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Tag: facebook

  • German Minister: Concerns over Facebook remain after data scandal

    German Justice Minister Katarina Barley, expressed ongoing concern on Monday over Facebook’s behaviour, months after the social media giant became embroiled in a data misuse scandal.

    The scandal affected up to 87 million users around the world.

    “We see that the consequences of this have not been sufficiently drawn yet,’’ Barley said in Luxembourg, ahead of talks on the issue with her 27 EU counterparts.

    She demanded more transparency on who had been affected by the scandal, as well as stricter rules to identify who is posting content online.

    Facebook admitted in April that it had improperly shared personal user data with the data analysis firm Cambridge Analytica, which was hired to influence the 2016 Brexit referendum in Britain as well as the U.S. election campaign that year.

    Company chief Mark Zuckerberg has since sought to make amends, apologising in a hearing before the U.S. Congress and to EU lawmakers, as well as pledging to apply new European data protection rules globally.

    Read Also:Businessman in court for ‘raping Facebook girlfriend’

    “There is still reason for concern over Facebook’s behaviour,’’ the German minister said.

    “The fact, for example, that face recognition technology is now being reintroduced is not a confidence-building measure,’’ she added.

    Facebook introduced its face recognition technology in 2012 but disabled it for European users.

    In April it launched the option for users in the EU, as well in Canada, to activate the feature.

    EU Justice Commissioner Vera Jourova said she hoped to hear from ministers what safeguards could be introduced to protect against election meddling.

    “We have to speak about how safe are our electoral processes,’’ she noted.

    NAN

     

  • Africas ripe digital revolution

    Remember the single ‘Africa’ by Toto? It was an instant hit back in the baby boomer age. But that was for a different reason and everyone suddenly saw the continent of Africa with a different perspective.

    After a bout of hibernation and recovery from colonisation, the African subcontinent is ready to bounce back. This time, it has the power of digital revolution!

    For too long now, it has suffered from lack of basic infrastructure, preventing it from being a significant place on the map of this planet. Tourism, agriculture and natural resources were the only things which made it worthy of any attention.

     

    The New Digital Revolution

    However, things are changing for the better now, it seems. The telecom industry has progressed quite a bit to allow increased internet access at lower prices. People over there have smartphones and other high-tech devices too. They can connect to the internet and utilize social media to be in touch with each other, as well as the outside world. Companies like Facebook have taken initiatives to provide a zero-rate data to people with extremely restricted access to civic infrastructure. This development has made it possible for those people to avail better opportunities. The overall effect has been very positive in the reduction or extreme poverty.

    An influx of investments by tech companies have also created an immense pool of employment opportunities. They have started initiatives in training and educating the local populace in the nuances of the tech industry. Without this education, the entire process would never take off in the first place. This will increase the standard of living over there without a doubt. It will take time though, but it will be time well invested.

     

    What is the Focus On?

    IoT, the Cloud and the Big Data remains the primary focus.

    There are two reasons why big data can prove to be the ultimate customer experience. The first one is that with the availability of so much data, new trends can be analysed. Previously data was not available on all of this, but new factors which consciously or subconsciously affect the consumer may be analysed. Maybe a particular floor colour makes a section of the store more appealing. Maybe the food section gets empty faster if the carts are designed in a particular way.

    The permutations and combinations that can be derived from such a large amount of data are particularly endless. What influences customers to buy or not buy something will, in particular, become a larger field. It may even grow to be a separate branch of consumer science. This is just one example. There are many such ways in which trends may be analysed and this data be used for the benefit of businesses, and this in turn, will make the consumer experience better and more rewarding.

     

    The Start Up Industry There

    The start up industry in the African continent is also taking off, thanks to some influx of capital from global investment companies and venture capitalist firms. It is still in its nascent stage, but it shows great promise as local entrepreneurs take charge.

    There are still many obstacles to overcome though. The infrastructure development is still in its early stages. The local governments remain a major stopping force against worthy initiatives, although some of them have shown a willingness to adopt a more supportive role in the development of the digital and telecommunication sector further.

    Africa shows much potential as an emerging market and could soon compete with the Asian counterparts in the race for global economic prowess.

  • Facebook launches dating service soon

    Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg announced Tuesday the world’s largest social network will soon include a new dating feature — while vowing to make privacy protection its top priority in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

    Zuckerberg unveiled the plans as he addressed Facebook’s annual developers conference in San Jose, California — emphasizing that the focus would be on helping people find long-term partners.

    “This is going to be for building real, long-term relationships, not just hook-ups,” Zuckerberg said in presenting the new feature, noting that one in three marriages in the United States start online — and that some 200 million Facebook users identify as being single.

    Under the new feature, users will be able to create a separate “dating” profile not visible to their network of friends, with potential matches recommended based on dating preferences, points in common, and mutual acquaintances.

