If you’ve noticed a recent uptick in bots sending you friend requests on Facebook, you’re not alone. Lifehacker writer Emily Price said she became irritated by this surge of spammy activity and decided to do something about it. “Since January 1, I’ve started each morning by clearing out a dozen or so friend requests from…

As the largest social network in the world, Facebook is host to virtually countless forms of scamming and criminality. But one of the creepiest cons involves cybercriminals stealing people’s photos to impersonate them. This often happens in scams where the con artist is pretending to be in the military or in need of money for…

The U.S. Supreme Court this week declined to take up the case of whether users can sue Facebook for using facial recognition technology without consent. That means the company will likely have to face a gigantic class-action lawsuit over an Illinois privacy law. The case stems from the question of whether Facebook’s photo tagging feature…

In recent years, Facebook has found itself the subject of intense scrutiny from lawmakers over its many privacy and data issues. Several Democratic presidential candidates have even floated plans to break up the company under anti-trust laws. And this week, another prominent politician joined the fray when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi blasted the social media…

Many of Facebook’s data and privacy controversies stem from the fact that it shares so much of our information with third-party apps. After all, that was the root cause of the Cambridge Analytica data breach scandal that has led to massive punishments for Facebook around the world. So it makes sense that the company’s latest…

Plenty of Facebook’s critics have described the company as having a toxic effect on society. Including, apparently, some of Facebook’s own executives. This week, an internal memo from longtime Facebook executive Andrew “Boz” Bosworth leaked in The New York Times. The message, which was first distributed to Facebook employees late last year, owns up to…

Facebook is often blamed for intentionally compromising user privacy in the name of revenue. However, the social media giant often puts our information at risk simply by making mistakes. That was the case late last week when a major bug exposed the accounts behind Facebook Pages for public figures, businesses and other entities not tied…

Facebook came under heavy criticism several months ago when it said it will not police political ads for their veracity. In other words, politicians would be free to lie as much as they want in their advertisements with no possible punishment from Facebook. Now the social media giant seems to be doubling down on this…

Facebook has a well-publicized problem with fake news on its platform, but the issue of fraudulent product reviews gets far less attention. However, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) called out the social media giant last summer for hosting these fake reviews. This week, Facebook finally responded, removing 188 groups, disabling 24 user accounts,…

Facebook is full of many forms of malicious fake content, but perhaps the most nefarious are so-called “deepfakes” — computer-generated videos that are designed to mimic people and appear real. They’re often used to impersonate politicians and make it appear as if they’ve said something they haven’t. That’s why it was so encouraging this week…