Facebook takes down over 1.5B fake accounts in six months

For six months alone, Facebook had taken down over 1.5 billion fake accounts.

The social media giant disclosed this in its second and latest Community Standards Enforcement Report posted on its website on Thursday.

Facebook said the second report shows the company’s enforcement efforts on policies against adult nudity and sexual activity, fake accounts, hate speech, spam, terrorist propaganda, and violence and graphic content, from April 2018 to September 2018.

“Since our last report, the amount of hate speech we detect proactively before anyone reports it, has more than doubled from 24% to 52%,” it said.

Based on the report, the 24 percent detection rate was recorded from October to December last year while the 52 percent rate was recorded from July to September this year.

“The majority of posts that we take down for hate speech are posts that we’ve found before anyone reported them to us,” Facebook said.


“This is incredibly important work and we continue to invest heavily where our work is in the early stages — and to improve our performance in less widely used languages.”

Meanwhile, Facebook’s proactive detection rate for violence and graphic content increased by 25 percentage— from 72% in the last quarter of 2017 to 97% in the third quarter of this year.

“We also took down more fake accounts in Q2 and Q3 than in previous quarters, 800 million and 754 million respectively,” the company noted.

“Most of these fake accounts were the result of commercially motivated spam attacks trying to create fake accounts in bulk,” it added.


Facebook said the prevalence of fake accounts remained steady at 3% to 4% of monthly active users because they were able to remove most of them within minutes of registration.

In the third quarter of 2018, Facebook said they also took action on 15.4 million pieces of violent and graphic content.

“This included removing content, putting a warning screen over it, disabling the offending account and/or escalating content to law enforcement,” it said.

“This is more than 10 times the amount we took action on in Q4 2017. This increase was due to continued improvements in our technology that allows us to automatically apply the same action on extremely similar or identical content,” it further said.

The report also includes two new categories of data — bullying and harassment and child nudity and sexual exploitation of children.

The company though explained that bullying and harassment “tend to be personal and context-specific” so they need a person to report this behavior before Facebook can identify or remove it.

“This results in a lower proactive detection rate than other types of violations,” it said.

“In the last quarter, we took action on 2.1 million pieces of content that violated our policies for bullying and harassment — removing 15% of it before it was reported. We proactively discovered this content while searching for other types of violations,” Facebook said.


source: technology.inquirer.net

Bogus Facebook ‘Privacy Notice’ posts continue to dupe users

False news has become so commonplace on Facebook and other social media platforms that Facebook itself has taken some serious measures to cull this proliferation of misinformation. Alas, some posts still continue to trick users who unwittingly spread the message.

The bogus message states:

“As of Jan. 5, 2015 at 10:50 a.m. Eastern standard time, I do not give Facebook or any entities associated with Facebook permission to use my pictures, information, or posts, both past and future. By this statement I give notice to Facebook it is strictly forbidden to disclose, copy, distribute or take any other action against me based on this profile is private and confidential information. The violation of privacy can be punished by law (UCC 1-308-11 308-103 and Rome statute). NOTE: Facebook is now a public entity. All members must post a note like this. If you prefer, you can copy and paste this version. If you do not publish this statement at least once it will be tactically allowing the use of your photos, as well as information contained in the profile status updates. DO NOT SHARE you MUST copy and paste to make this I will leave a comment so it will be easier to copy and paste!!!”

Caitlin Dewey of the Washington Post pointed out that this is not the first time this privacy screen has popped up on users’ newsfeeds. Several variations have already been making the rounds on Facebook since 2012, reports Business Insider.

For the record, it’s pointless to pass this message around as Facebook has not desired whatsoever to own their users’ posts. Everything has and will always belong to the user. Sending out the message will also not prevent Facebook from “violating your privacy” because signing up for the service requires agreement to the “Terms of Service,” which includes a privacy policy.

Signing up to Facebook also means that users agree to the company’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities which gives Facebook “a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to use any IP content that you post on or in connection with Facebook.” In layman’s terms, having a Facebook account means the company can use anything you post on the site for promotional purposes.

In effect, if a person does not agree with Facebook’s policies, the best course of action is to simply delete the account and never look back. No amount of sharing “privacy notices” will create localized exceptions for users whatsoever.  Alfred Bayle/rga

source: technology.inquirer.net

Facebook raises Periscope challenge with video upgrades

FACEBOOK on Wednesday ramped up its challenge to Twitter-owned Periscope with upgrades to the social network’s live video broadcasting feature.

