<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/mark-zuckerbergs-deepfake-video-posted-on-instagram-226388">Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg</a> did not knowingly violate an agreement with the regulator supervising the company's management of users' personal data, the social media giant said Wednesday as it addressed an issue that has been under federal investigation for the past year.

Facebook was required to provide the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) with emails, some from 2012, suggesting that Zuckerberg was personally aware of but neglected to address the fact that external applications had access to massive amounts of personal data without Facebook users' knowledge, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The newspaper added that it did not have access to the documents but that anonymous sources had described their contents.

"We have fully cooperated with the FTC's investigation to date and provided tens of thousands of documents, emails and files," said a Facebook spokesperson.

"At no point did Mark or any other Facebook employee knowingly violate the company's obligations under the FTC consent order nor do any emails exist that indicate they did."

The FTC reopened investigations into whether Facebook violated a 2011 settlement with the regulator on protecting user data following revelations last year that personal data from tens of millions of users was hijacked by the political consultancy Cambridge Analytica as it worked on Donald Trump's presidential campaign.

The 2011 court-approved agreement required Facebook to notify users when it shares data with third parties and bars the social network from deceptive practices.

The investigation could result in a record fine running into billions of dollars.

Despite the controversies, some 2.7 billion people use at least one of the "family" of the company's applications, including the core Facebook network, Instagram, and messaging applications WhatsApp and Messenger.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg did not knowingly violate an agreement with the regulator supervising the company's management of users' personal data, the social media giant said Wednesday as it addressed an issue that has been under federal investigation for the past year.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg did not knowingly violate an agreement with the regulator supervising the company's management of users' personal data, the social media giant said Wednesday as it addressed an issue that has been under federal investigation for the past year. Facebook was required to provide the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) with emails, some from 2012, suggesting that Zuckerberg was personally aware of but neglected to address the fact that external applications had access to massive amounts of personal data without Facebook users' knowledge, the Wall Street Journal reported. The newspaper added that it did not have access to the documents but that anonymous sources had described their contents. "We have fully cooperated with the FTC's investigation to date and provided tens of thousands of documents, emails and files," said a Facebook spokesperson. "At no point did Mark or any other Facebook employee knowingly violate the company's obligations under the FTC consent order nor do any emails exist that indicate they did." The FTC reopened investigations into whether Facebook violated a 2011 settlement with the regulator on protecting user data following revelations last year that personal data from tens of millions of users was hijacked by the political consultancy Cambridge Analytica as it worked on Donald Trump's presidential campaign. The 2011 court-approved agreement required Facebook to notify users when it shares data with third parties and bars the social network from deceptive practices. The investigation could result in a record fine running into billions of dollars. Despite the controversies, some 2.7 billion people use at least one of the "family" of the company's applications, including the core Facebook network, Instagram, and messaging applications WhatsApp and Messenger.

Facebook says CEO did not ignore personal data issues

WhatsApp has threatened legal action against those who publicly claim the ability to abuse its messaging platform, after the emergence of a raft of companies advertising products to bypass usage restrictions.

An investigation found in May that WhatsApp clones and software tools were helping Indian digital marketers and political activists bypass anti-spam restrictions in the run-up to India's general election.

Until now, WhatsApp has focused legal action on abuses for which it had found internal evidence.

However, the Facebook-owned company said in a post titled "Unauthorised usage of WhatsApp" that from December&nbsp;7 it would take action even if an entity merely made public claims of an ability to abuse its platform.

The company said this "serves as notice that we will take legal action against companies" for such abuses. A WhatsApp spokeswoman did not specify what sort of legal action it could take.

Reuters in May reported WhatsApp was being misused ahead of India's general election through the use of free clone apps and via a $14 software tool that allowed users to automate the delivery of bulk WhatsApp messages.

Tools purporting to bypass WhatsApp restrictions have also been advertised in videos and online forums aimed at users in Indonesia and Nigeria, both of which held elections this year.

Some firms in India also offered the chance to send bulk WhatsApp messages from anonymous numbers via a website, Reuters found.

Fighting spam has been a major issue for WhatsApp, especially in India, where it has more than 200 million users.

Last year, false messages circulating on WhatsApp sparked mob lynchings in India, following which the company restricted the forwarding of a message to only five users.

WhatsApp said it will also continue banning accounts based on machine learning. WhatsApp says it blocks more than 2 million accounts per month worldwide for bulk or automated behaviour.

WhatsApp has threatened legal action against those who publicly claim the ability to abuse its messaging platform, after the emergence of a raft of companies advertising products to bypass usage restrictions.

WhatsApp has threatened legal action against those who publicly claim the ability to abuse its messaging platform, after the emergence of a raft of companies advertising products to bypass usage restrictions. An investigation found in May that WhatsApp clones and software tools were helping Indian digital marketers and political activists bypass anti-spam restrictions in the run-up to India's general election. Until now, WhatsApp has focused legal action on abuses for which it had found internal evidence. However, the Facebook-owned company said in a post titled "Unauthorised usage of WhatsApp" that from December 7 it would take action even if an entity merely made public claims of an ability to abuse its platform. The company said this "serves as notice that we will take legal action against companies" for such abuses. A WhatsApp spokeswoman did not specify what sort of legal action it could take. Reuters in May reported WhatsApp was being misused ahead of India's general election through the use of free clone apps and via a $14 software tool that allowed users to automate the delivery of bulk WhatsApp messages. Tools purporting to bypass WhatsApp restrictions have also been advertised in videos and online forums aimed at users in Indonesia and Nigeria, both of which held elections this year. Some firms in India also offered the chance to send bulk WhatsApp messages from anonymous numbers via a website, Reuters found. Fighting spam has been a major issue for WhatsApp, especially in India, where it has more than 200 million users. Last year, false messages circulating on WhatsApp sparked mob lynchings in India, following which the company restricted the forwarding of a message to only five users. WhatsApp said it will also continue banning accounts based on machine learning. WhatsApp says it blocks more than 2 million accounts per month worldwide for bulk or automated behaviour.

WhatsApp threatens legal action against public claims of messaging abuses

Group of 20 finance ministers agreed on Saturday to compile common rules to close loopholes used by global tech giants such as Facebook to reduce their corporate taxes, a copy of the bloc's draft communique obtained by Reuters showed.

Facebook, Google, Amazon, and other large technology firms face criticism for cutting their tax bills by booking profits in low-tax countries regardless of the location of the end customer. Such practices are seen by many as unfair.

The new rules would mean higher tax burdens for large multinational firms but would also make it harder for countries like Ireland to attract foreign direct investment with the promise of ultra-low corporate tax rates.

"We welcome the recent progress on addressing the tax challenges arising from digitization and endorse the ambitious program that consists of a two-pillar approach," the draft communique said. "We will redouble our efforts for a consensus-based solution with a final report by 2020."

Britain and France have been among the most vocal proponents of proposals to tax big tech companies that focus on making it more difficult to shift profits to low-tax jurisdictions, and to introduce a minimum corporate tax.

This has put the two countries at loggerheads with the United States, which has expressed concern that US Internet companies are being unfairly targeted in a broad push to update the global corporate tax code.

"The United States has significant concerns with the two corporate taxes proposed by France and the UK," US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Saturday at a two-day meeting of G20 finance ministers in the Japanese city of Fukuoka.

"It sounds like we have a strong consensus" about the goals of tax reform, Mnuchin later said.

"So now we need to just take the consensus across here and deal with technicalities of how we turn this into an agreement."

Mnuchin spoke at a panel on global taxation at the G20 after the French and British finance ministers voiced sympathy with his concerns that new tax rules do not discriminate against particular firms.

Big Internet companies say they follow tax rules but have paid little tax in Europe, typically by channelling sales via countries such as Ireland and Luxembourg, which have light-touch tax regimes.

The G20's debate on changes to the tax code focus on two pillars that could be a double whammy for some companies.

The first pillar is dividing up the rights to tax a company where its goods or services are sold even if it does not have a physical presence in that country.

If companies are still able to find a way to book profits in low tax or offshore havens, countries could then apply a global minimum tax rate to be agreed under the second pillar.

The path to a final agreement is still fraught with difficulty because of disagreement on a common definition of digital business and on how to distribute tax authority among different countries.

"There are differences between the United States and the United Kingdom over pillar one. As for pillar two, there are also differences in views within the Group of 7," said a senior Japanese finance ministry official present at the G20.

The G7 likely will not issue any communique at a meeting of the world's leading economic powers next month, according to the official. Still, several finance ministers at the G20 said on Saturday they needed to act quickly to correct unfair corporate tax codes or risk being punished by voters.

"We cannot explain to a population that they should pay their taxes when certain companies do not because they shift their profits to low-tax jurisdictions," French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said during the panel discussion.