    Zuckerberg did not specify whether the feature would be free of charge, in line with Facebook’s core offer — but the announcement was enough to send shares in the online dating giant Match.com tumbling by 17 percent.

    The 33-year-old CEO also said the dating offer was built from the ground-up with privacy and safety in mind, as he underscored the firm’s commitment to boosting privacy protections.

    Facebook’s closely-watched developer conference comes as the giant faces intense global scrutiny over the mass harvesting of personal data by Cambridge Analytica, a British political consultancy that worked for Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign.

    Facebook has admitted up to 87 million users may have had their data hijacked in the scandal, which saw Zuckerberg grilled at length by the US Congress last month.

    “We need to make sure that never happens again,” Zuckerberg told the audience.

    – ‘Clear history’ –

    In a related move, Facebook Tuesday announced an upcoming feature called “Clear History” that will allow users to see which apps and websites send the network information, delete the data from their account, and prevent Facebook from storing it.

    The social network has already moved to limit the amount of data it shares with third-party applications and plans further steps to prevent a repeat of the Cambridge Analytica debacle, Zuckerberg said.

    Facebook is also reviewing applications overall as well as auditing those that accessed large amounts of data to make sure access isn’t abused, he said.

    “Security isn’t a problem than you ever fully solve,” Zuckerberg said, outlining the slew of efforts by Facebook to battle election interference, misinformation, spam among other challenges.

    “This is an arms race; we are going to be working to stay ahead of our adversaries forever.”

    – Message translation –

    Facebook separately announced Tuesday that its popular Messenger app would soon be able to translate missives in real time, deploying artificial intelligence to enable text conversations between people using different languages.

  • Presidency raises alarm over fake Facebook account in Zahra Buhari’s name

    The Presidency on Friday in Abuja raised alarm over fake Facebook account in the name of Zahra, President Muhammadu Buhari’s daughter.

    The Presidency’s concern is in a statement by Mr Femi Adesina, the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity

    “merchants of mischief have taken their antics against the first family further by creating a fake Facebook account in the name of Zahra, President Muhammadu Buhari’s daughter,’’ he stated.

    Adesina said that the fake account, conspicuously different from the authentic one, was used to post a message on April 17, at 9.07 a.m.

    The presidential aide revealed that a picture of President Buhari with snowflakes all over him, and being welcomed to a foreign country was used, alongside this message: “children of God, here is a 75-year-old man walking in snow without cardigan just to rescue the battered economic status of Nigeria and some of you senseless people feel he travels too much, as if he travels for partying or merry making.

    “God bless Nigeria. Please share…”

    Adesina, therefore, repudiated the Facebook account, saying it did not belong to Zahra and urged members of the public to be wary, and see through the intentions of those behind it.

    He added that those behind the fake account sought to attract odium to the first family, and did not mean well for the country.

    NAN

     

  • Expert to Facebook users: Avoid data leakage on platform

    An IT expert, Mr Charles Douglas, says the safest and most efficient way of stopping Facebook and other social network sites from tracking ones browsing history is by installing DNT+ in the web browser.

    DNT+ or “Do Not Track Plus’’, is a free-of-charge browser extension for blocking trackers on the internet.

    Douglas, who works with Phoenix Hubs, gave the advice in an interview on Monday in Abuja.

    He gave a few tips on how to avoid losing Facebook information (contacts, messages and locations) to third party users in view of the recent Facebook data leakage of over 87 million users worldwide.

    The Founder of Facebook, Mr Mark Zuckberberg, who was interrogated by the U.S. Senate, admitted that the organisation needed to have a more secure platform to forestall further exposure of data to the public.

    Douglas said “DNT+, when installed as an extension of ones browser, can expand each section and see exactly which of these social sites have been blocked.

    “For example, when visiting CNN.com, you can use DNT+ to automatically block Facebook, twitter and more. If your main concern is blocking social networks and advertisers, DNT+ is a great way of doing that.

    “In order to stop sharing of your location information with third parties on Facebook, it is better to turn off your location history on the app,” he said.

    He said it was very vital to keep Facebook data private as it might be leaked out just like what happened recently on the platform, where data of over 50 million profiles were leaked to a consulting firm.

    Douglas said that when people voluntarily release their information to Facebook and install it onto your mobile phone device, “it has gone public.’’

    “When you install Facebook onto your mobile device, it automatically grants permissions across your mobile device to access your SMS, MMS, camera, microphone, location, and other data.

    “By installing the app, you have given Facebook permission to use any of these settings at any time. You can change these permissions,’’ he said.

    “Just the way your browsing activity is monitored by browsers like Google, Mozilla and social media; Twitter, Facebook also monitors this information and stores them in the form of cookies on their servers, which they in turn sell to advertisers  to have a targeted audience.’’