People using the Live streaming feature at Facebook will be able to “broadcast: to groups at the social network or in scheduled “events.”

Scheduled events can even be used for online question-and-answer sessions.

“We hope this new ability to both broadcast and watch live video within Groups and Events enables people to connect more deeply with their closest friends, family and the communities of people who share their interests,” Facebook product management director Fidji Simo said in a blog post.

Facebook also began letting people replay comments made during live broadcasts or weigh in with reactions such as sad, angry, love, or ‘wow,’ that were launched recently in News Feed.

“Live Reactions appear in real time and disappear quickly so broadcasters and other viewers can get a sense of how people are feeling at different points during the live video – it’s like hearing the crowd applaud and cheer,” Simo said.

Data gathered by Facebook showed that people comment 10 times more often on live videos than on regular videos.

The social network also added filters that let people personalize the look of broadcasts, and planned to add the ability to draw or doodle on videos while they are being streamed live, according to Simo.

Facebook unveiled a section dedicated to live broadcasts and made it simpler to search for video.

People accessing the social network from desktop computers will be able to use a Facebook Live Map providing “a window into what’s happening” in the world of broadcasts.

Facebook Live launched in the middle of last year and was initially limited to celebrities but recently opened to a wider audience of broadcasters.

The service allows members of the social network in 60 countries to use smartphones to live stream video. The new features were being rolled out to Facebook applications tailored for mobile devices powered by Apple of Android software.

Facebook has been working to tune into the growing trend of online video, an area where Alphabet-owned YouTube has dominated.

Celebrities and athletes have used Live to share candid moments and field questions, according to Facebook. Chefs have used Live to provide cooking tips and news agencies have used the service to broadcast breaking stories.

“We’ve been humbled by all the amazing and creative ways that people have used Facebook Live so far,” Simo said.

Simo saw immersive, 360-degree video as being part of a “natural evolution” at Facebook.

source: technology.inquirer.net

Facebook ramps paid leave time for new dads

SAN FRANCISCO, United States—With Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg about to become a dad, the social network boosted the amount of time fathers can take off to bond with their new babies.

Beginning with the new year, dads working full-time for Facebook anywhere in the world will have the option of taking four months’ paid leave.

All new dads working for Facebook outside the US currently get a minimum of four weeks’ paternity leave, with more time offered in locations where required by local law, according to Facebook.

Same-sex partners who are not primary caregivers for babies get the same paid leave time as dads, the social network said.

The change, effective January 1, essentially raises parental leave time for dads and non-custodial same-sex partners from four weeks to four months.

The change puts paternity leave outside the US on par with maternity leave at Facebook workplaces around the world, and extends the benefit to same-sex couples.

“In reviewing our parental leave policies, we have decided to make this change because it’s the right thing to do for our people and their families,” human resources boss Lori Matloff Goler said in a post on her Facebook page.

“This expanded benefit primarily affects new fathers and people in same-sex relationships outside the US.”

The paid time off can be taken any time during the year after a baby is born and includes adopted babies.

Maternity leave offered to Facebook employees around the world is already four months, and the benefit was available to both moms and dads in the United States.

Baby bonus

Facebook also gives a $4,000 bonus for parents to help meet the needs of new babies.

Zuckerberg, who heads the company, announced last week that he will take two months’ paternity leave after his wife gives birth to their first child.


“This is a very personal decision, and I’ve decided to take two months of paternity leave when our daughter arrives,” Zuckerberg said in a post on his Facebook page.

“Studies show that when working parents take time to be with their newborns, outcomes are better for the children and families.”

California-based Facebook gives US employees the option of taking as long as four months paid maternity or paternity leave, letting them divide the time as they wish over the course of a year.

Zuckerberg and his doctor wife, Priscilla, revealed in July that they were expecting their first child, a girl, after a series of miscarriages.

Leading streaming music service Spotify last week announced that all full-time employees will have the option to take as long as six months’ parental leave at full pay during the first three years after having children.

Internet giants ramping leave time for parents could put pressure on other firms to do the same to attract talent in a competitive industry.

source: lifestyle.inquirer.net

Facebook expands smartphone alerts to news, weather

SAN FRANCISCO, United States—Facebook, making a bigger push to deliver personalized information to its members, said Monday it was expanding its mobile alerts to include sports scores, weather updates and local news updates.

Until now, the huge social network’s alerts to smartphone users had been focused around postings by friends, birthdays and upcoming events.