The US government has voiced concern in the past that the European campaign for a "digital tax" unfairly targets US tech giants.

After listening to presentations by Le Maire and British finance minister Philip Hammond, Mnuchin said on Saturday G20 countries should issue "marching orders" to their respective finance ministries to negotiate the technical aspects of a deal.

Earlier this year, countries and territories agreed to a roadmap aimed at overhauling international tax rules that have been overtaken by the development of digital commerce.

Group of 20 finance ministers agreed on Saturday to compile common rules to close loopholes used by global tech giants such as Facebook to reduce their corporate taxes, a copy of the bloc's draft communique obtained by Reuters showed.

Group of 20 finance ministers agreed on Saturday to compile common rules to close loopholes used by global tech giants such as Facebook to reduce their corporate taxes, a copy of the bloc's draft communique obtained by Reuters showed. Facebook, Google, Amazon, and other large technology firms face criticism for cutting their tax bills by booking profits in low-tax countries regardless of the location of the end customer. Such practices are seen by many as unfair. The new rules would mean higher tax burdens for large multinational firms but would also make it harder for countries like Ireland to attract foreign direct investment with the promise of ultra-low corporate tax rates. "We welcome the recent progress on addressing the tax challenges arising from digitization and endorse the ambitious program that consists of a two-pillar approach," the draft communique said. "We will redouble our efforts for a consensus-based solution with a final report by 2020." Britain and France have been among the most vocal proponents of proposals to tax big tech companies that focus on making it more difficult to shift profits to low-tax jurisdictions, and to introduce a minimum corporate tax. This has put the two countries at loggerheads with the United States, which has expressed concern that US Internet companies are being unfairly targeted in a broad push to update the global corporate tax code. "The United States has significant concerns with the two corporate taxes proposed by France and the UK," US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Saturday at a two-day meeting of G20 finance ministers in the Japanese city of Fukuoka. "It sounds like we have a strong consensus" about the goals of tax reform, Mnuchin later said. "So now we need to just take the consensus across here and deal with technicalities of how we turn this into an agreement." Mnuchin spoke at a panel on global taxation at the G20 after the French and British finance ministers voiced sympathy with his concerns that new tax rules do not discriminate against particular firms. Big Internet companies say they follow tax rules but have paid little tax in Europe, typically by channelling sales via countries such as Ireland and Luxembourg, which have light-touch tax regimes. The G20's debate on changes to the tax code focus on two pillars that could be a double whammy for some companies. The first pillar is dividing up the rights to tax a company where its goods or services are sold even if it does not have a physical presence in that country. If companies are still able to find a way to book profits in low tax or offshore havens, countries could then apply a global minimum tax rate to be agreed under the second pillar. The path to a final agreement is still fraught with difficulty because of disagreement on a common definition of digital business and on how to distribute tax authority among different countries. "There are differences between the United States and the United Kingdom over pillar one. As for pillar two, there are also differences in views within the Group of 7," said a senior Japanese finance ministry official present at the G20. The G7 likely will not issue any communique at a meeting of the world's leading economic powers next month, according to the official. Still, several finance ministers at the G20 said on Saturday they needed to act quickly to correct unfair corporate tax codes or risk being punished by voters. "We cannot explain to a population that they should pay their taxes when certain companies do not because they shift their profits to low-tax jurisdictions," French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said during the panel discussion. The US government has voiced concern in the past that the European campaign for a "digital tax" unfairly targets US tech giants. After listening to presentations by Le Maire and British finance minister Philip Hammond, Mnuchin said on Saturday G20 countries should issue "marching orders" to their respective finance ministries to negotiate the technical aspects of a deal. Earlier this year, countries and territories agreed to a roadmap aimed at overhauling international tax rules that have been overtaken by the development of digital commerce.

G20 agrees to push ahead with digital tax: Report

Facebook Inc is no longer allowing pre-installation of its apps on Huawei phones, the latest blow for the <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/google-flags-us-national-security-risks-from-huawei-ban-report-225151">Chinese tech giant</a> as it struggles to keep its business afloat in the face of a US ban on its purchase of American parts and software.

Customers who already have <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/huawei-willing-to-sign-no-spy-agreement-with-us-government-chairman-224403">Huawei </a>phones will still be able to use its apps and receive updates, Facebook told Reuters. But new Huawei phones will no longer be able to have Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram apps pre-installed.

Smartphone vendors often enter business deals to pre-install popular apps such as Facebook. Apps including Twitter and Booking.com also come pre-installed on Huawei phones in many markets. Twitter Inc declined to comment and Booking Holdings did not respond to a request.

The move by Facebook dampens the sales outlook for Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, whose smartphone business became its biggest revenue generator last year, powered by strong growth in Europe and Asia.

Also read-&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/explainer-us-china-trade-war-the-levers-they-can-pull-224809">US-China trade war: The levers they can pull</a>

Huawei declined to comment.

Alphabet Inc's Google said earlier that it would no longer provide Android software for Huawei phones after a 90-day reprieve granted by the U.S. government expires in August. But Google's Playstore and all Google apps will still be available for current models of Huawei phones including those which have not yet shipped or even been built.

The Facebook ban, by contrast, applies to any Huawei phone that has not yet left the factory, according to a person familiar with the matter. Facebook declined to comment on when the suspension took place.

In May, Washington banned US companies from supplying technology to Huawei, part of a long-running campaign against the company. The United States alleges that Huawei is too close to the Chinese government and that its telecom network gear and other products could be a conduit for espionage, which Huawei denies.

Watch: Huawei says US blacklisting sets 'dangerous precedent'

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Buyers of current Huawei phone models that do not have Facebook pre-installed would still be able to download it from the Google Playstore. Future versions of Huawei phones, however, will not have access to the Google Playstore and its apps unless the US government changes course.

Huawei has said it was prepared for the US action and vowed to work around any disruptions. But some customers at stores in Europe and Asia have told Reuters that they are reluctant to buy Huawei phones in the face of uncertainties, and analysts expect a dramatic drop in Huawei smartphone sales. 
&nbsp;

Facebook Inc is no longer allowing pre-installation of its apps on Huawei phones, the latest blow for the Chinese tech giant as it struggles to keep its business afloat in the face of a US ban on its purchase of American parts and software.

Facebook Inc is no longer allowing pre-installation of its apps on Huawei phones, the latest blow for the Chinese tech giant as it struggles to keep its business afloat in the face of a US ban on its purchase of American parts and software. Customers who already have Huawei phones will still be able to use its apps and receive updates, Facebook told Reuters. But new Huawei phones will no longer be able to have Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram apps pre-installed. Smartphone vendors often enter business deals to pre-install popular apps such as Facebook. Apps including Twitter and Booking.com also come pre-installed on Huawei phones in many markets. Twitter Inc declined to comment and Booking Holdings did not respond to a request. The move by Facebook dampens the sales outlook for Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, whose smartphone business became its biggest revenue generator last year, powered by strong growth in Europe and Asia. Also read- US-China trade war: The levers they can pull Huawei declined to comment. Alphabet Inc's Google said earlier that it would no longer provide Android software for Huawei phones after a 90-day reprieve granted by the U.S. government expires in August. But Google's Playstore and all Google apps will still be available for current models of Huawei phones including those which have not yet shipped or even been built. The Facebook ban, by contrast, applies to any Huawei phone that has not yet left the factory, according to a person familiar with the matter. Facebook declined to comment on when the suspension took place. In May, Washington banned US companies from supplying technology to Huawei, part of a long-running campaign against the company. The United States alleges that Huawei is too close to the Chinese government and that its telecom network gear and other products could be a conduit for espionage, which Huawei denies. Watch: Huawei says US blacklisting sets 'dangerous precedent' × Buyers of current Huawei phone models that do not have Facebook pre-installed would still be able to download it from the Google Playstore. Future versions of Huawei phones, however, will not have access to the Google Playstore and its apps unless the US government changes course. Huawei has said it was prepared for the US action and vowed to work around any disruptions. But some customers at stores in Europe and Asia have told Reuters that they are reluctant to buy Huawei phones in the face of uncertainties, and analysts expect a dramatic drop in Huawei smartphone sales.

Facebook suspends app pre-installs on Huawei phones

The US Department of Justice is preparing an antitrust investigation of Internet titan <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/google-facebook-twitter-rapped-for-not-doing-enough-in-european-union-fake-news-fight-219412">Google</a>, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday.

The Journal cited unnamed sources close to the matter as saying the department would look into Google practices related to web search and other businesses.

Justice Department officials share antitrust oversight with the Federal Trade Commission, which conducted a wide-ranging investigation of its own into Alphabet-owned Google that ended in 2013 with no action taken.

Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A new investigation would come as backlash grows against major tech companies that dominate key segments of the online economy.

Democratic presidential candidate <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/elizabeth-warren-builds-largest-united-states-presidential-campaign-staff-210823">Elizabeth Warren</a> has argued that big firms such as Facebook, Google and Apple should be broken up through antitrust enforcement.

Alphabet's profit in the first three months of this year sagged under the weight of a hefty antitrust fine in the European Union.

Alphabet said profit in the first quarter fell 29 per cent to $6.7 billion on revenue that climbed 17 per cent to $36.3 billion.

The earnings took a hit from a European Commission fine that amounted to $1.7 billion at the end of March, according to the quarterly update.

Google's lucrative advertising platform remained the largest revenue driver for Alphabet, delivering more than $30 billion in revenue, but costs rose sharply as well.

But Google continues to face pressure around the world from regulators, notably in Europe amid multiple investigations over alleged abuse of its dominance in internet search, advertising and its mobile system.

Watch: Google introduced two new privacy features

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The latest fine imposed by Brussels cited Google's AdSense advertising service, saying it illegally restricted client websites from displaying messages from ad service rivals.

Google is separately working to satisfy EU regulators investigating its hugely popular Android devices following a $5 billion fine last year.

Google earlier this year said it would offer smartphone users five browsers and search engines as part of the company's effort to meet EU competition concerns.

Brussels accused Google of using the Android system's dominance of smartphones and tablets to promote the use of its own Google search engine and Chrome browser and shut out rivals.

In the United States, Google has been a target of President Donald Trump and his allies who have accused the search giant of "bias" and silencing conservative voices, claims denied by the Silicon Valley firm.

The US Department of Justice is preparing an antitrust investigation of Internet titan Google, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. The Journal cited unnamed sources close to the matter as saying the department would look into Google practices related to web search and other businesses.

The US Department of Justice is preparing an antitrust investigation of Internet titan Google, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday. The Journal cited unnamed sources close to the matter as saying the department would look into Google practices related to web search and other businesses. Justice Department officials share antitrust oversight with the Federal Trade Commission, which conducted a wide-ranging investigation of its own into Alphabet-owned Google that ended in 2013 with no action taken. Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A new investigation would come as backlash grows against major tech companies that dominate key segments of the online economy. Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren has argued that big firms such as Facebook, Google and Apple should be broken up through antitrust enforcement. Alphabet's profit in the first three months of this year sagged under the weight of a hefty antitrust fine in the European Union. Alphabet said profit in the first quarter fell 29 per cent to $6.7 billion on revenue that climbed 17 per cent to $36.3 billion. The earnings took a hit from a European Commission fine that amounted to $1.7 billion at the end of March, according to the quarterly update. Google's lucrative advertising platform remained the largest revenue driver for Alphabet, delivering more than $30 billion in revenue, but costs rose sharply as well. But Google continues to face pressure around the world from regulators, notably in Europe amid multiple investigations over alleged abuse of its dominance in internet search, advertising and its mobile system. Watch: Google introduced two new privacy features × The latest fine imposed by Brussels cited Google's AdSense advertising service, saying it illegally restricted client websites from displaying messages from ad service rivals. Google is separately working to satisfy EU regulators investigating its hugely popular Android devices following a $5 billion fine last year. Google earlier this year said it would offer smartphone users five browsers and search engines as part of the company's effort to meet EU competition concerns. Brussels accused Google of using the Android system's dominance of smartphones and tablets to promote the use of its own Google search engine and Chrome browser and shut out rivals. In the United States, Google has been a target of President Donald Trump and his allies who have accused the search giant of "bias" and silencing conservative voices, claims denied by the Silicon Valley firm.

US preparing antitrust probe of Google: Report

The display picture of Narendra Modi's Twitter handle and Facebook was updated minutes before <a href="https://www.wionews.com/india-general-elections-2019/narendra-modi-takes-oath-as-prime-minister-for-second-time-222847">he took oath as the prime minister for the second time</a> on Thursday.

In his new photo, the 68-year-old stalwart is wearing a light blue shirt with black half-jacket, also known as Modi jacket.

The cover photo of the Prime Minister on the micro-blogging site was also replaced with the image of his greeting the crowd with folded hands on the day he capped a landslide victory in the recently-concluded Lok Sabha elections and gave a victory speech from the dais of the BJP headquarters.

Narendra Modi is one of the most famous and active politicians on social media with nearly 48 million followers.

He joined Twitter in 2009 while he was the chief minister of Gujarat.

Watch:&nbsp;Narendra Modi takes oath as Prime Minister for second consecutive term

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Narendra Modi took oath as the 15th Prime Minister of India in the forecourt of the Rashtrapati Bhavan in the presence of a battery of dignitaries, including foreign leaders.

Minutes, after he was administered the oath by President Ram Nath Kovind, the display and cover pictures of the Prime Minister Office (PMO) Twitter handle was also changed.

In the cover photo, the PM Modi is bowing down to respectfully touch the Constitution of India with his forehead, as he walked towards the podium after he was recently elected as the leader of the NDA and BJP&nbsp;parliamentary party last week.

The main image is his close-up in which the leader is wearing a saffron jacket on a white shirt.

Riding high on the planks of muscular nationalism, BJP stormed to power with 303 seats. Along with its NDA allies, the number swelled to 353 in the 543-member Lok Sabha.

The display picture of Narendra Modi's Twitter handle and Facebook was updated minutes before he took oath as the prime minister for the second time on Thursday.

The display picture of Narendra Modi's Twitter handle and Facebook was updated minutes before he took oath as the prime minister for the second time on Thursday. In his new photo, the 68-year-old stalwart is wearing a light blue shirt with black half-jacket, also known as Modi jacket. The cover photo of the Prime Minister on the micro-blogging site was also replaced with the image of his greeting the crowd with folded hands on the day he capped a landslide victory in the recently-concluded Lok Sabha elections and gave a victory speech from the dais of the BJP headquarters. Narendra Modi is one of the most famous and active politicians on social media with nearly 48 million followers. He joined Twitter in 2009 while he was the chief minister of Gujarat. Watch: Narendra Modi takes oath as Prime Minister for second consecutive term Narendra Modi took oath as the 15th Prime Minister of India in the forecourt of the Rashtrapati Bhavan in the presence of a battery of dignitaries, including foreign leaders. Minutes, after he was administered the oath by President Ram Nath Kovind, the display and cover pictures of the Prime Minister Office (PMO) Twitter handle was also changed. In the cover photo, the PM Modi is bowing down to respectfully touch the Constitution of India with his forehead, as he walked towards the podium after he was recently elected as the leader of the NDA and BJP parliamentary party last week. The main image is his close-up in which the leader is wearing a saffron jacket on a white shirt. Riding high on the planks of muscular nationalism, BJP stormed to power with 303 seats. Along with its NDA allies, the number swelled to 353 in the 543-member Lok Sabha.

PM Modi's Twitter, Facebook profile updated minutes before he took oath

According to social media giant Facebook, it has removed more than 3 billion fake accounts from October to March, twice as many as the previous six months. Watch the full video to know more.

In 6 months, Facebook removed more than 3 billion fake accounts

Facebook has been in contact with US and British financial regulators with a view to launching its own cryptocurrency next year, the BBC reported on Friday.&nbsp;

"GlobalCoin" would work with a new digital payments system in about a dozen countries, starting in the first quarter of 2020, the broadcaster said on its website.

Previous reports have said<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/i-started-facebook-i-run-it-and-im-responsible-for-what-happens-here-zuckerberg-at-joint-senate-committee-hearing-129702"> Facebook</a> is taking a serious look at blockchain technology under its "Project Libra", in part to tackle doubts about privacy among its many users following a series of scandals.

But the targeted date appears new. The BBC said Facebook had already spoken to Bank of England governor Mark Carney and to officials at the US Treasury and was expected to flesh out its plans this northern hemisphere summer.

Facebook's currency would be "stable coin", a digital unit pegged to the dollar in contrast to more anarchic means of virtual payment such as bitcoin, according to earlier reporting by Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal among others.

With more than two billion users across its platforms, which include WhatsApp and Instagram, Facebook could have the clout to take cryptocurrency mainstream and emulate the likes of WeChat in China, where the US site is banned.

WeChat allows its users to chat, shop and play games without leaving its platform, generating more revenue by offering a one-stop portal.&nbsp;

Facebook chief <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/facebook-breakup-could-boost-china-rivals-sheryl-sandberg-219504">Mark Zuckerberg</a> has said that adding e-commerce is the logical evolution of the company's advertising-based business model.&nbsp;

But such a step is likely to invite more intense regulatory scrutiny at a time when Facebook is already under a cloud for abuses of privacy and the spread of fake news.&nbsp;

Facebook said it had disabled 2.19 billion fake accounts in the first quarter of this year, nearly double the number of the three months prior.

