/

Every year, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg writes a letter outlining his goals for the coming year, including personal challenges. These missives talk about his own growth, as well as acting as a manifesto for Facebook in the coming year.
Often, you need to spend a little time reading between the lines to understand what's really being said here. This year, Zuckerberg highlighted five issues he sees dominating the next decade of tech. Let's dig in.
[...]
Naturally, Zuckerberg is happy to talk about wanting regulations for things where Facebook is comfortable operating within the law. But for everything else, it doesn't want the intrusion that comes with third-party regulation, especially from lawmakers.
Fundamentally, Zuckerberg says a lot of the right things, but not in a way that carries any weight, and that's mostly intentional. Which, in retrospect, is quite like a lot of Mark Zuckerberg's missives over the years.
[/quote9
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Minimalist · Jan 11, 2020

A Facebook Bug Exposed Anonymous Admins of Pages

A bad code update allowed anyone to easily reveal which accounts posted to Facebook Pages—including celebrities and politicians—for several hours.
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https://www.wired.com/story/facebook-bug-page-admins-edit-history-doxxing/

Minimalist · Jan 12, 2020

All the Ways Facebook Tracks You—and How to Limit It

If you have a Facebook account—and even if you don't—the company is going to collect data about you. But you can at least control how it gets used.
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https://www.wired.com/story/ways-facebook-tracks-you-limit-it/

guest · Jan 16, 2020

Facebook abandons plan to sell ads in WhatsApp, report says
The company still aims to bring ads to WhatsApp's Status feature
January 16, 2020
https://www.cnet.com/news/facebook-abandons-plan-to-sell-ads-on-whatsapp-report-says/

Facebook has reportedly abandoned its plan to sell ads in messaging platform WhatsApp, according to a Thursday report by The Wall Street Journal. The company's decision to bring ads to the app is reportedly what led to the departure of WhatsApp's creators around two years ago.

In recent months, WhatsApp dissolved a team dedicated to figuring out how to best integrate ads into the platform, people familiar with the matter told the Journal. That team's work was reportedly removed from WhatsApp's code.
Facebook still plans to potentially bring ads to WhatsApp's Status feature, a company representative confirmed, though they didn't share a specific timeline for the move. The social media giant has been grappling with how to monetize WhatsApp [...]
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guest · Jan 19, 2020

Facebook says technical error caused vulgar translation of Chinese leader's name
January 18, 2020
https://in.reuters.com/article/us-m...slation-of-chinese-leaders-name-idINKBN1ZH0IB

Facebook Inc (FB.O) on Saturday blamed a technical error for Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s name appearing as “Mr [***]ole” in posts on its platform when translated into English from Burmese, apologizing for any offense caused.

The error came to light on the second day of a visit by the president to the Southeast Asian country, where Xi and state counselor Aung San Suu Kyi signed dozens of agreements covering massive Beijing-backed infrastructure plans.

“We fixed a technical issue that caused incorrect translations from Burmese to English on Facebook. This should not have happened and we are taking steps to ensure it doesn’t happen again. We sincerely apologize for the offense this has caused,” Facebook said in a statement.
Facebook has faced numerous problems with translation from Burmese in the past. In 2018 it temporarily removed the function after a Reuters report showed the tool was producing bizarre results.
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guest · Jan 20, 2020

Instagram drops IGTV button, but only 1% downloaded the app
TikTok saw 80X more installs
January 18, 2020
https://techcrunch.com/2020/01/18/igtv-button-gone/

At most, 7 million of Instagram’s 1 billion-plus users have downloaded its standalone IGTV app in the 18 months since launch.
For reference, TikTok received 1.15 billion downloads in the same period since IGTV launched in June 2018.

“[...] Very few are clicking into the IGTV icon in the top right corner of the home screen in the Instagram app” a Facebook company spokesperson tells TechCrunch. “We always aim to keep Instagram as simple as possible, so we’re removing this icon based on these learnings and feedback from our community.”
When the lack of monetization is combined with less than stellar view counts compared to YouTube and TikTok, it’s understandable why some creators might be hesistant to dedicate time to IGTV.

For a company that’s won by betting big and moving fast, IGTV feels half-baked and sluggish [...] Instagram is heading into an era of much stiffer competition.
But offering the platform isn’t enough for Instagram.
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guest · Jan 22, 2020

mood said: ↑

$35B face data lawsuit against Facebook will proceed
October 18, 2019
https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/18/facebook-35-billion-lawsuit/
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Supreme Court declines to hear Facebook facial recognition case
January 21, 2020
https://thehill.com/policy/technolo...ines-to-hear-facebook-facial-recognition-case

The Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to take up a high-profile court battle over whether users can sue Facebook for using facial recognition technology on their photos without proper consent.
The high court rejected Facebook's bid to review the case, meaning the social media giant will likely have to face the multibillion-dollar class-action lawsuit over whether it violated an Illinois privacy law.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals last year ruled that Facebook has to face the lawsuit over whether it violated user privacy with its facial recognition tools.