Facebook’s expanded alerts will now also include community news and events, storm warnings and other weather information, and suggestions for television programs or nearby movies.

“We’ve heard feedback that people wanted to add important information that they can easily see, all in one place,” said Facebook product manager Keith Peiris.

Members will be able to personalize these messages for “things happening around your community, like local events and news that is popular in the city you live in,” Peiris added.

Facebook said the change will be rolling out gradually to users of Android and iOS devices but that the notifications will be opt-in.

“Your current notification settings will not change, and you can adjust those any time in your settings,” through “cards” on the social network, Peiris said.

“We’ll continue to listen to feedback about the information people find most useful and may periodically add more cards to choose from.”

source: technology.inquirer.net

Netizens turn to Twitter as Facebook, Instagram bog down

MANILA, Philippines—Social media behemoths Facebook and Instagram crashed at about 2:30 p.m. Tuesday afternoon (Philippine time).

The meltdown rocked the online world, prompting users to turn to their Twitter accounts and report the incident.

The hashtag “#Facebookdown” surged to become the top trending topic worldwide while the words “Facebook and Instagram” were also in the top 10 worldwide trending topics.

Instagram has acknowledged the outage in a post on its official Twitter account: “We’re aware of an outage affecting Instagram and are working on a fix. Thank you for your patience.”

A massive Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack in the United States caused the servers of Facebook, Instagram and AIM to go down on Tuesday, according to digitalattackmap.com.



US was targeted by a massive amount of data requests, causing the servers of social networking sites to crash due to the load.

Twitter account @Reddit_tech_new tweeted about the DDoS attack after several minutes of the site being down.

Facebook and Instagram were restored at 3:10 p.m. (Philippine time).

Aside from Facebook and Instagram, users noted that dating app Tinder, AIM and HipChat were also down.

source: technology.inquirer.net

Facebook manipulated users emotions in secret study—report

WASHINGTON — A study detailing how Facebook secretly manipulated the news feed of some 700,000 users to study “emotional contagion” has prompted anger on social media.

For one week in 2012 Facebook tampered with the algorithm used to place posts into user news feeds to study how this affected their mood.

The study, conducted by researchers affiliated with Facebook, Cornell University, and the University of California at San Francisco, appeared in the June 17 edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (http://www.pnas.org/content/111/24/8788.full.pdf).

 

The researchers wanted to see if the number of positive, or negative, words in messages they read affected whether users then posted positive or negative content in their status updates.

Indeed, after the exposure the manipulated users began to use negative or positive words in their updates depending on what they were exposed to.

Results of the study spread when the online magazine Slate and The Atlantic website wrote about it on Saturday.

“Emotional states can be transferred to others via emotional contagion, leading people to experience the same emotions without their awareness,” the study authors wrote.

“These results indicate that emotions expressed by others on Facebook influence our own emotions, constituting experimental evidence for massive-scale contagion via social networks.”

While other studies have used metadata to study trends, this appears to be unique because it manipulates the data to see if there is a reaction.

The study was legal according to Facebook’s rules — but was it ethical?

“#Facebook MANIPULATED USER FEEDS FOR MASSIVE PSYCH EXPERIMENT… Yeah, time to close FB acct!” read one Twitter posting.

Other tweets used words like “super disturbing,” “creepy” and “evil,” as well as angry expletives, to describe the experiment.

Susan Fiske, a Princeton University professor who edited the report for publication, told The Atlantic that she was concerned about the research and contacted the authors.

They in turn said that their institutional review boards approved the research “on the grounds that Facebook apparently manipulates people’s News Feeds all the time.”

Fiske admitted to being “a little creeped out” by the study.

Facebook told The Atlantic that they “carefully consider” their research, and have “a strong internal review process.”

Facebook, the world’s biggest social network, says it has more than one billion active users.

source: technology.inquirer.net

Facebook seeks to get smarter with big data

WASHINGTON— Facebook is working to become your new best friend, getting to know you better by infusing the billion-member social network’s software with artificial intelligence.

The California-based social network giant is hiring professor Yann LeCun of NYU’s Center for Data Science to head up a new artificial intelligence lab, aiming to use cutting-edge science to make Facebook more interesting and relevant.

For now, Facebook feeds may seem like a random jumble, but LeCun argues these “can be improved by intelligent systems.”

“This could include things like ranking (the items in) news feeds, or determining the ads that are shown to users, to be more relevant,” LeCun told AFP after his appointment on December 9.

“Then there are things that are less directly connected, like analyzing content, understanding natural language and being able to model users… to allow them to learn new things, entertain them and help them achieve their goals.”