But Zuckerberg on Thursday rejected the idea of breaking up the social media giant, saying that would hamper the fight against deceit and harmful online content.

Facebook has been in contact with US and British financial regulators with a view to launching its own cryptocurrency next year, the BBC reported on Friday. "GlobalCoin" would work with a new digital payments system in about a dozen countries, starting in the first quarter of 2020, the broadcaster said on its website.

Facebook has been in contact with US and British financial regulators with a view to launching its own cryptocurrency next year, the BBC reported on Friday. "GlobalCoin" would work with a new digital payments system in about a dozen countries, starting in the first quarter of 2020, the broadcaster said on its website. Previous reports have said Facebook is taking a serious look at blockchain technology under its "Project Libra", in part to tackle doubts about privacy among its many users following a series of scandals. But the targeted date appears new. The BBC said Facebook had already spoken to Bank of England governor Mark Carney and to officials at the US Treasury and was expected to flesh out its plans this northern hemisphere summer. Facebook's currency would be "stable coin", a digital unit pegged to the dollar in contrast to more anarchic means of virtual payment such as bitcoin, according to earlier reporting by Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal among others. With more than two billion users across its platforms, which include WhatsApp and Instagram, Facebook could have the clout to take cryptocurrency mainstream and emulate the likes of WeChat in China, where the US site is banned. WeChat allows its users to chat, shop and play games without leaving its platform, generating more revenue by offering a one-stop portal. Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg has said that adding e-commerce is the logical evolution of the company's advertising-based business model. But such a step is likely to invite more intense regulatory scrutiny at a time when Facebook is already under a cloud for abuses of privacy and the spread of fake news. Facebook said it had disabled 2.19 billion fake accounts in the first quarter of this year, nearly double the number of the three months prior. But Zuckerberg on Thursday rejected the idea of breaking up the social media giant, saying that would hamper the fight against deceit and harmful online content.

Facebook plans to launch its own 'GlobalCoin' cryptocurrency next year: Report

Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg said Friday a breakup of big US technology would not address "underlying issues" facing the sector and suggested that such a move could help rivals in China.

Sandberg, interviewed on CNBC television, was asked about the<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/facebook-rejects-co-founder-chris-hughes-call-for-breakup-senator-urges-us-antitrust-probe-217370"> latest calls to break up Facebook </a>and other major Silicon Valley firms which dominate key sectors.

"You could break us up, you could break other tech companies up, but you actually don't address the underlying issues people are concerned about,” Sandberg said in the interview.

Sandberg said the social network used by more than two billion people was working to address concerns about election security, online violence promotion and data protection, but that a breakup might only serve to help competitors from China.

"While people are concerned with the size and power of tech companies, there's also a concern in the United States with the size and power of Chinese companies, and the realisation that those companies are not going to be broken up," she said.

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The comments come a week after one of Facebook's co-founders, Chris Hughes, said in an essay "it's time to break up Facebook," warning that it has gained too much power over what people see online.

Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren has also called for a breakup that could require Facebook to spin off its Instagram and WhatsApp units.

Sandberg maintained that Facebook's teams are working hard on safety and security issues, echoing comments since the company came under fire over a series of missteps including the leaking of data in 2016 to a consultancy working for Donald Trump.

"We know at Facebook we have a real possibility to do better and earn back people’s trust," she said.

Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said this week he was optimistic about progress toward a new regulatory framework that would apply to internet platforms.

"Overall I think in order for people to trust the internet... &nbsp;there needs to be the right regulation put in place," Zuckerberg said after meetings with French President Emmanuel Macron to discuss a report called "Creating a French Response to Make Social Media Responsible."

Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg said Friday a breakup of big US technology would not address "underlying issues" facing the sector and suggested that such a move could help rivals in China.

Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg said Friday a breakup of big US technology would not address "underlying issues" facing the sector and suggested that such a move could help rivals in China. Sandberg, interviewed on CNBC television, was asked about the latest calls to break up Facebook and other major Silicon Valley firms which dominate key sectors. "You could break us up, you could break other tech companies up, but you actually don't address the underlying issues people are concerned about,” Sandberg said in the interview. Sandberg said the social network used by more than two billion people was working to address concerns about election security, online violence promotion and data protection, but that a breakup might only serve to help competitors from China. "While people are concerned with the size and power of tech companies, there's also a concern in the United States with the size and power of Chinese companies, and the realisation that those companies are not going to be broken up," she said. × The comments come a week after one of Facebook's co-founders, Chris Hughes, said in an essay "it's time to break up Facebook," warning that it has gained too much power over what people see online. Democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren has also called for a breakup that could require Facebook to spin off its Instagram and WhatsApp units. Sandberg maintained that Facebook's teams are working hard on safety and security issues, echoing comments since the company came under fire over a series of missteps including the leaking of data in 2016 to a consultancy working for Donald Trump. "We know at Facebook we have a real possibility to do better and earn back people’s trust," she said. Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said this week he was optimistic about progress toward a new regulatory framework that would apply to internet platforms. "Overall I think in order for people to trust the internet... there needs to be the right regulation put in place," Zuckerberg said after meetings with French President Emmanuel Macron to discuss a report called "Creating a French Response to Make Social Media Responsible."

Facebook breakup could boost China rivals: Sheryl Sandberg

At least eight Afghan police were killed in an airstrike during a clash with the Taliban, an official said Friday, in the latest incident of potential friendly fire in the conflict.

Police were fighting the Taliban in Helmand province late Thursday when the Afghan forces called for air support.&nbsp;

"I can confirm an airstrike on the Afghan police, and unfortunately, eight police were killed and 12 others were wounded," Omar Zwak, Helmand provincial government spokesman told AFP.

The death toll was confirmed by interior ministry spokesman Nasrat Rahimi on Facebook. He said 11 more police had been wounded in the strike. &nbsp;

Rahimi said a joint delegation has been appointed to investigate the incident.

Meanwhile, another official -- head of the Helmand provincial council Ataullah Afghan -- gave a different toll, saying 18 Afghan police were killed and 14 others were wounded.

Only Afghan and US forces in Afghanistan conduct airstrikes. There was no immediate comment from US forces.

Afghan and US forces have intensified the aerial bombardment of Taliban and Islamic State group militants in recent months.&nbsp;

According to US Air Force Central Command, the US dropped 7,362 bombs in Afghanistan in 2018, the highest number since at least 2010.

Incidents known as "friendly fire" are not unheard of in Afghanistan, and have bred deep mistrust between local and foreign forces.

In one of the deadliest, 16 Afghan policemen were killed in 2017, when they were mistakenly targeted by US airstrikes in Helmand.

Civilian deaths from airstrikes have also risen sharply this year.

At least eight Afghan police were killed in an airstrike during a clash with the Taliban, an official said Friday, in the latest incident of potential friendly fire in the conflict.

At least eight Afghan police were killed in an airstrike during a clash with the Taliban, an official said Friday, in the latest incident of potential friendly fire in the conflict. Police were fighting the Taliban in Helmand province late Thursday when the Afghan forces called for air support. "I can confirm an airstrike on the Afghan police, and unfortunately, eight police were killed and 12 others were wounded," Omar Zwak, Helmand provincial government spokesman told AFP. The death toll was confirmed by interior ministry spokesman Nasrat Rahimi on Facebook. He said 11 more police had been wounded in the strike. Rahimi said a joint delegation has been appointed to investigate the incident. Meanwhile, another official -- head of the Helmand provincial council Ataullah Afghan -- gave a different toll, saying 18 Afghan police were killed and 14 others were wounded. Only Afghan and US forces in Afghanistan conduct airstrikes. There was no immediate comment from US forces. Afghan and US forces have intensified the aerial bombardment of Taliban and Islamic State group militants in recent months. According to US Air Force Central Command, the US dropped 7,362 bombs in Afghanistan in 2018, the highest number since at least 2010. Incidents known as "friendly fire" are not unheard of in Afghanistan, and have bred deep mistrust between local and foreign forces. In one of the deadliest, 16 Afghan policemen were killed in 2017, when they were mistakenly targeted by US airstrikes in Helmand. Civilian deaths from airstrikes have also risen sharply this year.

At least 8 Afghan police killed in airstrike: Official

Facebook, Google and Twitter were reprimanded by the <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/google-facebook-twitter-have-to-do-more-to-fight-fake-news-european-union-212915">European Commission</a> on Friday for not doing enough to tackle fake news plaguing the election campaign to the European Parliament, seven months after promising to do more.

