Facebook has recently come under increasing scrutiny from politicians around the world for supposedly not doing enough to combat hate speech and extremism (despite the site’s new initiative in Europe). The social media giant is certainly in a difficult position; how can it both respect its users’ privacy and free speech rights while helping law…
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Facebook announced a new campaign this week to fight extremism and hate speech in Europe. The campaign, called Online Civil Courage Initiative (OCCI), is a partnership between Facebook and several international groups. OCCI will work to fund NGOs that are already combating online extremism, develop best practices for dealing with it, and launch research to…
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A New York woman could face a year in jail for tagging her ex-sister-in-law in a Facebook post. The woman had previously been barred from contacting her former in-law by “electronic or any other means.” Maria Gonzalez tried to argue that the protection order, which stemmed from a divorce between her and the protected party,…
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According to a recent survey from Kaplan, 40 percent of college admissions officers say they visit the Facebook profiles of applicants to learn more about them. This marks a record high since Kaplan started tracking that information in 2008, when only 10 percent of admissions officers said they snooped on social media. Thankfully for would-be…
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If you use Facebook, you know that the site possesses a ton of your private information. But just how much does the site know about you—and how can you control the info it has? Most of the data Facebook collects is used for one simple purpose: targeting ads at users. The site gets this information…
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This week, a U.S. Court of Appeals upheld a $20 million class action settlement that claimed Facebook’s former “Sponsored Stories” ads violated the privacy of users. The three judges ruled unanimously to uphold the settlement that would pay about $15 a piece to the 614,000 users who joined the suit. About $2 million of the…
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An Israeli NGO group recently conducted a Facebook experiment using two phony profiles to determine if the site had any political biases. The group, called Shurat HaDin, created two pages with nearly identical content called “Stop Israelis” and “Stop Palestinians,” swapping the words “Jews/Israelis” and “Arabs/Palestinians” where necessary. Then, on December 29, the group started…
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According to a new bombshell report, Facebook conducted a secret test on its users several years ago to determine just how addicted they were to using the site’s Android app. According to the report from The Information, Facebook intentionally crashed its Android app without telling users in order to track their “resilience”—AKA, what alternative routes…
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This past weekend, Facebook censored a photo of iconic Danish statue The Little Mermaid for showing “too much bare skin or sexual undertones.” The image was shared by Danish politician Mette Gjerskov as part of a blog post promotion. “I hadn’t seen it coming that our national treasure would be categorized on the same level…
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An Ohio man was arrested this week after he posted a video of himself on a personal Facebook page—with no privacy settings—taking a swig of alcohol while he was behind the wheel of a car. “I am a good driver, don’t worry,” the man, Dustin Rittgers, wrote on his page in response to concerned comments.…
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