Facebook announced this week that it will open-source its Capture the Flag (CTF) platform to help teach students and developers how to hack — and how to guard against online security threats. CTF competitions are a common occurrence in the cyber security industry. These simulations are used to teach security professionals how to deal with…
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The controversy over whether or not Facebook deliberately suppresses or promotes stories in its “trending news” section continues to rage this week, as conservative users and politicians express concerns over the allegations of censorship. However, Facebook has finally commented on the firestorm and issued a strong denial. “Facebook does not allow or advise our reviewers…
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Last week, Gizmodo reported that Facebook news curators have a huge amount of power to decide what news topics trend. This week, the publication dropped another bombshell from a former staffer who claimed the social media giant intentionally suppressed conservative news while artificially promoting other causes like Black Lives Matter. While this kind of biases…
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In a huge victory for Facebook privacy advocates, a federal judge has rejected Facebook’s request to toss a lawsuit alleging that Facebook’s facial recognition technology violates user privacy. “The Court accepts as true plaintiffs’ allegations that Facebook’s face recognition technology involves a scan of face geometry that was done without plaintiffs’ consent,” U.S. District Judge…
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Last week, U.S. District Judge Edward Davila called a hearing on Facebook’s motion to dismiss a long-running privacy case against it. The case began in 2012, and features a group of plaintiffs seeking $15 billion in damages for Facebook’s alleged violation of the Federal Wiretap Act, plus numerous other violations. The case was dismissed last…
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Facebook launched its trending news section in January 2014, displaying a list of topics in the upper righthand corner of every Facebook user’s news feed. Many in the news industry expressed concern about what could happen to freedom of expression and the dissemination of information if Facebook decided to take an active hand in shaping…
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In a move that’s certain to appeal to privacy-minded users, it was reported this week that Facebook is testing a disappearing messages capability in its Messenger app. A Twitter account called @iOSAppChanges published several screenshots of the reported disappearing messages feature. The images include text that reads “You turned on disappearing messages. New messages will…
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According to Facebook’s biannual transparency report released this week, government requests for Facebook user data rose 13 percent in the second half of 2015. The number of posts the site censored to comply with local laws around the world also doubled. Facebook received 19,235 requests for user data from the U.S. government, by far the…
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Facebook product manager Melissa Luu-Van wrote an article in the Harvard Business Review this week detailing the company’s unique approach to helping users protect their privacy. Instead of focusing solely on the technological aspect of cyber security, Luu-Van says that Facebook also addresses the “human context” of these problems in three empathetic ways. First, the…
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The school system in Orange County, Florida, renewed a program this week that allows it to spy on students’ social media profiles using monitoring software called SnapTrends. The software, which the school district pays about $18,000 annually to use, “grabs and analyzes” social media messages posted from the district’s campuses. It’s capable of combing through…
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