The tech giants took a voluntary pledge last October to combat the spread of fake news, hoping to avoid more heavy-handed rules. Elections to the European Parliament will be held in the 28 countries making up the European Union on May 23-26.

Foreign interference during the campaign and in national elections in Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Poland, Portugal and Ukraine in the coming months has been a key concern for the Commission and EU governments.

Facebook, Google and Twitter are still falling, the EU executive said in its report on their efforts in April.

"More needs to be done to strengthen the integrity of their services, including advertising services," the Commission's digital chief Andrus Ansip, Justice Commissioner Vera Jourova, Security Commissioner Julian King and Digital Economy Commissioner Mariya Gabriel said in a joint statement.

"The data provided still lacks the level of detail necessary to allow for an independent and accurate assessment of how the platforms' policies have actually contributed to reducing the spread of disinformation in the EU," they said.

Google and Twitter were criticised for failing to develop and implement policies for identifying and disclosing issue-based ads before next week's vote. Such ads can stoke divisive public debate during elections and are prone to disinformation.

Facebook, which took down a fake Russian network targeting Ukraine, was rapped for not saying whether the network also affected users in the EU.

Facebook, Google and Twitter were reprimanded by the European Commission on Friday for not doing enough to tackle fake news plaguing the election campaign to the European Parliament, seven months after promising to do more.

Facebook, Google and Twitter were reprimanded by the European Commission on Friday for not doing enough to tackle fake news plaguing the election campaign to the European Parliament, seven months after promising to do more. The tech giants took a voluntary pledge last October to combat the spread of fake news, hoping to avoid more heavy-handed rules. Elections to the European Parliament will be held in the 28 countries making up the European Union on May 23-26. Foreign interference during the campaign and in national elections in Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Greece, Poland, Portugal and Ukraine in the coming months has been a key concern for the Commission and EU governments. Facebook, Google and Twitter are still falling, the EU executive said in its report on their efforts in April. "More needs to be done to strengthen the integrity of their services, including advertising services," the Commission's digital chief Andrus Ansip, Justice Commissioner Vera Jourova, Security Commissioner Julian King and Digital Economy Commissioner Mariya Gabriel said in a joint statement. "The data provided still lacks the level of detail necessary to allow for an independent and accurate assessment of how the platforms' policies have actually contributed to reducing the spread of disinformation in the EU," they said. Google and Twitter were criticised for failing to develop and implement policies for identifying and disclosing issue-based ads before next week's vote. Such ads can stoke divisive public debate during elections and are prone to disinformation. Facebook, which took down a fake Russian network targeting Ukraine, was rapped for not saying whether the network also affected users in the EU.

Google, Facebook, Twitter rapped for not doing enough in European Union fake news fight

Watch Gravitas full segment for 15th May, 2019

Gravitas; Watch Gravitas full show; 15th May, 2019

France and New Zealand have announced an initiative to eliminate terror and extremist content online in the aftermath of the Christchurch attack on March 15 at a meet in Paris. Over 51 people died in the mosque attack. It was live-streamed on Facebook.&nbsp;

The Initiative "The Christchurch Call to Action To Eliminate Terrorist and Violent Extremist Content Online" is backed by several countries such as Norway, Senegal, Canada, Jordan, UK, Indonesia, Australia, Germany, Japan, Spain, Netherlands, Sweden.

India also supported the initiative with India's IT secretary Ajay Prakash Sawhney present during its adoption. US won't be joining the initiative according to US media reports.

While the initiative calls for "collective, voluntary commitments from governments and online service providers" to address the issue of terrorist and violent extremist content online but within the "principles of a free, open and secure internet without compromising human rights and fundamental freedoms".

A number of global tech giants also took part in the adoption of the initiative in Paris--these include Microsoft, Google, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook.

The online service providers in the initiative to combat online extremist content committed to, "closing accounts where appropriate" and "implement immediate, effective measures to mitigate the specific risk that terrorist and violent extremist content is disseminated through live streaming."

Steps have earlier been taken to address the issue such as at the European Union Internet Forum, the G20, and the G7 including work underway during France’s G7 Presidency on combating the use of the internet for terrorist and violent extremist purposes.

France and New Zealand have announced an initiative to eliminate terror and extremist content online in the aftermath of the Christchurch attack on March 15 at a meet in Paris.

France and New Zealand have announced an initiative to eliminate terror and extremist content online in the aftermath of the Christchurch attack on March 15 at a meet in Paris. Over 51 people died in the mosque attack. It was live-streamed on Facebook. The Initiative "The Christchurch Call to Action To Eliminate Terrorist and Violent Extremist Content Online" is backed by several countries such as Norway, Senegal, Canada, Jordan, UK, Indonesia, Australia, Germany, Japan, Spain, Netherlands, Sweden. India also supported the initiative with India's IT secretary Ajay Prakash Sawhney present during its adoption. US won't be joining the initiative according to US media reports. While the initiative calls for "collective, voluntary commitments from governments and online service providers" to address the issue of terrorist and violent extremist content online but within the "principles of a free, open and secure internet without compromising human rights and fundamental freedoms". A number of global tech giants also took part in the adoption of the initiative in Paris--these include Microsoft, Google, YouTube, Twitter and Facebook. The online service providers in the initiative to combat online extremist content committed to, "closing accounts where appropriate" and "implement immediate, effective measures to mitigate the specific risk that terrorist and violent extremist content is disseminated through live streaming." Steps have earlier been taken to address the issue such as at the European Union Internet Forum, the G20, and the G7 including work underway during France’s G7 Presidency on combating the use of the internet for terrorist and violent extremist purposes.

India backs France, New Zealand initiative to eliminate terror content online

Two months after the mass shooting at a mosque in New Zealand was live-streamed by the accused gunman on Facebook, the company is introducing new rules for the feature.

Facebook changes rules in livestream feature after NZ shooting

A Malaysian teenager who posted an Instagram poll asking if she should live or die took her own life after a majority of respondents voted for the latter, sparking calls for an investigation.

The unidentified 16-year-old from Kuching in eastern Sarawak state died after posting the poll Monday on the Facebook-owned picture-sharing platform.

Police have classified the case as "sudden death".

"Really Important, Help Me Choose D/L," she wrote, according to a report on the news portal Astro Awani, with the letters "D" and "L" apparently referring to "die" or "live" respectively.

Sixty-nine per cent of votes cast were in favour of her ending her life, with just 31 per cent against, local media quoted police as saying.

Lawmaker Ramkarpal Singh called for a probe into the circumstances of her death.

"Would the girl still be alive today if the majority of netizens on her Instagram account discouraged her from taking her own life?" he asked.

"I urge the authorities... to investigate the social media accounts of the victim and the circumstances that led to her death to prevent further abuse of social media in similar circumstances in the future."

Mental health worries

Youth and Sports Minister Syed Saddiq tweeted that he was "genuinely worried" about the state of mental health of young people in Malaysia.

"It's a national issue which must be taken seriously. A national discussion must take place," he said.

Ching Yee Wong, head of communications for Instagram APAC, said in a statement: "Our thoughts and prayers are with this young woman's family.

"We have a deep responsibility to make sure people using Instagram feel safe and supported. As part of our own efforts, we urge everyone to use our reporting tools and to contact emergency services if they see any behaviour that puts people's safety at risk."

Instagram announced a clampdown on images of self-harm in February after a British teen who went online to read about suicide took her own life.

The death of 14-year-old Molly Russell sparked a debate in Britain about regulating children's social media use.

Her parents did not directly blame Instagram for the loss of their daughter but they cited the easy access to disturbing content as a contributing factor, and urged the network to respond.

Instagram has never allowed posts that promote or encourage suicide or self-harm.

But as part of the clampdown, it removed references to non-graphic content related to people hurting themselves from its searches and recommendation features.

It also banned hashtags relating to self-harm.

The measures are meant to make such images more difficult to find for depressed teens who might have suicidal tendencies.

A Malaysian teenager who posted an Instagram poll asking if she should live or die took her own life after a majority of respondents voted for the latter, sparking calls for an investigation.

