Facebook CEO exploited ability to access data from any user’s friend network, US case claims

Mark Zuckerberg faces allegations that he developed a “malicious and fraudulent scheme” to exploit vast amounts of private data to earn Facebook billions and force rivals out of business. A company suing Facebook in a California court claims the social network’s chief executive “weaponised” the ability to access data from any user’s network of friends – the feature at the heart of the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

StumbleUpon co-founder, Garrett Camp, has announced that the project is coming to an end 16 and half years after its launch in 2001. Camp is now recommending that StumbleUpon users migrate their accounts over to another of his projects, Mix.com, which he says incorporates the lessons learned from StumbleUpon “to take content discovery to the next level.”

Every artist can relate. Very few of us got into this business because we wanted to have to manage social media accounts or approve an advertising campaign. Writers became writers because they wanted to write. Actors want to act — not spend two weeks on a grueling press tour. The founder wants to be working on their product, not polishing blog posts for some content marketing side hustle.

The Facebook founder faces questions from European lawmakers over the data scandal and fake news.

Consider these reasons for defriended your ex

It’s polarizing our politics, making us ignore inconvenient facts and impeding real activism.

Following a BuzzFeed News investigation, Institute for Critical Infrastructure Technology cofounder James Scott [spamming Snapzu as /u/Cyberdotnet et al.] has “voluntarily decided to step away” and a law firm will review claims about him. By Craig Silverman.

A few weeks ago I was at a restaurant in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, the annoyingly pretentious kind that's given an ironic Hebrew name because its menu mainly consists of pork and shellfish dishes. Usually I Instagram Story my experience — after all, how can one enjoy their meal unless everyone else they know can see what they are eating? — but on this occasion I put away my phone. It wasn't because I was enjoying the company of close friends as we shared multiple small plates portioned for a toddler. Nor was it because I wanted to disconnect from technology.

Five years ago Mark Zuckerberg debuted a bold, humanitarian vision of global internet. It didn’t go as planned—forcing Facebook to reckon with the limits of its own ambition.

Data collection is as problematic in 2018 as it was in 1996

A new Facebook policy meant to curb election interference is also prohibiting undocumented immigrants from buying political ads, which, critics say, could silence activists and disrupt organizing efforts on the platform.

A few years ago, Justine Sacco, then the senior director of corporate communications at the holding company InterActiveCorp, tweeted about the nuisances of air-travel during a long, multi-leg journey from New York to South Africa. She started with sardonic observations—one about a smelly passenger at JFK Airport, another about London’s peculiar food and predictably inclement weather. Then came this one, shortly before her final flight: “Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!”

Former White House senior strategist Steve Bannon and billionaire Robert Mercer sought Cambridge Analytica’s political ad targeting technology as part of an “arsenal of weapons to fight a culture war”, according to whistleblower Christopher Wylie. “Steve Bannon believes that politics is downstream from culture. They were seeking out companies to build an arsenal of weapons to fight a culture war,” Wylie said, when asked why investors thought that the political consultancy’s...

Users of picture-based mobile dating apps like Tinder are generally more open to short-term, casual sexual relationships than the average person. But this doesn’t mean that the users of these apps end up with more sexual partners than non-users with the same preference for casual sex. “Apps have become the new public arena for dating. But to a large extent, the people using them are the same ones you find dating other ways,” says professor Leif Edward Ottesen Kennair at NTNU’s Department of Psychology.

Data from millions of Facebook users who used a popular personality app, including their answers to intimate questionnaires, was left exposed online for anyone to access, a New Scientist investigation has found. Academics at the University of Cambridge distributed the data from the personality quiz app myPersonality to hundreds of researchers via a website with insufficient security provisions, which led to it being left vulnerable to access for four years. Gaining access illicitly was relatively easy.

A new study builds on decades of research showing a rise in anxiety among children and adolescents in the United States.

Last week I noted that Facebook use sharply dropped after the Cambridge Analytica scandal, according to SimilarWeb, but as it turns out, the downward trend started even earlier -- specifically, right around the US Presidential election, in November 2016. (See above.) Since then, total monthly visits to Facebook in the US (both on the web and through the mobile app) have fallen from around 8 billion/month to what it is now, about 5 billion/month -- a loss of some 3 billion visits.

Rakem Balogun thought he was dreaming when armed agents in tactical gear stormed his apartment. Startled awake by a large crash and officers screaming commands, he soon realized his nightmare was real, and he and his 15-year-old son were forced outside of their Dallas home, wearing only underwear.

Federal prosecutors have sought to question former employees of the now-defunct political data firm and banks that handled its business.

The format, made popular by Snapchat and Instagram, is the native genre of glass rectangles.

WhatsApp, Messenger and Facebook’s core app are getting new leaders as part of a massive executive reorg.

In five years, online membership service Patreon has attracted two million patrons supporting 100,000 ‘creators’ to the tune of $350m – including nearly $1m a year for rightwing psychologist Jordan Peterson. So what’s the secret of its success?

AIB says viewing social media accounts helps it understand customer behaviour. The national civil society group campaigning for a Yes vote in the upcoming Irish referendum on the Eighth Amendment fell victim to a cyberattack last week. DDoS attacks meant the Together For Yes fundraising page as well as Amnesty International’s went down for a period of a half hour and 45 minutes, respectively. The DDoS attacks originated in Ireland.

Social networking site and market-leading data broker Facebook is once again taking heat for playing fast and loose with its access to personal information. This time, it's the Facebook Android app that is under the spotlight after users noticed it requesting an extraordinary amount of access privileges. The users note that the change has happened in recent days, leading to speculation that a new feature or update is to blame, and it may not have been intentional.

Facebook is an emotional labor machine, and if you want to leave it, you’re going to have to start doing a lot of work

The British Parliament has also issued an ultimatum for CEO's testimony.

EVEN your selfies and brunch photos aren’t safe from the long arm of Facebook, it was revealed overnight, as the tech giant admitted it had taken billions of photos from Instagram accounts around the world to boost its own research.

If you want to place a political advertisement through Google’s massive advertising network during the upcoming US elections, you’re going to have to show some ID first. The search giant announced new policies Friday that will require advertisers prove they are a US citizen or permanent resident when buying election ads.

Are you looking for alternatives to Facebook and other mainstream social media? Let's take a look at alternative social networks for 2018 and beyond.

False rumors set Buddhist against Muslim in Sri Lanka, the most recent in a global spate of violence fanned by social media.

Before "MAGA," Gamergaters claimed harassing women online was "about ethics in video game journalism"

Over the last few months, Select All has interviewed more than a dozen prominent technology figures about what has gone wrong with the contemporary internet for a project called “The Internet Apologizes.” We’re now publishing lengthier transcripts of each individual interview. This interview features Richard Stallman, an activist and legendary programmer who developed the foundational and widely used software Emacs and GNU.

The revealing history of everyone’s favorite Facebook critique.

A former member of Snoop Dogg’s rapping entourage is calling for gang members to assault Kanye West for his recent support of President Donald Trump. Daz Dillinger, who recorded several successful hip hop records as part of Tha Dogg Pound duo in the 1990s, made the apparent threat in a video posted to his Instagram, which was later removed.