A new social network has launched that promises to offer more security, privacy and transparency than Facebook by encrypting user information. The site, Minds.com, aims to protect users from both advertisers and the government. Minds works like any other social network, with users sharing content with their friends, leaving comments and making connections. However, the…

Facebook released a new photo-sharing app this week called Moments that relies on facial recognition technology to tag and send pictures of your friends from your private camera roll. “Syncing photos with the Moments app is a private way to give photos to friends and get the photos you didn’t take,” wrote Will Ruben, Facebook’s…

A 17-year-old boy in Portland, Oregon, is accused of setting up a fake Facebook profile to lure his victims to a public park, where he robbed them at gunpoint and stole their expensive shoes. According to police, the boy set up a fake Facebook account under the name “Karl Stevens” and messaged people on the…

Many Facebook users don’t know it, but their name and profile picture are being used in the site’s sponsored advertising. USA Today published an op-ed  chronicling one writer’s story of finding out how his likeness was being used. The writer, Jefferson Graham, received word from his wife’s cousin that he was suggesting she sign up…

Facebook hosted its first-ever privacy summit last Wednesday in an effort to improve its privacy credentials. The summit, called Privacy@Scale, brought together experts from industry, law and academics to discuss and debate the very concept of user privacy. The group gathered in the company’s Menlo Park headquarters the day before an even bigger privacy conference…

Last week, a Google Chrome extension called Marauders Map showed just how easy it was to track the location of Facebook Messenger users by using their data to plot them on a map. However, the site has updated the Messenger app, and now it will no longer track location by default. Prior to the change,…

Judy Mezzatesta said she started receiving messages from strange men when she changed her relationship status on Facebook to “Separated” two years ago. However, the Portland, Oregon, woman was savvy enough about Facebook not to accept any requests. That’s why she was immediately suspicious when a man contacted her claiming to be a soldier in…

Though Congress passed a bill reining in the NSA’s spy capabilities this week, private companies like Facebook still make it their business to gather as much of your data as possible. As the National Journal wrote in a sweeping article summarizing the country’s data collection practices, comparing Facebook to the government is a bit unfair…

When Facebook announced a way for people to access the site on Tor last year, it was clear the site wanted to court users who both wished to use the site and remain anonymous. Facebook added another feature this week to help these users: OpenPGP (or “Pretty Good Privacy”) encryption for emails sent by the…

The case of a Pennsylvania man who made violent threats against his wife, an FBI agent and others on Facebook went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court to determine whether or not his online comments could be legally protected. In a surprisingly lopsided decision, the court ruled 7-2 this week to overturn the…