"We conclude that the development of a face template using facial-recognition technology without consent (as alleged here) invades an individual’s private affairs and concrete interests," she wrote.
Facebook insists that it always disclosed how it was using facial recognition technology and gave users the option to turn it off.
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Facebook declined to comment on the Supreme Court's decision on Tuesday. The Illinois case had been put on hold until the high court responded to Facebook's petition.
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guest · Jan 24, 2020

Italy threatens Facebook with new fine for selling users' data
January 24, 2020
https://techxplore.com/news/2020-01-italy-threatens-facebook-fine-users.html

Italy's competition authority has warned Facebook it faces a further fine of five million euros ($5.5 million) for persisting in selling users' data without informing them.

The non-compliance procedure by Italy's AGCM consumer and market watchdog follows five million euro fine against the social media giant in November 2018 for failing to tell users "how the data they will provide will be harvested for commercial purposes."
Facebook has also failed to publish a "corrective statement" about its commercial practices on its homepage and app, the authority said in a statement on Friday.
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guest · Jan 28, 2020

Facebook promises to give users more control over their privacy... again
January 28, 2020
https://betanews.com/2020/01/28/facebook-privacy-new-decade/

Today is Data Privacy Day, and Facebook is using the occasion to try to convince its users that it cares about their privacy.

The social network says that it recognizes there is a lot of work to do to improve privacy protections, but that's not going to stop the company from trying to make it seem as though it doesn't represent a massive invasion of privacy. As part of its latest PR campaign, Facebook will encourage users to review their privacy settings as well as launching the Off-Facebook Activity tool globally.

Company founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has penned a post in which he says: "One of our main goals for the next decade is to build much stronger privacy protections for everyone on Facebook".
He goes on to set out some of the privacy-related controls and settings that will be launched or promoted in the near future.

"Over the next few weeks we'll show nearly 2 billion people around the world a prompt encouraging them to review their privacy settings. The prompt will show up in your News Feed and direct you to the Privacy Checkup tool, which we recently updated [...]"
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Facebook: Starting the Decade by Giving You More Control Over Your Privacy

guest · Jan 28, 2020

Facebook finally launches 'Clear History' button for real
January 28, 2020
https://mashable.com/article/facebook-clear-history-launch-2020/

Remember almost two years ago when Facebook promised it'd give users the ability to delete the browsing history it uses to serve personalized ads? After the most leisurely rollout of all time, it's finally here.
Facebook flipped the switch and made the "Off-Facebook Activity" menu available to all on Tuesday. Users in some countries, including Ireland and South Korea, had it since last August, but now it's available to everyone.

Even if it's not a perfect solution to Facebook's intensely creepy and unnecessary data collection practices, it's at least nice to have some transparency about what the service knows about you. You might be better off deleting Facebook entirely, but if not, you should consider uncoupling your browsing habits from its clutches.
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guest · Jan 28, 2020

Facebook's new oversight board expects to hear cases this summer
It's also setting rules for deciding on cases and implementing changes
January 28, 2020
https://www.engadget.com/2020/01/28/facebook-oversight-board-timeline-and-bylaws/

Facebook is finally nailing down timelines and procedures for its content oversight board. As part of a call discussing newly released bylaws, governance director Brent Harris revealed that the board should hear its first cases sometime this summer, with the initial board members unveiled in the "coming months" before then.
Harris didn't give many clues as to who would be on the board, but he stressed that it would reflect the range of people on Facebook's platforms. It isn't a panel that "looks like Silicon Valley or looks like Facebook," he said.

As for the bylaws? For one, Facebook expects most cases to take 90 days between the initial appeal window, case prep, deliberation and implementation (if possible), but there will be a system for an "expedited review" if a response is so urgently needed that users can't afford to wait.
The social network will normally implement decisions on individual content within a week, and provide responses to policy recommendations and follow-ups within 30 days.
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Facebook: Preparing the Way Forward for Facebook’s Oversight Board

guest · Feb 2, 2020

↑ Facebook loses facial recognition technology appeal, must face class action
↑ $35B face data lawsuit against Facebook will proceed October 18, 2019
↑ Supreme Court declines to hear Facebook facial recognition case January 21, 2020
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Zuckerberg pledges Facebook users privacy upgrades after $550 million facial recognition settlement
January 29, 2020
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-privacy-idUSKBN1ZS38Y

Facebook Inc has reached a $550 million settlement of claims it collected and stored millions of users’ biometric data without their consent, as Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg pledged better protections for users to address privacy concerns that have dogged the social media company.

Facebook had originally been sued in 2015, when users accused the Menlo Park, California-based company of violating Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act by using facial recognition technology to collect biometric data.
Users said Facebook did this by obtaining data through its “Tag Suggestions” feature, which allowed users to recognize Facebook friends from previously uploaded photos.

The plaintiffs were represented by the Edelson, Labaton Sucharow, and Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd law firms.
More such litigation may be forthcoming.
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