Facebook apologized this week for disabling the personal accounts of several Palestinian news editors and executives. The site said the accounts were mistakenly suspended after being reported for violating Facebook’s Community Standards, though the journalists believe there was more to the profile takedowns than the social media giant is letting on. “The pages were removed…
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The fact that you need to provide your Facebook account information upon registration is one of the creepiest and most invasive parts of popular dating app Tinder. Well, that creepy factor got bumped up even higher this week with the announcement of a new app called FriendSwipe that lets you stalk your Facebook friends on…
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Facebook originally created its Safety Check feature for people in the midst of natural disasters to let their family and friends know they were safe. The tool eventually expanded to include human-made disasters like terrorist attacks and, like so many of Facebook’s other tools, the triggering of Safety Check became automated using an algorithm. That…
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Facebook has faced intense criticism around the world in recent months for not doing enough to fight terrorist activity on its pages. A dramatic example of this anger toward the social media giant occurred this week when a federal judge exploded in court, accusing Facebook and its defense lawyers of not taking the issue seriously…
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In January, Facebook announced a program called the Online Civil Courage Initiative that offers free advertising to activists who fight back against hate speech on the site. Now, Facebook announced this week that it will expand the program beyond its initial test run in Germany, France and the U.K. to include a broader array of…
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In the ongoing fight between Facebook and ad blocking software, the social media giant appears to be winning. Adblock Plus (ABP), one of the leading ad blocking software companies, has struggled to create workarounds fast enough to match Facebook maneuvers, and the site’s ads have regularly slipped through ABP’s anti-ad measures. Facebook first announced its…
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It started as a simple traffic stop, but after 24-year-old Dallas man Dominique Desha Green live streamed his encounter with Dallas police on Facebook Live, he ended up getting hit with 11 charges — including drug possession — based off his own video. Green was originally pulled over for failing to wear a seat belt…
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In recent months, Facebook has faced several heated controversies regarding its Trending Topics news feed. First, there was the report by Gizmodo that alleged the feature’s human editors held a bias against conservative news stories. Then, Facebook fired all of its human editors. And finally, mere days after the site did that, a completely fake…
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Facebook has repeatedly run into trouble in recent months for removing controversial live video streams. First, the site temporarily removed footage of the aftermath of a fatal police shooting in Minnesota, and then it took down video being shot by an African American woman in the middle of a standoff with police. Now, Facebook stands…
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An 18-year-old woman in Austria is suing her parents for posting pictures of her on Facebook for seven years without her permission. The woman’s lawyer says that her parents have posted about 500 childhood pictures of her on the social media platform without her consent, and that if she can successfully prove the photos “violated…
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