Recent studies show that privacy concerns are very much on the minds of Facebook users. Part of being a responsible member of any  online community is educating yourself and your loved ones on how to properly configure the privacy and security settings offered by the platform. The fact that Facebook has over a billion members,…

Hackers have always targeted Facebook users in an attempt to get them to download malware or reveal their passwords. However, these cybercriminals are increasingly trying to take control of users’ entire accounts in order to sell them on the black market. Authorities say that many of these scams are located in Vietnam, where enforcement is…

Earlier this summer, regulators in Norway slapped Facebook with a daily fine of nearly $100K for violating user privacy by harvesting data to target advertising. However, the country is now pressing to make that punishment permanent while also expanding it to cover the whole European Union. If the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) takes this request…

Because Facebook operates in basically every country around the world, it has to moderate content for thousands of languages and cultures. And if that task wasn’t already hard enough, the company also routinely faces pressure from repressive governments that want to spread misinformation, hate speech, and other forms of dangerous content to users. According to…

Last year, California governor Gavin Newsom signed a groundbreaking privacy law that would require tech giants like Facebook to broadly protect the “best interests” of children, including by verifying their age. However, this legislation hit a major speed bump this week when a federal judge blocked it. The law, which was set to go into…

For years, Instagram users have created separate fake accounts for themselves, or “finstas,” to keep parts of their lives separate and maintain privacy. Facebook never officially embraced this practice, but it didn’t step in to stop it, either. However, the company announced this week that creating alt accounts will now be an official feature of…

When Facebook first announced that it was determined to roll out end-to-end encryption for all Messenger users, it was hailed as a gamechanger for user privacy. However, many government agencies and child safety advocates around the world have been strongly critical of the feature, believing it could offer protection to abusers. And this week, the…

Facebook Marketplace is a great tool to connect communities and help people buy and sell goods. However, those same benefits of the platform also make it a popular target for scammers and cybercriminals looking to dupe unsuspecting users. For example, one aggressive hacker seized control of a young woman’s account in the UK and began…

Facebook often comes under scrutiny for the content it allows to remain posted on its platform. Whether it’s hate speech or misinformation, the company usually has an excuse for why offensive content doesn’t violate its rules. However, it’s harder to see the case for why many videos depicting animal abuse have been allowed to remain…

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Facebook and other social media giants instituted new policies to help stop the spread of misinformation surrounding the virus and subsequent vaccine. However, according to new scientific research, these rules may not have done much to stop fake news. Despite Facebook’s good intentions and effort, researchers say that the structure and…

Last week, the Facebook-owned social media platform Threads finally rolled out its search function for users. However, it only took a few hours for people to figure out the social media giant was censoring what they can and can’t search for. According to a report this week in The Washington Post, when users search for…

If you’ve used Facebook for any amount of time, you know that scams are an all-too-common occurrence on the platform. And to make matters worse, the company makes it virtually impossible to get in touch with a representative if fraud or hacking occurs. And law enforcement officials rarely know what to do about it, either.…

Earlier this year, Facebook agreed to pay out a massive $725 million class action lawsuit settlement over allegations that it shared user data with third party organizations. The deadline to file a claim was in late August, and according to lawyers representing the plaintiffs, it could amount to the single largest class action lawsuit in…