by admin | May 25, 2021 | Markets, Social Media, World
New York : The US Federal Trade commission has confirmed that it was investigating Facebook after the leak of personal and other data on some 50 million users to political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica.
The FTC said on Monday that it “takes very seriously recent press reports raising substantial concerns about the privacy practices of Facebook”.
“Today, the FTC is confirming that it has an open non-public investigation into these practices,” Efe news quoted Acting FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection Director, Tom Pahl, as saying.
Pahl emphasized that the agency is committed to using “all of its tools” to protect the privacy of consumers and that the main such tool is “enforcement action” against companies that do not fulfill their promises in the data privacy area or that violate the law.
He explained that the FTC is acting against firms that do not abide by the “Privacy Shield” agreement regulating data transfer with the European Union and against companies that undertake “unfair acts” that harm consumers or violate the FTC Act.
“The FTC is firmly and fully committed to using all of its tools to protect the privacy of consumers. Companies who have settled previous FTC actions must also comply with FTC order provisions imposing privacy and data security requirements,” a statement said.
“Accordingly, the FTC takes very seriously recent press reports raising substantial concerns about the privacy practices of Facebook.”
Rob Sherman, Facebook’s deputy privacy chief, said in a statement last week that the social networking firm remains “strongly committed to protecting people’s information,” adding that “we appreciate the opportunity to answer questions the FTC may have”.
A week ago, after the controversial leak of private information on millions of users came to light, press reports said that the FTC was investigating whether Facebook violated the terms of a 2011 consent agreement requiring user consent for sharing data by providing use data to Cambridge Analytica in 2014.
The London-based political research organization, which collaborated with the election campaign of Donald Trump in the runup to the 2016 vote, used the leaked information to develop a computer programme to predict the decisions of US voters and influence them.
In 2011, Facebook promised to ask for the consent of its users before making certain changes in their privacy preferences, as part of an agreement with the government, which accused the firm of abusing consumers by sharing with third parties more information than users had authorized.
Breaking that agreement could result in the tech firm facing a fine of $40,000 per violation, the CNBC financial network said.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on March 21 admitted that it was a “breach of trust” to allow an app developed by Cambridge University professor Aleksandr Kogan to collect data for Cambridge Analytica, and he added that the firm will “fix” the problem by, among other things, investigating all apps that could access users’ personal data before 2014 and banning any developer that “does not agree to a thorough audit”.
After Monday’s announcement, Facebook shares fell by as much as 6 per cent on Wall Street.
Last week, the firm suffered significantly in the markets as its stock price plunged, reducing the value of outstanding shares by some $50 billion.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Entrepreneurship, Markets, Social Entrepreneur, Social Media, Technology, World
San Francisco : After taking down SpaceX, Tesla and his own official pages from Facebook, the billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk has now justified his action.
“It’s not a political statement and I didn’t do this because someone dared me to do it. Just don’t like Facebook. Gives me the willies. Sorry,” Must tweeted on Saturday night.
The Facebook pages of SpaceX and Tesla disappeared minutes after Musk responded to a comment on Twitter calling for him to take down the official pages in support of the #DeleteFacebook movement.
“What’s Facebook?” Musk on Friday morning, sarcastically replied to a tweet from WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton urging his followers to delete Facebook by tweeting: “It is time.”
Prior to the deletion, both the two pages had over 2.6 million Likes and Follows, and super high engagement rates.
The boycott “#DeleteFacebook” started after the US and British media reported that the data of more than 50 million Facebook users were inappropriately used by Cambridge Analytica, in activities allegedly connected with US President Donald Trump during his 2016 presidential campaign.
When it comes to Facebook-owned Instagram, Musk is a bit considerate.
“Instagram’s probably ok imo, so long as it stays fairly independent. I don’t use FB and never have, so don’t think I’m some kind of martyr or my companies are taking a huge blow. Also, we don’t advertise or pay for endorsements, so a don’t care,” he tweeted.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has admitted that his company had made mistakes in a data leak that caused grave concern about user privacy possibly abused for political purposes.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Markets, Social Media, Technology
Los Angeles : Verified Facebook pages of SpaceX and Tesla disappeared on Friday, minutes after Elon Musk responded to a comment on Twitter calling for him to take down his rocket company SpaceX, electric carmaker Tesla and his own official pages in support of the #DeleteFacebook movement.
“What’s Facebook?” Musk on Friday morning sarcastically replied to a tweet from WhatsApp co-founder Brian Acton urging his followers to delete Facebook by tweeting “It is time.”
