by admin | May 25, 2021 | Corporate, Corporate Reports, Markets, Networking, Online Marketing, Social Media, Technology, World
San Francisco : In what is seen as an attempt to offer the public a clearer picture of how Facebook was manipulated during the 2016 US presidential election, Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee are reportedly planning to release thousands of Russia-linked ads on the social network.
According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, the Democrats might release more than 3,000 such ads.
“We have been in ongoing discussions with Facebook and hope to have the final redacted ads in our possession within a matter of days. As soon as we receive them, it is our intention to share them with the public,” The Hill quoted California Democratic Representative Adam Schiff as saying on Sunday.
The ads could be released early this week depending on whether the panel’s Democrats can reach an agreement with Facebook over how much to redact, according to the Journal.
Facebook said the ads were purchased by Russia-linked Internet Research Agency.
While the Republican-majority committee released their final report last month detailing Russian election meddling, Democrats on the committee said the probe had not yet concluded.
The report found no evidence of collusion between President Donald Trump and Russian authorities.
Facebook came under the scanner after it was revealed that Russia-linked ads tried to influence the 2016 election.
The social network earlier admitted it had identified 470 accounts connected to the Internet Research Agency.
Facebook is also facing scrutiny for the misuse of its data by Cambridge Analytica.
The social networking giant admitted that the data of up to 87 million users was passed on illegally to the British research firm.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Business, Markets, Social Media, Technology
San Francisco : Embroiled in a massive data breach controversy, Facebook has beaten Wall Street’s estimates by raking in $11.97 billion in revenue for the first quarter of 2018.
The social media giant reported $4.98 billion in profit — up from $4.26 billion in the last quarter.
“Despite facing important challenges, our community continues to grow. More than 2.2 billion people now use Facebook every month and more than 1.4 billion people use it daily,” Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted late Wednesday.
Facebook stock gained more than 4 per cent in after-hours trading and was up 7 per cent following its conference call.
Facebook added 70 million monthly active users (MAUs) to reach 2.196 billion globally — a 3.14 per cent growth rate.
Both daily active users (DAUs) and monthly active users (MAUs) saw an increase of 13 per cent year-over-year (y-o-y).
“We are taking a broader view of our responsibility and investing to make sure our services are used for good. But we also need to keep building new tools to help people connect, strengthen our communities, and bring the world closer together,” Zuckerberg said, who had recently testified before the US Congress over Cambridge Analytica data scandal.
British political consultancy firm Cambridge Analytica was found misusing users’ data collected by a Facebook quiz app which used the “Login with Facebook” feature. In total, 87 million users were affected.
Facebook’s mobile advertising revenue represented approximately 91 per cent of advertising revenue for the first quarter of 2018, up from approximately 85 per cent of advertising revenue in the first quarter of 2017.
Facebook currently has 27,742 employees — an increase of 48 per cent y-o-y.
“Our focus in 2018 is to keep people safe and to keep building the experiences people expect from us. We are taking a broader view of our responsibility — to not only give people powerful tools but to make sure these tools are used for good.
“At the same time, we also need to keep building new services that bring people together in meaningful new ways. That’s what makes Facebook so important to so many people, and that’s our responsibility too,” said Zuckerberg.
According to Zuckerberg, Facebook’s initiative Internet.org has now helped almost 100 million people connect to the internet, up from 40 million in November 2016.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Markets, Social Media, Technology, World
By Barry Ellsworth,
Trenton, Canada: Canadian politicians grilled Facebook executives Thursday as to why they did not tell more than 600,000 Canadians their privacy may have been breached.
The response from the senior Facebook leadership team was an apology.
“What is alleged to have occurred is a huge breach of trust to our users, and for that we are sorry,” said Kevin Chan, head of public policy for Facebook in Canada.
The House of Commons committee asked Facebook privacy officer Robert Sherman why, when the company learned of the breaches in 2016, Canadians were not told.
“In retrospect, we should have done that,” Sherman replied.
The irony is that it was a Canadian, Christopher Wylie, who blew the whistle on breaches of privacy that affected more than 80 million Facebook users worldwide. The data was gathered by Cambridge Analytica, a British political consulting firm, that sold the information from profiles that showed what pages users liked, birth dates, religious beliefs and more.
The Facebook executives admitted Thursday that the data may have been used by Cambridge Analytica to aid the Leave side of the UK Brexit vote and for the U.S. presidential campaign of Donald Trump. The firm worked for both.
The executives were asked if Facebook would voluntarily adopt better security and disclosures of future breaches similar to the principles about to be enacted by the European Union.
At this point, they demurred a direct answer and said the company is now working with the Canadian privacy commissioner to develop some regulations.
