April 9, 2021

MIT Technology Review: Facebook’s ad algorithms are still excluding women from seeing jobs

MIT Technology Review: Facebook’s ad algorithms are still excluding women from seeing jobs. “Facebook is withholding certain job ads from women because of their gender, according to the latest audit of its ad service. The audit, conducted by independent researchers at the University of Southern California (USC), reveals that Facebook’s ad-delivery system shows different job ads to women and men even though the jobs require the same qualifications. This is considered sex-based discrimination under US equal employment opportunity law, which bans ad targeting based on protected characteristics. The findings come despite years of advocacy and lawsuits, and after promises from Facebook to overhaul how it delivers ads.”

Tweaks & Updates 0
April 8, 2021

Washington Post: Facebook is quietly helping to set up a new pro-tech advocacy group to battle Washington

Washington Post: Facebook is quietly helping to set up a new pro-tech advocacy group to battle Washington. “Facebook is working behind the scenes to help launch a new political advocacy group that would combat U.S. lawmakers and regulators trying to rein in the tech industry, escalating Silicon Valley’s war with Washington at a moment when government officials are threatening to break up large companies. The organization is called American Edge, and it aims through a barrage of advertising and other political spending to convince policymakers that Silicon Valley is essential to the U.S. economy and the future of free speech, according to three people familiar with the matter as well as documents reviewed by The Washington Post.”

Around the Search & Social Media World 0
April 7, 2021

Facebook’s Acquisition of GIPHY: Potential Competition Issues (Congressional Research Service)

From the Congressional Research Service, and in PDF form: Facebook’s Acquisition of GIPHY: Potential Competition Issues. “Facebook is now facing antitrust lawsuits, some of which focus on its past acquisitions. This Insight discusses how Facebook’s acquisitions can affect competition in digital advertising and the potential implications of the antitrust lawsuits on Facebook’s acquisition of GIPHY.”

Security & Legal Issues 0
April 7, 2021

NBC News: In a Pennsylvania town, a Facebook group fills the local news void

NBC News: In a Pennsylvania town, a Facebook group fills the local news void. “…the question of just who is accountable for providing information in Beaver County is murky. The area’s once-trusted news source, a newspaper with a 160-year history, was devastated in a few short months after it was swallowed up by giant corporate chains. The vacuum was filled by social media, namely Facebook.”

Around the Search & Social Media World 0
April 7, 2021

Vice: Facebook Says It’s Your Fault That Hackers Got Half a Billion User Phone Numbers

Vice: Facebook Says It’s Your Fault That Hackers Got Half a Billion User Phone Numbers. “Facebook has become accustomed to dealing with multiple massive privacy breaches in recent years, and data belonging to hundreds of millions of its users has been leaked or stolen by hackers. But, instead of owning up to its latest failure to protect user data, Facebook is pulling from a familiar playbook: just like it did during the Cambridge Analytica scandal in 2018, it’s attempting to reframe the security failure as merely a breach of its terms of service.”

Security & Legal Issues 0
April 7, 2021

Troy Hunt: The Facebook Phone Numbers Are Now Searchable in Have I Been Pwned

Troy Hunt: The Facebook Phone Numbers Are Now Searchable in Have I Been Pwned. “The headline is pretty self-explanatory so in the interest of time, let me just jump directly into the details of how this all works. There’s been huge interest in this incident, and I’ve seen near-unprecedented traffic to Have I Been Pwned (HIBP) over the last couple of days, let me do my best to explain how I’ve approached the phone number search feature.”

Useful Stuff 0
April 7, 2021

Politico: Facebook’s ‘supreme court’ struggles to set global free speech rules

Politico: Facebook’s ‘supreme court’ struggles to set global free speech rules. “Roughly two months since a group of outside experts started ruling on what people could post on Facebook, cracks in the so-called Oversight Board are already starting to show. So far, the independent body of human rights experts, free speech supporters and legal scholars that rules on what content Facebook must take down or put back up has reversed the social media giant’s decisions in four out of its first five cases.”