Musk, CEO of both SpaceX and Tesla, Inc, replied to a comment on Twitter calling for him to take down the SpaceX, Tesla and Musk official pages in support of the #DeleteFacebook movement by saying “I didn’t realize there was one. Will do.”
Less than half an hour, the verified Facebook pages of SpaceX and Tesla, Inc are no longer accessible, Xinhua reported.
Prior to the deletion, both the two pages had over 2.6 million Likes and Follows, and super high engagement rates.
The boycott “#DeleteFacebook” started after the US and British media reported that the data of more than 50 million Facebook users were inappropriately used by a British data analysis company, Cambridge Analytica, in activities allegedly connected with US President Donald Trump during his 2016 presidential campaign.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg admitted on Wednesday that his company had made mistakes in a data leak that caused grave concern about user privacy possibly abused for political purposes.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Markets, Technology, World
Steve Bannon
New York : Targeting Facebook’s business model, US President Donald Trump’s former chief strategist and former Vice President of Cambridge Analytica Steve Bannon has accused the social network giant of selling people’s data.
Speaking at a conference held by the Financial Times newspaper on Thursday, Bannon, however, said that he did not know about the political data analytics firm’s data mining from Facebook, CNBC reported.
“They take your stuff for free. They sell it and monetise it for huge margins. That’s why the companies trade for such high valuations,” Bannon was quoted as saying.
“Then they write algorithms and control your life,” he added.
Cambridge Analytica, which worked with Trump’s election team, was accused of harvesting millions of Facebook profiles of US voters.
The firm has allegedly been using Facebook users’ data to unfairly influence election results by psychological manipulation, entrapment techniques and fake news campaigns.
According to a report in the Guardian, Bannon later said outside the conference room that he “did not remember” being part of any scheme to buy data that came from Facebook and divert it to use for election propaganda.
He claimed that neither he nor Cambridge Analytica had anything to do with “dirty tricks” in the use of information harvested from Facebook to make computer models to sway elections.
He blamed any “dirty tricks” on Cambridge Analytica’s parent company, Strategic Communication Laboratories (SCL).
“Facebook data is for sale all over the world,” Bannon told the Guardian.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday admitted that the social media giant “made mistakes” over the scandal and a “breach of trust” had occurred between it and its users.
Cambridge Analytica is now being probed in the US for the company’s role inTrump’s presidential election campaign.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Markets, Social Media, Technology, World
Mark Zuckerberg
San Francisco : Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has apologised for the data debacle that has upended the social media giant and said he was ready to testify before Congress, a media report said.
“The short answer is I’m happy to if it’s the right thing to do,” Zuckerberg said in a CNN interview on Wednesday night.
“What we try to do is send the person at Facebook who will have the most knowledge.
“If that’s me, then I am happy to go,” he added.
Although Facebook employs a small army of lawyers and lobbyists in Washington, Zuckerberg himself has never testified before a congressional committee.
Politicians have called for Zuckerberg to testify before their legislative bodies in the five days since the Cambridge Analytica scandal erupted.
The data firm, which has ties to President Donald Trump’s campaign, reportedly accessed information from about 50 million Facebook users without their knowledge, CNN reported.
Facebook has said that the data was initially collected by a professor for academic purposes in line with its rules. The information was later transferred to third parties, including Cambridge Analytica, in violation of Facebook’s policies.
Zuckerberg broke his silence on the issue earlier on Wednesday with a post on his personal Facebook page laying out a series of steps the company would take to better protect user data.
“I want to share an update on the Cambridge Analytica situation — including the steps we have already taken and our next steps to address this important issue. I’ve been working to understand exactly what happened and how to make sure this doesn’t happen again,” the CEO wrote.
“The good news is that the most important actions to prevent this from happening again today we have already taken years ago. But we also made mistakes, there’s more to do, and we need to step up and do it,” he added.
In the CNN interview, Zuckerberg suggested that the question was not whether Facebook should be regulated so much as how best to do it.
“I’m not sure we shouldn’t be regulated,” Zuckerberg said. “There are things like ad transparency regulation that I would love to see.”
Zuckerberg was criticised by some on social media for his post for stopping short of an outright apology. He rectified that in the CNN interview.
“This was a major breach of trust, and I’m really sorry that this happened… We have a basic responsibility to protect peoples’ data.”
The CEO was now pledging to further restrict developers’ access to user data. Facebook will also investigate all apps with access to large amounts of user data.
Zuckerberg also expressed regret for not doing more to take action against Cambridge Analytica when the issue came to the company’s attention in 2015.
“We need to make sure we don’t make that mistake ever again,” he told CNN.
—IANS
