The UK Information Commissioner’s Office is investigating 30 organisations, including Facebook, as part of its inquiry into the use of personal data and analytics for political purposes. The information commissioner, Elizabeth Denham, said: “As part of my investigation into the use of personal data and analytics by political campaigns, parties, social media companies and other commercial actors, the ICO is investigating 30 organisations, including Facebook.

A growing army of diplomats is spreading targeted propaganda online. Techniques for promoting news articles and memes on social media are being used by governments around the world to influence opinion about global events and to undermine public confidence in rival countries. The spy poisoning case and Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election have proved to be fertile ground for their work. Russia has taken to trolling adversaries using official diplomatic Twitter accounts...

Last month, we surveyed our users, asking them if they planned to delete their Facebook accounts after the Cambridge Analytica scandal. In just a few days, more than 2,600 users answered our survey, with 31 percent answering that they will delete their Facebook account. Shortly after news of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, many Facebook users rushed to download their profile data, leading Android users to discover that the company had been collecting their call history records...

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg should quit as chairman of the company, according to an investor with a $1 billion (£712 million) stake in the technology giant. New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer, who oversees the city’s pension fund, told CNBC that there needed to be more independent board oversight at Facebook in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Mr Stringer said revelations that the UK-based data analytics firm harvested personal information from more than 50 million Facebook accounts in the build up to the 2016 US elections represented “a risk to our democracy” and highlighted major issues within Facebook.

Facebook also says the number of users affected by the leak of data to Cambridge Analytica may have been bigger than previous estimates suggested.

A huge movement could hit Facebook next Monday. Mike Schroepfer, its chief technology officer, announced on Wednesday that the company will place a link at the top of everyone’s news feed to a privacy tool. This tool will reveal whether a user’s data is embroiled in the Cambridge Analytica scandal — and it could reignite the #DeleteFacebook movement.

Users' data are the lifeblood of Facebook, and if they wanted to opt out of all of the platform's data-driven advertising, they would have to pay for it, Sheryl Sandberg, the company's chief operating officer, told NBC News on Thursday. In an interview with "Today" co-anchor Savannah Guthrie, Sandberg again acknowledged that the company mishandled the breach that allowed Cambridge Analytica, the data analysis firm that worked with Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, to harvest millions of users' information.

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg tells NBC News in a new interview that users of the popular social media platform would have to pay a subscription fee in order to avoid the company's data-driven advertisements.

Get ready to find out if your Facebook data has been swept up in the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Starting Monday, the 87 million users who might have had their data shared with Cambridge Analytica will get a detailed message on their news feeds. Facebook says most of the affected users (more than 70 million) are in the U.S., though there are over a million each in the Philippines, Indonesia and the U.K.

Senators grilling Facebook Inc.’s co-founder Mark Zuckerberg over a data leak signaled they may move to rein in the social media giant, which has thrived as part of an online industry that’s largely escaped regulation. "Your user agreement sucks,” Senator John Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican, told the 33-year-old CEO on Tuesday. “I don’t want to vote to have to regulate Facebook, but by God I will. A lot of that depends on you."

Fuck you. Oh, sorry, were you expecting something politer? Senators might thank for you volunteering to appear in Congress, but you helped Russian propagandists influence an election and exposed the personal data of over a billion people, so I think we're past the point of being grateful. Still, there you were, answering questions you shouldn’t have to answer. (Not because they were stupid, but because, simply by asking a question like, “How will you protect us from terrorism,” democratic lawmakers defer essential decisions of governance to someone who built a really big relational database.)

Analyzing the famous academic aphorism ”publish or perish” through a modern digital lens, a group of emerging ecologists and conservation scientists wanted to see whether communicating their new research discoveries through social media—primarily Twitter—eventually leads to higher citations years down the road.

Facebook is reeling after BuzzFeed on Thursday published an explosive memo from the senior Facebook leader Andrew Bosworth. Bosworth, a vice president at Facebook who's known as Boz, wrote in June 2016 that Facebook's "questionable contact importing practices" and other so-called growth-hacking tactics were justified by the company's mission, even if the platform was used to bully or even to coordinate terrorist attacks.

Facebook’s efforts to save face over its data policy may be less about responding to outrage and more because it has been forced to by European lawmakers who tackled the digital economy when the U.S. wouldn’t. Critics have called on Facebook for more transparency — and additional regulation from Congress — since the Cambridge Analytica scandal, where a consulting firm that worked with President Trump was able to harvest the data of 50 million users, many without their consent.

Here’s what happens when you try to rummage through the garbage of the man who owns the world’s secrets.

In this week’s “Social Media Roundup,” you will learn about Facebook’s new election security initiatives, Pinterest’s following tab, Twitter Timestamps, LinkedIn’s new video ads and much more!

Tim Cook criticized the social media company last week during an interview with Recode's Kara Swisher and MSNBC's Chris Hayes.