Facebook is the world’s biggest social network, but it faces the challenge of maintaining growth, keeping users engaged and delivering enough advertising to generate revenue growth without turning members off.

LeCun said the new artificial intelligence lab would be the largest research facility of its kind in the world, though he declined to provide numbers.

“We’re limited only by how many smart people there are in the world that we can hire,” the French-born mathematician and computer scientist said.

The lab will be based in three locations — New York, London and Facebook’s headquarters in Menlo Park, California.

But it will also be part of the broader artificial intelligence research community, according to LeCun, who starts his new job in January while keeping his NYU post.

Facebook’s move follows Google’s forays into artificial intelligence, and notably its acquisition earlier this year of DNNresearch, a startup created by University of Toronto professor Geoffrey Hinton and two of his graduate students, known for computer models of brain functions, which includes pattern and speech recognition.

Getting computers to ‘think’

Artificial intelligence can help computers “think” in ways similar to humans and help solve problems. In one famous example, IBM’s Watson computer beat human contestants in the TV trivia game “Jeopardy.”

Big tech companies are all working on artificial intelligence to varying degrees, said Greg Sterling, analyst at Opus Research.

It’s a somewhat “loaded and elusive term,” he said, but it could “power a range of consumer and enterprise-facing applications” — even if Facebook doesn’t quite know what those applications are yet.

LeCun, the founding director of NYU’s Center for Data Science, is known for creating an early version of a pattern-recognition algorithm that mimics in part the visual cortex of animals and humans.

LeCun’s recent research projects include the application of “deep learning” methods for visual scene understanding, driverless cars and small flying robots, as well as speech recognition, and applications in biology and medicine.

James Hendler, who heads the Rensselaer Institute for Data Exploration and Applications, said Facebook already uses some artificial intelligence algorithms for its “social network graph,” but that applying these to photos, videos and other “multimedia” data requires a boost in power.

“As they move into their own search and more of these new multimedia data types, they need more,” Hendler said.

“I expect that it will in the short term mainly focus on improving existing algorithms, for example better selection of what shows up in a user’s Web feed.

“In the long run, we should see a lot more capabilities such as searching for photos of things one might be interested in, and more information in Facebook that results from your activities on other websites.”

Facebook has acknowledged in recent weeks it has been tweaking user news feeds and the new investment signals more changes are coming.

“There’s been a lot of speculation that people have been leaving Facebook because they are upset that the newsfeed filtering doesn’t let them see a lot of the things they’d like to see from their friends,” Hendler said.

“The community has speculated for a while that Facebook would need to hire some AI researchers to help them solve this problem.”

source: technology.inquirer.net

‘Likely service disruption’ strikes Facebook

WASHINGTON—A “likely service disruption” struck Facebook on Monday, preventing its 1.15 billion members from updating their status on the social media website.

Users trying to do so were met with an error message that stated: “There was a problem updating your status. Please try again in a few minutes.”

“Facebook status update issues are not uncommon, but this one seems global—we’ve tested it from several IPs and received the same message,” technology website Mashable.com reported.

Downrightnow.com, which monitors service outages on major websites, reported at 9:30 a.m. (1330 GMT) that Facebook had encountered a “likely service disruption.”

There was no immediate comment from Facebook, but the problem was sufficiently widespread for #facebookdown to become a trending hashtag on Twitter.

source: technology.inquirer.net

‘RIP Facebook’ trending on Twitter

MANILA, Philippines — “RIP Facebook” became a trending topic on Twitter Monday night after a number of users seemed to be having trouble logging in to the popular social networking site.

Facebook users see this message upon logging in: “Facebook is down for required maintenance right now, but you should be able to get back on within a few minutes.”


Users of the social network who are already logged in cannot seem to post status messages, photos and other stuff. The chat service remains to be functioning though.

As of posting, RIP Facebook is on the third spot of the top trending topics on Twitter in the Philippines.

source: technology.inquirer.net

Facebook in fresh privacy row with new policy

WASHINGTON – Facebook is drawing fire from privacy activists again, after unveiling a new policy which could turn users’ data and pictures into advertising.

The new plan would “dramatically expand the use of personal information for advertising purposes,” said a letter this week to the US Federal Trade Commission by six privacy organizations.

The letter said the changes violate a 2011 consent order with the US watchdog agency and urged the FTC to “act to enforce its order.”