    Douglas noted that Facebook users could go to app settings on their Facebook account from their device, and clear all browsing data from websites you visited while using Facebook app.

     

  • Facebook: Zuckerberg, says his own data shared by Cambridge Analytica

    The Facebook CEO, Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday told lawmakers that he was among the 87 million or so Facebook Inc users whose data was improperly shared with political consultancy Cambridge Analytica.

    But the chief executive of the world’s largest social media network pushed back on Congress members’ suggestions that users do not have enough control of their data on Facebook.

    The 33-year-old internet billionaire told U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee that “every time someone chooses to share something on Facebook, there is a control, right there. Not buried in the settings somewhere, but right there.”

    Zuckerberg’s admission that his own data made its way into the hands of Cambridge Analytica lay bare that even the company’s technologically adept founder was unable to protect his own information from parties seeking to exploit it.

    The admission underscores the problem Facebook has in persuading lawmakers that users can safeguard their own information if they carefully manage their personal settings and that further legislation governing Facebook’s use of data is unnecessary.

    “How can consumers have control over their data when Facebook does not have control over the data?” asked Representative Frank Pallone of New Jersey, the ranking Democrat on the Energy and Commerce Committee.

    However, Zuckerberg repeatedly defended the company’s privacy practices, saying users have control over their own data and decide what to share.

    But when asked if his data had been improperly used he replied: “Yes” and gave no further details.

    The latest estimate of affected users is up to 87 million.

    The data was improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica by an academic, who gathered data on users and their friends through a questionnaire app on Facebook.

    Facebook had shut the ability of apps to gather such data, but Zuckerberg said on Wednesday that it would
    take “many months” to complete an audit of other apps to determine if they also improperly used data.

    The House hearing followed a five-hour questioning by U.S. Senators on Tuesday, in which Zuckerberg made no further promises to support new legislation or change how the social network does business.

    Facebook shares were up 1.2 per cent on Wednesday after dips earlier in the day.

    They posted their biggest daily gain in nearly two years on Tuesday as Zuckerberg managed to deter any specific discussion about new regulations that might hamper Facebook’s ability to sell ads tailored to users’ profiles.

    “It is inevitable that there will need to be some regulation” of internet firms, Zuckerberg said on Wednesday, but he again steered away from any specifics.

    Reuters/NAN

  • Zuckerberg says Facebook could have done more to prevent misuse

    Facebook Inc Chief Executive, Mark Zuckerberg, told Congress on Monday that the social media network should have done more to prevent itself and its members’ data being misused and offered a broad apology to lawmakers.

    His conciliatory tone precedes two days of Congressional hearings where Zuckerberg is set to answer questions about Facebook user data being improperly appropriated by a political consultancy and the role the network played in the U.S. 2016 election.

    “We didn’t take a broad enough view of our responsibility, and that was a big mistake,” he said in remarks released by the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee on Monday.

    “It was my mistake, and I’m sorry. I started Facebook, I run it, and I’m responsible for what happens here.”

    Surrounded by tight security wearing dark suit and a purple tie rather than his trademark hoodie, Zuckerberg was meeting with lawmakers on Capitol Hill on Monday ahead of his scheduled appearance before two Congressional committees on Tuesday and Wednesday.

    He did not respond to questions as he entered and left a meeting with Sen. Bill Nelson, the top Democrat on the Senate Commerce Committee.

    He is expected to meet Sen. John Thune, the Commerce Committee’s Republican chairman, later in the day, among others.

    Top of the agenda in the forthcoming hearings will be Facebook’s admission that the personal information of up to 87 million users, mostly in the United States, may have been improperly shared with political consultancy Cambridge Analytica.

    But lawmakers are also expected to press him on a range of issues, including the 2016 election.

    “It’s clear now that we didn’t do enough to prevent these tools from being used for harm…” his testimony continued.

    “That goes for fake news, foreign interference in elections, and hate speech, as well as developers and data privacy.”

    Facebook, which has 2.1 billion monthly active users worldwide, said on Sunday it plans to begin on Monday telling users whose data, may have been shared with Cambridge Analytica.

    The company’s data practices are under investigation by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.

    London-based Cambridge Analytica, which counts U.S. President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign among its past clients, has disputed Facebook’s estimate of the number of affected users.

    Zuckerberg also said that Facebook’s major investments in security “will significantly impact our profitability going forward.” Facebook shares were up two per cent in midday trading.

    Facebook has about 15,000 people working on security and content review, rising to more than 20,000 by the end of 2018, Zuckerberg’s testimony said.

    “Protecting our community is more important than maximising our profits,” he said.

    As with other Silicon Valley companies, Facebook has been resistant to new laws governing its business, but on Friday it backed proposed legislation requiring social media sites to disclose the identities of buyers of online political campaign ads.