A Malaysian teenager who posted an Instagram poll asking if she should live or die took her own life after a majority of respondents voted for the latter, sparking calls for an investigation. The unidentified 16-year-old from Kuching in eastern Sarawak state died after posting the poll Monday on the Facebook-owned picture-sharing platform. Police have classified the case as "sudden death". "Really Important, Help Me Choose D/L," she wrote, according to a report on the news portal Astro Awani, with the letters "D" and "L" apparently referring to "die" or "live" respectively. Sixty-nine per cent of votes cast were in favour of her ending her life, with just 31 per cent against, local media quoted police as saying. Lawmaker Ramkarpal Singh called for a probe into the circumstances of her death. "Would the girl still be alive today if the majority of netizens on her Instagram account discouraged her from taking her own life?" he asked. "I urge the authorities... to investigate the social media accounts of the victim and the circumstances that led to her death to prevent further abuse of social media in similar circumstances in the future." Mental health worries Youth and Sports Minister Syed Saddiq tweeted that he was "genuinely worried" about the state of mental health of young people in Malaysia. "It's a national issue which must be taken seriously. A national discussion must take place," he said. Ching Yee Wong, head of communications for Instagram APAC, said in a statement: "Our thoughts and prayers are with this young woman's family. "We have a deep responsibility to make sure people using Instagram feel safe and supported. As part of our own efforts, we urge everyone to use our reporting tools and to contact emergency services if they see any behaviour that puts people's safety at risk." Instagram announced a clampdown on images of self-harm in February after a British teen who went online to read about suicide took her own life. The death of 14-year-old Molly Russell sparked a debate in Britain about regulating children's social media use. Her parents did not directly blame Instagram for the loss of their daughter but they cited the easy access to disturbing content as a contributing factor, and urged the network to respond. Instagram has never allowed posts that promote or encourage suicide or self-harm. But as part of the clampdown, it removed references to non-graphic content related to people hurting themselves from its searches and recommendation features. It also banned hashtags relating to self-harm. The measures are meant to make such images more difficult to find for depressed teens who might have suicidal tendencies.

Malaysian teen commits suicide after Instagram poll

A vulnerability discovered in Facebook’s WhatsApp messaging app is being exploited to inject commercial spyware onto Android and iOS phones by simply calling the target. The spyware, reportedly developed by Israel’s secretive NSO group, can be installed without trace and without the target answering the call, according to security researchers and confirmed by WhatsApp.

WhatsApp voice calls used to inject spyware on phones

The Sri Lankan government&nbsp;temporarily blocked some social media network and instant messaging apps after violent incidents marred the country in the <a href="https://www.wionews.com/south-asia/sri-lanka-catholics-hold-first-sunday-mass-after-easter-attacks-217979">fallout of Easter suicide bombings</a>.

Several dozen people threw stones at mosques and Muslim-owned stores and a <a href="https://www.wionews.com/south-asia/sri-lanka-imposes-curfew-in-western-coastal-town-after-communal-clashes-218047">man was beaten in the town of Chilaw</a> on the west coast on Sunday in a dispute that started on Facebook, news agency Reuters reported.

Some temporarily blocked apps include Facebook Messenger and Whatsapp.

Sri Lankan media also reported incidents in several nearby areas overnight.

Following the incident in Chilaw, a curfew was also imposed in the area which was in&nbsp;effect until 6 am today.

According to the report, tension brewing since Saturday between the Catholics and Muslims in the Christian dominated the town.&nbsp;

On April 21, nine suicide bombers, including a woman, carried out a series of devastating blasts that tore through three churches and three luxury hotels, killing 258 people and injuring over 500 others on the Easter Sunday.

The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, but the government has blamed local Islamist extremist group, the <a href="https://www.wionews.com/south-asia/sri-lanka-terror-group-linked-to-easter-bombings-has-over-rs-140-mn-cash-rs-7-bn-worth-assets-police-216553">National Thawheed Jama'ath</a> (NTJ), for the bombings.

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Early this month, several people were injured in clashes between Muslims and Christians in Negombo, a majority Christian town where St. Sebastian's Church was targeted during the Easter attacks.

After clashes in Negombo, Cardinal Ranjith had appealed to Christians and other communities to show restraint. 
Sri Lanka has a population of 21 million which is a patchwork of ethnicities and religions, dominated by the Sinhalese Buddhist majority.

Muslims account for 10 per cent of the population and are the second-largest minority after Hindus. Around seven per cent of Sri Lankans is Christians.&nbsp;

(With inputs from news agencies)

The Sri Lankan government temporarily blocked some social media network and instant messaging apps after violent incidents marred the country in the fallout of Easter suicide bombings.

The Sri Lankan government temporarily blocked some social media network and instant messaging apps after violent incidents marred the country in the fallout of Easter suicide bombings. Several dozen people threw stones at mosques and Muslim-owned stores and a man was beaten in the town of Chilaw on the west coast on Sunday in a dispute that started on Facebook, news agency Reuters reported. Some temporarily blocked apps include Facebook Messenger and Whatsapp. Sri Lankan media also reported incidents in several nearby areas overnight. Following the incident in Chilaw, a curfew was also imposed in the area which was in effect until 6 am today. According to the report, tension brewing since Saturday between the Catholics and Muslims in the Christian dominated the town. On April 21, nine suicide bombers, including a woman, carried out a series of devastating blasts that tore through three churches and three luxury hotels, killing 258 people and injuring over 500 others on the Easter Sunday. The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the attack, but the government has blamed local Islamist extremist group, the National Thawheed Jama'ath (NTJ), for the bombings. × Early this month, several people were injured in clashes between Muslims and Christians in Negombo, a majority Christian town where St. Sebastian's Church was targeted during the Easter attacks. After clashes in Negombo, Cardinal Ranjith had appealed to Christians and other communities to show restraint. Sri Lanka has a population of 21 million which is a patchwork of ethnicities and religions, dominated by the Sinhalese Buddhist majority. Muslims account for 10 per cent of the population and are the second-largest minority after Hindus. Around seven per cent of Sri Lankans is Christians. (With inputs from news agencies)

Sri Lanka blocks some social media platforms after mosque attack in Chilaw

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg met French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday to discuss the French government's plans to take a more active role in policing harmful content posted on Facebook. Watch full video to know more.

Facebook under pressure to censor hate speech

Facebook has sued South Korean data analytics company, Rankwave, for allegedly misusing data in its advertising and marketing services, the social media giant said in a statement.

Rankwave ran applications on the<a href="https://www.wionews.com/videos/facebook-under-pressure-to-censor-hate-speech-217637"> Facebook platform</a> which have since been suspended by the social media company.

The lawsuit was filed Friday in a court in California, US, Jessica Romero, the director of litigation and compliance of the platform said in a statement.

"Facebook was investigating Rankwave’s data practices in relation to its advertising and marketing services. Rankwave failed to cooperate with our efforts to verify their compliance with our policies, which we require of all developers using our platform," Romero said.

The American company suspects that Rankwave could have used user data collected through its applications for its own commercial purposes.

"By filing the lawsuit, we are sending a message to developers that Facebook is serious about enforcing our policies, including requiring developers to cooperate with us during an investigation," Romero added.

So far, Rankwave has not commented on the lawsuit.&nbsp;

The case could again tarnish the image of the social network and its security measures on the processing of personal data after data from millions of users was compromised by British data analysis firm Cambridge Analytica for political purposes.

What appeared to be an inoffensive fun app in the form of a personality quiz encouraged millions of users to share data about themselves.

Facebook alleges that Rankwave was slurping up user data based on Facebook activity that was then sold on to advertising clients of the South Korean data handling company.&nbsp;

Facebook's demand against Rankwave was presented the same day that the president and co-founder of the American company, Mark Zuckerberg, met in Paris with French <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/facebook-rejects-co-founder-call-for-breakup-senator-urges-us-antitrust-probe-217697">President Emmanuel Macron</a>, at a time when France is preparing to toughen its legislation on social networks.

Facebook has sued South Korean data analytics company, Rankwave, for allegedly misusing data in its advertising and marketing services, the social media giant said in a statement.

Facebook has sued South Korean data analytics company, Rankwave, for allegedly misusing data in its advertising and marketing services, the social media giant said in a statement. Rankwave ran applications on the Facebook platform which have since been suspended by the social media company. The lawsuit was filed Friday in a court in California, US, Jessica Romero, the director of litigation and compliance of the platform said in a statement. "Facebook was investigating Rankwave’s data practices in relation to its advertising and marketing services. Rankwave failed to cooperate with our efforts to verify their compliance with our policies, which we require of all developers using our platform," Romero said. The American company suspects that Rankwave could have used user data collected through its applications for its own commercial purposes. "By filing the lawsuit, we are sending a message to developers that Facebook is serious about enforcing our policies, including requiring developers to cooperate with us during an investigation," Romero added. So far, Rankwave has not commented on the lawsuit. The case could again tarnish the image of the social network and its security measures on the processing of personal data after data from millions of users was compromised by British data analysis firm Cambridge Analytica for political purposes. What appeared to be an inoffensive fun app in the form of a personality quiz encouraged millions of users to share data about themselves. Facebook alleges that Rankwave was slurping up user data based on Facebook activity that was then sold on to advertising clients of the South Korean data handling company. Facebook's demand against Rankwave was presented the same day that the president and co-founder of the American company, Mark Zuckerberg, met in Paris with French President Emmanuel Macron, at a time when France is preparing to toughen its legislation on social networks.