If the changes take effect, the letter said, “Facebook users who reasonably believed that their images and content would not be used for commercial purposes without their consent will now find their pictures showing up on the pages of their friends endorsing the products of Facebook’s advertisers.”

“Remarkably, their images could even be used by Facebook to endorse products that the user does not like or even use,” added the letter from the Electronic Privacy Information Center, Center for Digital Democracy, Consumer Watchdog and three other groups.

Facebook unveiled the changes as part of a settlement of a class action suit over the use of user names and images in so-called “sponsored stories.”

According to the letter, Facebook’s existing policy allowed its users to limit how their name and profile picture may be associated with advertising.

Under the newly proposed policy, Facebook says, “You give us permission to use your name, profile picture, content, and information in connection with commercial, sponsored, or related content.”

Activists said this allowed Facebook to turn virtually all user data into advertising.

“Facebook has long played fast and loose with users’ data and relied on complex privacy settings to confuse its users, but these proposed changes go well beyond that,” said John Simpson, Consumer Watchdog’s privacy director.

“Facebook’s overreach violates the FTC consent order that was put in place after the last major privacy violation; if the commission is to retain any of its credibility, it must act immediately to enforce that order.”

Also endorsing the letter were the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, US PIRG and Patient Privacy Rights.

Facebook officials pointed out that its policies were not changed, but clarified under the new language.

“As part of this proposed update, we revised our explanation of how things like your name, profile picture and content may be used in connection with ads or commercial content to make it clear that you are granting Facebook permission for this use when you use our services,” a company spokesperson said.

“We have not changed our ads practices or policies – we only made things clearer for people who use our service.”

source: technology.inquirer.net

Bug exposes contacts of some on Facebook

Facebook says a bug in its system caused 6 million users’ contact information to be inadvertently exposed.

The social media company said Friday that a bug led to users’ contact information, such as email addresses or phone numbers, to be accessed by other users who either had some contact information about that person or some connection to them.

Facebook said in a blog post that the cause of the bug is “pretty technical” but that the problem is tied to its “Download Your Information” tool.

The company uses the information that users upload to better tailor the friend suggestions it issues. The bug caused some of this information to be inadvertently stored in association with a person’s contact information as part of their Facebook account.

As a result, if someone downloaded an archive of their Facebook account through the “Download Your Information” tool, they may have been provided with additional addresses or telephone numbers for their contacts or people with whom they have some connection. Because the contact information was provided by other people on Facebook, it was not necessarily accurate.

Facebook said it has fixed the problem and is in the process of notifying affected users via email.

The affected accounts represent only a fraction of the over 1 billion users on the social media site.

Facebook, which is headquartered in Menlo Park, California, said that it has no evidence that the bug has been used maliciously and it has not received complaints.

source: technology.inquirer.net

US man, sister reunite thanks to Facebook, boy

DAVENPORT, Iowa – A man has been reunited with his sister 65 years after the siblings were separated in foster care thanks to a 7-year-old friend who searched Facebook.

Clifford Boyson, of Davenport, Iowa, met his sister, Betty Billadeau, in person on Saturday.

Billadeau drove up from her home in Florissant, Missouri, with her daughter and granddaughter for the reunion at a hotel in Davenport.

Boyson, 66, and Billadeau, 70, both tried to find each other for years without success. They were placed in different foster homes in Chicago when they were children.

Then 7-year-old Eddie Hanzelin, who is the son of Boyson’s landlord, got involved.

Eddie managed to find Billadeau by searching his mom’s Facebook account with Billadeau’s maiden name. He recognized the family resemblance when he saw her picture.

“Oh, my God,” Boyson said when he saw and hugged Billadeau.

“You do have a sister,” Billadeau said.

“You’re about the same height Mom was,” Boyson said.

Billadeau’s daughter, Sarah Billadeau, 42, and granddaughter, Megan Billadeau, 27, both wiped away tears and smiled during the reunion.

“He didn’t have any women in his life,” Sarah said. “We’re going to get that straightened out real fast.”

Boyson said he’s looking forward to visiting Billadeau near St. Louis and meeting more family.

“I’m hoping I can go and spend a week or two,” he said. “I want to meet the whole congregation. I never knew I had a big family.”

Eddie, who enjoys messing around with his family’s iPad, said he’s glad he was able to assist in making the reunion happen and that he learned about helping others at school.

“Clifford did not have any family, and family’s important,” the boy said.

Near the end of their tearful reunion Boyson and Billadeau presented Eddie with a $125 check in appreciation of his detective work.

source: technology.inquirer.net