An Indonesian cabinet member has threatened to shut down Facebook Inc. if there is any evidence the personal data of citizens is being harvested or the social media giant fails to crack down on "fake news" during upcoming elections. Amid continuing fallout over revelations the data of 50 million Facebook users was obtained by a firm that helped U.S. President Donald Trump’s campaign, there’s growing fears in Indonesia that its presidential race could be corrupted.

The social network says that one million of the people affected are thought to be UK-based.

The National Privacy Commission (NPC) has met with officials of social media giant Facebook over reports of a massive data breach involving British consultancy firm Cambridge Analytica. NPC commissioner Raymund Liboro yesterday said they met with Facebook representatives to discuss the data breach, which involved over 87 million users worldwide. “Facebook told the NPC that 558 Filipino users installed Aleksandr Kogan’s personality quiz app, through which personal data may have been improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica,” Liboro said.

Mark Zuckerberg emerged unscathed from Tuesday's Senate committee hearing, and he did so in large part because most of the senators who asked him questions had no clue how Facebook worked, what the solutions to its problems are, or even what they were trying to achieve by calling its CEO to testify, other than getting some good soundbites in.

Ad scammers need suckers, and Facebook helps find them.

A scandal engulfing Facebook over the use of its data by political consultants widened on Tuesday when a whistleblower said Canadian company AggregateIQ had developed a program to target Republican voters in the 2016 U.S. election.

The publication of a June 2016 memo describing the consequences of Facebook’s growth-at-all-costs triggered an emotional conversation at the company today. An internal post reacting to the memo found employees angry and heartbroken that their teammates were sharing internal company discussions with the media. Many called on the company to step up its war on leakers and hire employees with more “integrity.”

Quitting Facebook for five days was associated with a drop in the stress hormone cortisol, according to a preliminary study published in the Journal of Social Psychology. “I have been a Facebook user for 10 years. I had talked to my co-authors about how I occasionally had to ‘quit’ Facebook from time to time because I found it overwhelming as the number of my friends grew,” said Eric Vanman, a senior lecturer in the School of Psychology at the University of Queensland and lead author of the study.

On some platforms, these apps are the only native ones around

Ten New Zealanders who downloaded an app on Facebook could have exposed up to 63,714 of their compatriots to the data mining tactics of Cambridge Analytica. Facebook has told the country’s privacy commissioner that it is in the process of alerting New Zealanders who were affected by the breach, which occurred when ten users downloaded a personality quiz app.

If you’re ever expecting a child, Target wants to be one of the first to know. The company has invested in research to identify pregnant customers early on, based upon their purchasing behavior. Then, it targets them with ads for baby gear. While companies such as Target mine data about products their customers purchase from them (like prenatal vitamins) to send them personalized ads, many also rely on information gathered about us on the web -- like what we search for on Google or email our friends. That lets them realize we’re planning a vacation to the Grand Canyon, for instance, and send us ads for local hotels.

Julian Assange fired off a tweet Friday afternoon reminding people of the time Mark Zuckerberg called his users "Dumb fucks" because they trusted him with their private information.

In light of Facebook’s recent privacy woes, the company today pledged to take a meaningful step in righting past wrongs by shutting data brokers out of its multi-billion dollar ad platform. Facebook’s product marketing director Graham Mudd had this to say...

Jim Mellon, the billionaire British investor, has predicted that Facebook faces "decimation" over the Cambridge Analytica data disaster. Speaking on CNBC's "Squawk Box" after a tumultuous two weeks for Mark Zuckerberg's social-media company, Mellon said the fallout would be far-reaching after Facebook was plundered for the data of 50 million users. The scandal has wiped about $80 billion, or 57 billion British pounds, off Facebook's value, and Mellon said the firm's share price could halve over the next two years.

Former Federal Trade Commission officials say that Facebook Inc. appears to have breached a 2011 consent agreement to safeguard users’ personal information and may be facing hundreds of millions of dollars in fines. The agency could fine Facebook up to $40,000 per violation per day—which could add up quickly with millions of users involved—if it finds the social media giant broke its earlier promises to protect user data, they say. “If I had to bet, they will find violations,” said Jessica Rich, a former head of the FTC’s consumer protection bureau.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee announced today that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg will testify before the committee on April 11th at 10AM ET. He’ll answer questions about his company’s use and protection of user data. CNN and Bloomberg previously reported that he’d testify, but the appearance hadn’t been officially scheduled. There’s bipartisan support for his testimony.

Facebook scans the contents of messages that people send each other on its Messenger app blocking any that contravene its guidelines, it has emerged. The scandal-hit firm, still reeling from revelations surrounding Cambridge Analytica, checks images and texts to ensure they are in line with its community standards. While the intentions behind the practice may be well-meaning, the news is likely to add to users' concerns over what the social network knows about them.