Facebook sues South Korean analytics firm for misuse of data

Facebook Inc quickly rejected a call from co-founder Chris Hughes on Thursday to split the world's largest social media company in three, while lawmakers urged the US Justice Department to launch an antitrust investigation.

Facebook has been under scrutiny from regulators around the world over data sharing practices as well as hate speech and misinformation on its networks. Some US&nbsp;lawmakers have pushed for action to break up big tech companies as well as federal privacy regulation.

"We are a nation with a tradition of reining in monopolies, no matter how well-intentioned the leaders of these companies may be. Mark's power is unprecedented and un-American," Hughes, a former college roommate of <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/facebook-rejects-co-founder-chris-hughes-call-for-breakup-senator-urges-us-antitrust-probe-217370">Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg</a>, wrote in a lengthy New York Times opinion piece&nbsp;

Facebook's social network has more than 2 billion users. It also owns WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram, each used by more than 1 billion people. Facebook bought Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014.

Facebook rejected Hughes' call for WhatsApp and Instagram to be made into separate companies and said the focus should instead be on regulating the internet. Zuckerberg will be in Paris on Friday to discuss internet regulation with French President Emmanuel Macron.

"Facebook accepts that with success comes accountability. But you don't enforce accountability by calling for the break up of a successful American company," Facebook spokesman Nick Clegg said in a statement.

"Accountability of tech companies can only be achieved through the painstaking introduction of new rules for the internet. That is exactly what Mark Zuckerberg has called for."

Late on Thursday, Senator Mike Crapo, the Republican who chairs the banking committee and Sherrod Brown, the top Democrat, asked Facebook to answer questions about a potential cryptocurrency-based payments system using its social network and its data collection.

The letter also asked questions about consumer privacy protections and if it had information about users' creditworthiness.

The US&nbsp;Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat, told CNBC he thinks Facebook should be broken up and that the Justice Department's antitrust division needs to begin an investigation.

Antitrust law makes such a proposal tough to execute because the government would have to take the company to court and win. It is rare to break up a company but not unheard of, with Standard Oil and AT&amp;T being the two biggest examples.

Sense of responsibility

Hughes co-founded Facebook in 2004 at Harvard with Zuckerberg and Dustin Moskovitz. He left Facebook in 2007, and has said in a LinkedIn post he made half a billion dollars for his three years of work.

"It's been 15 years since I co-founded Facebook at Harvard, and I haven't worked at the company in a decade. But I feel a sense of anger and responsibility," Hughes said.

Facebook lost several executives after a bruising series of privacy and disinformation scandals since 2016. The founders of Instagram and WhatsApp have left, as has the executive who took over WhatsApp last year.

Chief Product Officer Chris Cox, who had been at the company for 13 years and was one of Zuckerberg's closest lieutenants, stepped down in March around the same time Facebook announced a pivot towards more private messaging.

He later cited "artistic differences" with Zuckerberg as his reason for leaving, without elaborating.

Critics say the company's pivot to privacy, which will introduce more encrypted communications, will restrict Facebook's ability to police propaganda, hate speech and another abusive behaviour. Cox focused on improving tools to catch banned content in recent years.

Despite its scandals, the company's core business has proven resilient. Facebook has blown past earnings estimates in the past two quarters and it's stock price barely budged in response to Hughes' opinion piece.

Hughes suggested Zuckerberg should be held responsible for the privacy and other lapses at the company, echoing a call earlier this month by Democratic US&nbsp;Senator Ron Wyden to hold the CEO individually liable for "repeated violations" of privacy.

"The government must hold Mark accountable. For too long, lawmakers have marvelled at Facebook's explosive growth and overlooked their responsibility to ensure that Americans are protected and markets are competitive," Hughes said.

Lawmaker pressure

Senator Elizabeth Warren, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for the 2020 presidential election, has vowed to break up Facebook, Amazon.com Inc and Alphabet Inc's Google if elected.

"Today's big tech companies have too much power—over our economy, our society, &amp; our democracy. They've bulldozed competition, used our private info for profit, hurt small businesses &amp; stifled innovation. It's time to #BreakUpBigTech," Warren said on Twitter on Thursday.

Representative Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, said in a statement he agreed in retrospect that US&nbsp;regulators should not have approved Facebook's acquisition of Instagram and WhatsApp.

"The way forward is to heavily scrutinize future mergers and to ensure no company has anti-competitive platform privileges," Khanna said.

In one of a number of scandals to hit the company, Facebook is accused of inappropriately sharing information belonging to 87 million users with the now-defunct British political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica.

Facebook has been in advanced talks with the US&nbsp;Federal Trade Commission to settle a year-old investigation and said last month it expected to spend between $3 billion and $5 billion.

On Monday, Republican and Democratic US&nbsp;senators criticized reported plans for the settlement, calling on the FTC to impose harsher penalties and more restrictions on Facebook's business practices.

Hughes said he last met with Zuckerberg in the summer of 2017, several months before the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke.

"Mark is a good, kind person. But I'm angry that his focus on growth led him to sacrifice security and civility for clicks," Hughes said.

Adam Mosseri, Facebook's previous head of news feed who recently took over Instagram, responded to Hughes on Twitter.

"Regulation is important and necessary, but I'm not convinced breaking us up is the right path. Would love to chat about it if you're open," Mosseri said.

Facebook Inc quickly rejected a call from co-founder Chris Hughes on Thursday to split the world's largest social media company in three, while lawmakers urged the US Justice Department to launch an antitrust investigation.

Facebook Inc quickly rejected a call from co-founder Chris Hughes on Thursday to split the world's largest social media company in three, while lawmakers urged the US Justice Department to launch an antitrust investigation. Facebook has been under scrutiny from regulators around the world over data sharing practices as well as hate speech and misinformation on its networks. Some US lawmakers have pushed for action to break up big tech companies as well as federal privacy regulation. "We are a nation with a tradition of reining in monopolies, no matter how well-intentioned the leaders of these companies may be. Mark's power is unprecedented and un-American," Hughes, a former college roommate of Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, wrote in a lengthy New York Times opinion piece Facebook's social network has more than 2 billion users. It also owns WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram, each used by more than 1 billion people. Facebook bought Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014. Facebook rejected Hughes' call for WhatsApp and Instagram to be made into separate companies and said the focus should instead be on regulating the internet. Zuckerberg will be in Paris on Friday to discuss internet regulation with French President Emmanuel Macron. "Facebook accepts that with success comes accountability. But you don't enforce accountability by calling for the break up of a successful American company," Facebook spokesman Nick Clegg said in a statement. "Accountability of tech companies can only be achieved through the painstaking introduction of new rules for the internet. That is exactly what Mark Zuckerberg has called for." Late on Thursday, Senator Mike Crapo, the Republican who chairs the banking committee and Sherrod Brown, the top Democrat, asked Facebook to answer questions about a potential cryptocurrency-based payments system using its social network and its data collection. The letter also asked questions about consumer privacy protections and if it had information about users' creditworthiness. The US Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat, told CNBC he thinks Facebook should be broken up and that the Justice Department's antitrust division needs to begin an investigation. Antitrust law makes such a proposal tough to execute because the government would have to take the company to court and win. It is rare to break up a company but not unheard of, with Standard Oil and AT&T being the two biggest examples. Sense of responsibility Hughes co-founded Facebook in 2004 at Harvard with Zuckerberg and Dustin Moskovitz. He left Facebook in 2007, and has said in a LinkedIn post he made half a billion dollars for his three years of work. "It's been 15 years since I co-founded Facebook at Harvard, and I haven't worked at the company in a decade. But I feel a sense of anger and responsibility," Hughes said. Facebook lost several executives after a bruising series of privacy and disinformation scandals since 2016. The founders of Instagram and WhatsApp have left, as has the executive who took over WhatsApp last year. Chief Product Officer Chris Cox, who had been at the company for 13 years and was one of Zuckerberg's closest lieutenants, stepped down in March around the same time Facebook announced a pivot towards more private messaging. He later cited "artistic differences" with Zuckerberg as his reason for leaving, without elaborating. Critics say the company's pivot to privacy, which will introduce more encrypted communications, will restrict Facebook's ability to police propaganda, hate speech and another abusive behaviour. Cox focused on improving tools to catch banned content in recent years. Despite its scandals, the company's core business has proven resilient. Facebook has blown past earnings estimates in the past two quarters and it's stock price barely budged in response to Hughes' opinion piece. Hughes suggested Zuckerberg should be held responsible for the privacy and other lapses at the company, echoing a call earlier this month by Democratic US Senator Ron Wyden to hold the CEO individually liable for "repeated violations" of privacy. "The government must hold Mark accountable. For too long, lawmakers have marvelled at Facebook's explosive growth and overlooked their responsibility to ensure that Americans are protected and markets are competitive," Hughes said. Lawmaker pressure Senator Elizabeth Warren, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for the 2020 presidential election, has vowed to break up Facebook, Amazon.com Inc and Alphabet Inc's Google if elected. "Today's big tech companies have too much power—over our economy, our society, & our democracy. They've bulldozed competition, used our private info for profit, hurt small businesses & stifled innovation. It's time to #BreakUpBigTech," Warren said on Twitter on Thursday. Representative Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, said in a statement he agreed in retrospect that US regulators should not have approved Facebook's acquisition of Instagram and WhatsApp. "The way forward is to heavily scrutinize future mergers and to ensure no company has anti-competitive platform privileges," Khanna said. In one of a number of scandals to hit the company, Facebook is accused of inappropriately sharing information belonging to 87 million users with the now-defunct British political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica. Facebook has been in advanced talks with the US Federal Trade Commission to settle a year-old investigation and said last month it expected to spend between $3 billion and $5 billion. On Monday, Republican and Democratic US senators criticized reported plans for the settlement, calling on the FTC to impose harsher penalties and more restrictions on Facebook's business practices. Hughes said he last met with Zuckerberg in the summer of 2017, several months before the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke. "Mark is a good, kind person. But I'm angry that his focus on growth led him to sacrifice security and civility for clicks," Hughes said. Adam Mosseri, Facebook's previous head of news feed who recently took over Instagram, responded to Hughes on Twitter. "Regulation is important and necessary, but I'm not convinced breaking us up is the right path. Would love to chat about it if you're open," Mosseri said.