Around the Search & Social Media World 0
April 6, 2021

Reform Austin News: Gov. Greg Abbott Publicly Slammed Facebook. Privately, He’s Courting the Social Media Giant to Build a Second Data Center in Texas.

Reform Austin News: Gov. Greg Abbott Publicly Slammed Facebook. Privately, He’s Courting the Social Media Giant to Build a Second Data Center in Texas.. “Last month, Gov. Greg Abbott blasted the actions of Facebook as ‘un-American [and] un-Texan,’ accusing it and other social media giants of spearheading a ‘dangerous movement to silence conservative voices.’… At the same time, his office was working quietly with the company with the hope that it will soon build a second data center in the state, according to documents provided to The Texas Tribune by the Tech Transparency Project, a technology research arm of the nonprofit watchdog group Campaign for Accountability.”

Around the Search & Social Media World 0
April 6, 2021

The New Republic: How a Bunch of Revolutionary War Reenactors Got Caught Up in Facebook’s Purge of Militia Groups

The New Republic: How a Bunch of Revolutionary War Reenactors Got Caught Up in Facebook’s Purge of Militia Groups. “[Rory] Nolan belongs to historical reenactment groups that sometimes dramatize Revolutionary War-era militias (you can begin to see the problem), and he manages the Facebook and Instagram pages for several of them. He tried to establish new accounts under new email addresses, but they didn’t last long before getting swept up in the same moderation process. Again, they were banned with no possibility of appeal. And like that, Nolan’s social media presence—and much of his social life—quietly winked out of existence.”

Around the Search & Social Media World 0
April 5, 2021

Irish Times: Facebook and Twitter face barrage of criticism before Oireachtas committee

Irish Times: Facebook and Twitter face barrage of criticism before Oireachtas committee . “Social media giants Facebook and Twitter faced a barrage of criticism before an Oireachtas committee on Tuesday over anonymous accounts, trolling and micro-targeting. TDs and Senators accused both companies, particularly Twitter, of undermining democracy and coarsening public debate by allowing anonymous accounts make false and misleading statements with neither fact-checking protections or any sanction.”

Security & Legal Issues 0
April 5, 2021

NBC News: Human smugglers use Facebook to connect with migrants and spread false hope of reaching U.S.

NBC News: Human smugglers use Facebook to connect with migrants and spread false hope of reaching U.S. . “Human smugglers are openly advertising their services on Facebook, falsely telling Central Americans interested in crossing illegally into the United States that they can promise a ‘100 percent’ safe journey. While the use of social media by smugglers is not new, the practice is growing, fueling false hope as more migrants fall prey to misinformation about how the Biden administration will welcome them, according to Department of Homeland Security officials, immigration experts and lawyers.”

Security & Legal Issues 0
April 5, 2021

Vice: Alex Jones Incited the Capitol Riot on Facebook Even Though He Was Banned 2 Years Ago

Vice: Alex Jones Incited the Capitol Riot on Facebook Even Though He Was Banned 2 Years Ago. “Research from digital rights group Avaaz published Thursday morning and shared exclusively with VICE News shows that in the 30 days leading up to the riots, content from Jones’ websites, promoting voter fraud claims telling fans to ‘prepare for war,’ amassed over 1.1 million interactions across Facebook.”

Around the Search & Social Media World 0
April 5, 2021

Business Insider: 533 million Facebook users’ phone numbers and personal data have been leaked online

Business Insider: 533 million Facebook users’ phone numbers and personal data have been leaked online. “A user in a low level hacking forum on Saturday published the phone numbers and personal data of hundreds of millions of Facebook users for free online. The exposed data includes personal information of over 533 million Facebook users from 106 countries, including over 32 million records on users in the US, 11 million on users in the UK, and 6 million on users in India. It includes their phone numbers, Facebook IDs, full names, locations, birthdates, bios, and — in some cases — email addresses.”

Security & Legal Issues 0

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