    Also introduced a new verification process for people buying “issue” ads, which do not endorse any candidate but have been used to exploit divisive subjects such as gun laws or police shootings.

    The steps are designed to deter online information warfare and election meddling that U.S. authorities have accused Russia of pursuing, Zuckerberg said on Friday.

    Moscow has denied the allegations.

    Zuckerberg’s testimony said the company was “too slow to spot and respond to Russian interference, and we’re working hard to get better.”

    He vowed to make improvements, adding it would take time, but said he was “committed to getting it right.”

    A Facebook official confirmed that the company had hired a team from the law firm WilmerHale and outside consultants to help prepare Zuckerberg for his testimony and how lawmakers may question him.

    Reuters/NAN

  • Facebook alerts users affected by Cambridge Analytica scandal

    Facebook would start informing its users on Monday if their information “may have been’’ improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica.

    Cambridge Analytica is a consultancy suspected of improperly using the data of as many as 87 million people.

    In a statement, Facebook said that 70.6 million people affected were based in the U. S.

    Up to 2.7 million Facebook users in the EU were affected, with another two million affected in the Philippines and Indonesia.

    Other countries affected include Mexico, Canada, India, Brazil, Vietnam and Australia, according to Facebook.

    In a further effort to improve transparency after the scandal, Facebook would send all 2.2 billion of its users a notice that would allow them to see what apps they use and what data they are sharing with those apps.

    The company said this would allow people to shut off the apps completely or turn off third-party access to their apps.

    Cambridge Analytica is at the centre of a debate over whether it used the personal data of millions to influence the outcome of the 2016 U.S. presidential election and the Brexit referendum.

    “I started Facebook, and at the end of the day I’m responsible for what happens on our platform,’’ Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg said. “I’m serious about doing what it takes to protect our community.’’

    Zuckerberg is set to testify before U.S. lawmakers this week.

    NAN

     

  • 2.7m EU users affected by data privacy scandal – Facebook

    Facebook says up to 2.7 million Facebook users in the European Union have been affected by the data privacy scandal, a spokesman for the European Commission said on Friday.

    “Facebook confirmed to us that the data of overall up to 2.7 million … people in the EU may have been improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica,” said Christian Wigand, a commission spokesman.

    On Wednesday, Facebook admitted that it had “improperly shared” the personal data of 87 million Facebook users, an increase of more than 30 million from previous estimates, with the British data analysis firm Cambridge Analytica.

    The firm used the information, without users’ consent, to support the campaign for Britain’s exit from the European Union, as well as the 2016 election campaign of U.S. President Donald Trump.

    The U.S. social media giant revealed the full extent of the data breach in the EU in a letter Thursday evening responding to questions by EU Justice Commissioner Vera Jourova.

    “We will follow the letter in more detail, but it is already clear that this will need further follow-up discussions with Facebook,” Wigand said.

    He noted that Jourova is set to have a phone call with Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg “On Monday.”

    dpa/NAN

  • Facebook says data leak hits 87m users, widening privacy scandal

    Facebook Inc (FB.O) said on Wednesday that the personal information of up to 87 million users may have been improperly shared with political consultancy Cambridge Analytica.

    This number is up from a previous news media estimate of more than 50 million.

    Most of the 87 million people whose data was shared with Cambridge Analytica, were in the United States, Facebook Chief Technology Officer Mike Schroepfer wrote in a blog post.

    Cambridge Analytica worked on U.S. President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign.

    Facebook said it was taking steps to restrict the personal data available to third-party app developers.

    The world’s largest-social-media company has been hammered by investors and faces anger from users, advertisers and lawmakers after a series of scandals about fake-news stories, election-meddling and privacy.

    Last month, Facebook acknowledged that personal information about millions of users wrongly ended up in the hands of Cambridge Analytica.

    Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg will testify about the matter next week before the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee, the panel said on Wednesday.

    Shares in Facebook were down 1.4 per cent on Wednesday to 153.90 dollars . They are down more than 16 percent since the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke.

    The previous estimate of more than 50 million Facebook users affected by the data leak came from two newspapers, the New York Times and London’s Observer, based on their investigations of Cambridge Analytica.

    Schroepfer did not provide details of how Facebook came to determine its higher estimate.

    However,  he said Facebook would tell people if their information may have been improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica.

    A representative from Cambridge Analytica could not immediately be reached for comment.

    The British-based consultancy has denied wrongdoing.

    It says it engaged a university professor “in good faith” to collect Facebook data in a manner similar to how other third-party app developers have harvested personal information.

    The scandal has kicked off investigations by Britain’s Information Commissioner’s Office, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and by some 37 U.S. state attorneys general. (Reuters/NAN)