Tag Archives: Facebook

Facebook Tells Fact-Checkers Trump Will Be Off-Limits

CNN reports: Facebook’s fact-checkers will need to stop fact-checking former President Donald Trump if he announces that he is running for president, according to a company memo obtained by CNN. While Trump is currently banned from Facebook, the fact-check ban applies to anything Trump says and false statements made by Trump can be posted to the platform by others. Despite …

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Facebook Parent Meta Slashes Workforce By 11,000

The Associated Press reports: Facebook parent Meta is laying off 11,000 people, about 13% of its workforce, as it contends with faltering revenue and broader tech industry woes, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a letter to employees Wednesday. The job cuts come just a week after widespread layoffs at Twitter under its new owner, billionaire Elon Musk. There have been …

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REPORT: Meta Plans To Make “Significant” Job Cuts

The New York Times reports: Meta plans to lay off employees this week, three people with knowledge of the situation said, adding that the job cuts were set to be the most significant at the company since it was founded in 2004. It was unclear how many people would be cut and in which departments, said the people, who declined …

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“Election Fraud” Claims Rage Unchecked On Facebook

The Associated Press reports: A Facebook search for the words “election fraud” first delivers an article claiming that workers at a Pennsylvania children’s museum are brainwashing children so they’ll accept stolen elections. Facebook’s second suggestion? A link to an article from a site called MAGA Underground that says Democrats are plotting to rig next month’s midterms. “You should still be …

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Meta: 400+ Apps Will Steal Your Facebook Login Info

Axios reports: Meta will notify at least 1 million Facebook users that their login information may have been stolen if they downloaded one of hundreds of malicious mobile apps. Meta’s security team published a report this morning detailing how more than 400 mobile apps posed as innocuous tools, such as photo editors, to get people to share their Facebook login …

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Facebook Likely To End Trump’s Suspension In January

Media Matters reports: In a new interview, Meta global affairs president Nick Clegg indicated that Facebook might end former President Donald Trump’s suspension in January without considering the accuracy of his content. Trump’s recent activity on Truth Social, along with his social media behavior before and since his suspension, shows that Trump would just use Facebook to push misinformation and …

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Meta Settles Cambridge Analytica/Trump Privacy Suit

Bloomberg News reports: Meta Platforms Inc. settled a long-running lawsuit that claimed Facebook illegally shared user data with the research firm Cambridge Analytica. The preliminary settlement, disclosed in a court filing late Friday, follows the revelation last month that Meta Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg would have to sit for as long as six hours of questioning by plaintiffs’ lawyers. …

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Convicted Rioter Loses Appeal Over FB Location Data

Law & Crime reports: A federal judge in Washington, D.C., has ruled that the disclosure of location information provided by Facebook to the FBI about users inside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 did not violate Fourth Amendment privacy rights of a defendant who live-streamed his breach of the building. Chief U.S. District Judge Beryl Howell issued the ruling Wednesday …

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Facebook And Instagram Ban Leading Anti-Vax Group

The New York Times reports: Facebook and Instagram on Thursday removed the accounts of Children’s Health Defense, an organization led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that is one of the largest U.S. anti-vaccine groups, for spreading medical misinformation. In an emailed newsletter, Children’s Health Defense said Facebook and Instagram had taken down its accounts after a 30-day ban by the …

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Teen Charged For Abortion After FB Handed Over DMs

Forbes reports: A Nebraska teenager is facing criminal charges alleging she aborted a fetus in violation of state law, after authorities obtained her Facebook messages using a search warrant. Seventeen-year-old Celeste Burgess, who is being tried as an adult along with her mother Jessica Burgess, is awaiting trial in Madison County District Court on charges that they broke a Nebraska …

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Former Cop Rioter Blames Facebook In Leniency Plea

The Insider reports: Thomas Robertson, 49, was a police officer in Rocky Mount, Virginia, but was fired shortly after his arrest in January 2021. In April, he was found guilty by a jury on six counts. “I sat around at night drinking too much and reacting to articles and sites given to me by Facebook algorythms [sic],” he wrote. “The …

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Facebook May Stop Labeling COVID Disinformation

The Hill reports: Meta, the parent company of Facebook, asked the board tasked with overseeing policy debates on the platform to weigh in on whether it should ease its COVID misinformation policy. The company asked the Oversight Board, a task force funded by Meta that operates independently, if the company’s policy, including to remove posts with false claims, is still …

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Facebook Remakes App To Copy TikTok’s Algorithm

Axios reports: Facebook wants to shape your online life around the algorithmically-sorted preferences of millions of strangers around the globe. That’s how TikTok sorts the videos it shows users, and that’s largely how Facebook will now organize its home screen. The dominant player in social media is transforming itself into a kind of digital mass media, in which the reactions …

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Amazon Sues Over Fake Reviews Coordinated On FB

The Wall Street Journal reports: Amazon said it filed a lawsuit against the administrators of what it says are more than 10,000 Facebook groups used to coordinate fake reviews of Amazon products. Those in charge of the Facebook groups solicit the reviews for items ranging from camera tripods to car stereos in exchange for free products or money, Amazon said …

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Facebook Bans Users Who Say They’ll Mail Abortion Pills

Vice News reports: Facebook is removing the posts of users who share status updates that say abortion pills can be mailed and in some cases temporarily banning those users. When exactly Facebook started removing these and similar posts is unclear. But Motherboard confirmed Facebook removed such posts on the same day that the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the …

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Hospitals Are Sharing Sensitive Info With Facebook

Ars Technica reports: A tracking tool installed on many hospitals’ websites has been collecting patients’ sensitive health information—including details about their medical conditions, prescriptions, and doctor’s appointments—and sending it to Facebook. The Markup tested the websites of Newsweek’s top 100 hospitals in America. On 33 of them we found the tracker, called the Meta Pixel, sending Facebook a packet of …

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Facebook Allows 10 Strikes For Gun Sales Violations

The Washington Post reports: Facebook prohibits gun sales on its service. But buyers and sellers can violate the rule 10 times before they are kicked off the social network, according to internal guidance obtained by The Washington Post. The policy, which has not previously been reported, is much more lenient than for users who post child pornography, which is illegal, …

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Meta/Facebook COO Steps Down After 14 Years

CNBC reports: Sheryl Sandberg is stepping down from her role as Chief Operating Officer at Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook. Sandberg joined Facebook in early 2008 as the No. 2 to Facebook CEO and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg, and helped turn Facebook into an advertising juggernaut and one of the most powerful companies in the tech industry, with a …

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FB Denies Abbott’s Claims About Shooter’s Postings

The Hill reports: Facebook is denying Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s (R) allegation that the gunman who killed 21 people, including 19 children, at a Texas elementary school on Tuesday posted publicly about the attack on its platform. Abbott said during a press conference Wednesday that the gunman, Salvador Ramos, posted three times before the shooting at Robb Elementary School in …

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DC Sues Zuckerberg Over Cambridge Analytica Breach

ABC News reports: Washington, D.C., Attorney General Karl Racine has sued Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg for allegedly failing to protect consumer data following the Cambridge Analytica data leak. “The evidence shows Mr. Zuckerberg was personally involved in Facebook’s failure to protect the privacy and data of its users leading directly to the Cambridge Analytica incident,” Racine said in a statement …

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