Facebook has been vilified by experts, politicians and users around the world for its role in the spread of fake news stories. The social media giant has vowed to do more to fight the problem, but as nonprofit group Media Matters for America reported this week, one of the biggest creators of fake news on…
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On December 30, a 12-year-old girl in Polk County, Georgia, tragically live-streamed her own suicide, and for nearly two weeks, the video could still be found circulating on Facebook. Police in Polk County received requests from around the world to remove the video, though when they contacted Facebook, the site only asked the cops if…
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A Syrian refugee in Germany is suing Facebook for allowing the spread of fake news that included his picture, tying him to crimes that he did not commit. In 2015, 19-year-old Syrian man Anas Modamani took a selfie with German chancellor Angela Merkel that went viral. It was an innocent photo, but it went viral…
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Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is certainly an active user of his own site, but as Gizmodo pointed out this week, his posts aren’t all exactly winners. The sometimes-annoying quality of Zuckerberg’s posts is what prompted the article’s writer to block him on Facebook — or at least to try. When the writer attempted…
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Earlier this week, four teenagers tortured and taunted an 18-year-old mentally disabled man and streamed the entire episode on Facebook Live. The suspects, all black, have been charged with a hate crime both for shouting epithets about white people in the video and because the victim is both white and mentally handicapped. The horrifying incident…
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You probably already know that Facebook collects a ton of your data. However, did you know that Facebook can even detect information about you in the photos you upload? A new Google Chrome extension shows you exactly what labels Facebook has assigned to your pics. The extension, called Show Facebook Computer Vision Tags, was created…
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2016 is finally in the books, and it’s safe to say that Facebook had a rough one. From the still-going fake news controversy to the usual array of privacy and censorship issues, Facebook garnered a lot of negative press over the past year. That’s one reason — though maybe not the only one — that…
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Facebook often makes confusing decisions when it comes to censoring content, banning harmless posts while allowing graphic photos and videos to remain. That happened again this week when the site took down a picture of a nude statue depicting the sea god Neptune. Italian writer Elisa Barbari wanted to use a photo of the statue…
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A class action lawsuit filed against Facebook for its use of facial recognition data continues to move forward in court. However, Facebook is stalling the case with some truly ridiculous objections to the plaintiffs’ argument. The case stems from a 2008 Illinois law that makes it illegal for any company to collect “biometric data,” such…
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Most savvy Facebook users understand that the social media giant traffics in our data. The things you tell the site help it target advertising to you, and thus make more money. However, according to a bombshell report from ProPublica this week, Facebook is also buying your private data from third-party brokers. The information it buys…
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