But Facebook officials recently posed a thinly veiled threat to Canadian politicians that a move where the country adopted rigid regulations might see the company cut investments in Canada. Facebook has planned a CAN$7 million investment in an artificial intelligence (AI) research hub in Montreal.
“We were told, almost in passing, that any new Canadian regulations might well put at risk Facebook investments in Canada,” Peter Kent, Conservative Party Member of Parliament, said to the executives. “I’m wondering if that same caution would still be made?”
Chan said no.
“That is not our view. That is not the representation we would have made,” he said. “In fact, we’re quite proud to be supporters of AI in Canada.”
What will result from Thursday’s political grilling is yet to be determined.
—AA
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Markets, Networking, News, Politics, Social Media, Technology
New Delhi : The Parliamentary Standing Committee on IT on Thursday told the government to make Facebook commit that it would not misuse the users data to influence elections in India or for any other extraneous purposes outside the purview of the local laws or terms of user agreement.
The panel headed by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Anurag Thakur told the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) to take a pledge in writing from Facebook that it would not “misuse” the data “politically or otherwise”, sources said.
Earlier, Thakur said in a tweet that the panel met on Thursday to examine the issue of citizens’ data security and online privacy, and also heard the views of MeitY officials in this connection.
“This is an important issue and we will hold further meetings. The citizens may email their views on the matter to the Standing Committee,” he said.
According to sources, the panel also expressed concern at the lack of IT regulatory framework in the country.
The Standing Committee’s observation came after last month it came to light that British data analytics firm Cambridge Analytica had harvested the data of around 50 million Facebook users to influence elections in many countries, including the US presidential elections of 2016.
The Indian government has issued a notice to Facebook over suspected data breach of Indian citizens and also sought details of the measures the social media giant had put in place to ensure the safety and prevention of misuse of personal data of the users.
Facebook has admitted that nearly 5.62 lakh users in India were “potentially affected” by the breach.
Assembly elections are due this year in several crucial states in the country including Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan. Polling is scheduled in Karnataka on May 12.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Markets, Networking, Social Media, Technology
Washington : Top 34 global technology and securities firms, led by Microsoft and Facebook, have signed a “Cybersecurity Tech Accord” to defend people from malicious attacks by cybercriminals and nation-states.
The watershed agreement will prevent them help governments launch cyber attacks against innocent citizens and enterprises. It will also protect against tampering or exploitation of their products and services through every stage of technology development, design and distribution.
The 34 companies include Cisco, HP, Nokia, Oracle, VMware, Dell, CA Technologies, Symantec, Bitdefender, F-Secure, RSA and Trend Micro, among others.
“The devastating attacks from the past year demonstrate that cybersecurity is not just about what any single company can do but also about what we can all do together,” Microsoft President Brad Smith said in a statement on Tuesday.
The “Cybersecurity Tech Accord” is a public commitment among 34 global companies to protect and empower civilians online and to improve the security, stability and resilience of cyberspace.
“This tech sector accord will help us take a principled path towards more effective steps to work together and defend customers around the world,” added Smith who has been arguing for a “digital Geneva Convention” for years.
The companies made commitments in four areas — stronger defence, no offence, capacity building and collective action.
“The companies will do more to empower developers and the people and businesses that use their technology, helping them improve their capacity for protecting themselves,” said cybertechaccord.org.
This may include joint work on new security practices and new features the companies can deploy in their individual products and services.
The Tech Accord remains open to consideration of new private sector signatories, large or small and regardless of sector, who are trusted, have high cybersecurity standards and will adhere unreservedly to the Accord’s principles.
“The real world consequences of cyber threats have been repeatedly proven. As an industry, we must band together to fight cybercriminals and stop future attacks from causing even more damage,” said Kevin Simzer, Chief Operating Officer, Trend Micro.
The victims of cyberattacks are businesses and organisations of all sizes, with economic losses expected to reach $8 trillion by 2022.
The cyber attacks in the past have caused small businesses to shutter their doors, hospitals to delay surgeries and governments to halt services, among other disruptions and safety risks.
“The Tech Accord will help to protect the integrity of the one trillion connected devices we expect to see deployed within the next 20 years,” said Carolyn Herzog, General Counsel, Arm.
On Monday, Cyber security representatives from the US and Britain warned of Russian state-sponsored cyber-attacks that are targeting network infrastructure devices such as routers and firewalls, to compromise government and private sectors globally.
According to a US Computer Emergency Response Team (US-CERT), the Technical Alert provided information on the worldwide cyber exploitation by Russian state-sponsored cyber actors.
—IANS