Facebook rejects co-founder call for breakup, senator urges US antitrust probe

Facebook Inc quickly rejected a <a href="https://www.wionews.com/india-news/facebook-co-founder-says-it-is-time-to-break-up-the-company-217297">call from co-founder Chris Hughes on Thursday to split </a>the world's largest social media company in three, while lawmakers urged the US Justice Department to launch an antitrust investigation.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/facebook-unwittingly-auto-generating-terror-content-us-whistleblower-centre-217365">Facebook</a> has been under scrutiny from regulators around the world over data sharing practices as well as hate speech and misinformation on its networks. Some US&nbsp;lawmakers have pushed for action to break up big tech companies as well as federal privacy regulation.

"We are a nation with a tradition of reining in monopolies, no matter how well-intentioned the leaders of these companies may be. Mark's power is unprecedented and un-American," Hughes, a former college roommate of Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, wrote in a lengthy New York Times opinion piece.

Facebook's social network has more than 2 billion users. It also owns WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram, each used by more than 1 billion people. Facebook bought Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014.

Facebook rejected Hughes' call for WhatsApp and Instagram to be made into separate companies and said the focus should instead be on regulating the internet. Zuckerberg will be in Paris on Friday to discuss internet regulation with French President Emmanuel Macron.

"Facebook accepts that with success comes accountability. But you don't enforce accountability by calling for the break up of a successful American company," Facebook spokesman Nick Clegg said in a statement.

"Accountability of tech companies can only be achieved through the painstaking introduction of new rules for the internet. That is exactly what Mark Zuckerberg has called for."

Late on Thursday, Senator Mike Crapo, the Republican who chairs the banking committee and Sherrod Brown, the top Democrat, asked Facebook to answer questions about a potential cryptocurrency-based payments system using its social network and its data collection.

The letter also asked questions about consumer privacy protections and if it had information about users' creditworthiness.

U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat, told CNBC he thinks Facebook should be broken up and that the Justice Department's antitrust division needs to begin an investigation.

Antitrust law makes such a proposal tough to execute because the government would have to take the company to court and win. It is rare to break up a company but not unheard of, with Standard Oil and AT&amp;T being the two biggest examples.

SENSE OF RESPONSIBILITY

Hughes co-founded Facebook in 2004 at Harvard with Zuckerberg and Dustin Moskovitz. He left Facebook in 2007, and has said in a LinkedIn post he made half a billion dollars for his three years of work.

"It's been 15 years since I co-founded Facebook at Harvard, and I haven't worked at the company in a decade. But I feel a sense of anger and responsibility," Hughes said.

Facebook lost several executives after a bruising series of privacy and disinformation scandals since 2016. The founders of Instagram and WhatsApp have left, as has the executive who took over WhatsApp last year.

Chief Product Officer Chris Cox, who had been at the company for 13 years and was one of Zuckerberg's closest lieutenants, stepped down in March around the same time Facebook announced a pivot towards more private messaging.

He later cited "artistic differences" with Zuckerberg as his reason for leaving, without elaborating.

Critics say the company's pivot to privacy, which will introduce more encrypted communications, will restrict Facebook's ability to police propaganda, hate speech and other abusive behaviours. Cox focused on improving tools to catch banned content in recent years.

Despite its scandals, the company's core business has proven resilient. Facebook has blown past earnings estimates in the past two quarters and its stock price barely budged in response to Hughes' opinion piece.

Hughes suggested Zuckerberg should be held responsible for privacy and other lapses at the company, echoing a call earlier this month by Democratic US Senator Ron Wyden to hold the CEO individually liable for "repeated violations" of privacy.

"The government must hold Mark accountable. For too long, lawmakers have marvelled at Facebook's explosive growth and overlooked their responsibility to ensure that Americans are protected and markets are competitive," Hughes said.

LAWMAKER PRESSURE

Senator Elizabeth Warren, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for the 2020 presidential election, has vowed to break up Facebook, Amazon.com Inc and Alphabet Inc's Google if elected.

"Today's big tech companies have too much power—over our economy, our society, &amp; our democracy. They've bulldozed competition, used our private info for profit, hurt small businesses &amp; stifled innovation. It's time to #BreakUpBigTech," Warren said on Twitter on Thursday.

Representative Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, said in a statement he agreed in retrospect that US regulators should not have approved Facebook's acquisition of Instagram and WhatsApp.

"The way forward is to heavily scrutinize future mergers and to ensure no company has anti-competitive platform privileges," Khanna said.

In one of a number of scandals to hit the company, Facebook is accused of inappropriately sharing information belonging to 87 million users with the now-defunct British political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica.

Facebook has been in advanced talks with the US&nbsp;Federal Trade Commission to settle a year-old investigation and said last month it expected to spend between $3 billion and $5 billion.

On Monday, Republican and Democratic US senators criticized reported plans for the settlement, calling on the FTC to impose harsher penalties and more restrictions on Facebook's business practices.

Hughes said he last met with Zuckerberg in the summer of 2017, several months before the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke.

"Mark is a good, kind person. But I'm angry that his focus on growth led him to sacrifice security and civility for clicks," Hughes said.

Adam Mosseri, Facebook's previous head of news feed who recently took over Instagram, responded to Hughes on Twitter.

"Regulation is important and necessary, but I'm not convinced breaking us up is the right path. Would love to chat about it if you're open," Mosseri said.

Facebook Inc quickly rejected a call from co-founder Chris Hughes on Thursday to split the world's largest social media company in three, while lawmakers urged the US Justice Department to launch an antitrust investigation. Facebook has been under scrutiny from regulators around the world over data sharing practices as well as hate speech and misinformation on its networks. Some US lawmakers have pushed for action to break up big tech companies as well as federal privacy regulation. "We are a nation with a tradition of reining in monopolies, no matter how well-intentioned the leaders of these companies may be. Mark's power is unprecedented and un-American," Hughes, a former college roommate of Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg, wrote in a lengthy New York Times opinion piece. Facebook's social network has more than 2 billion users. It also owns WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram, each used by more than 1 billion people. Facebook bought Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014. Facebook rejected Hughes' call for WhatsApp and Instagram to be made into separate companies and said the focus should instead be on regulating the internet. Zuckerberg will be in Paris on Friday to discuss internet regulation with French President Emmanuel Macron. "Facebook accepts that with success comes accountability. But you don't enforce accountability by calling for the break up of a successful American company," Facebook spokesman Nick Clegg said in a statement. "Accountability of tech companies can only be achieved through the painstaking introduction of new rules for the internet. That is exactly what Mark Zuckerberg has called for." Late on Thursday, Senator Mike Crapo, the Republican who chairs the banking committee and Sherrod Brown, the top Democrat, asked Facebook to answer questions about a potential cryptocurrency-based payments system using its social network and its data collection. The letter also asked questions about consumer privacy protections and if it had information about users' creditworthiness. U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat, told CNBC he thinks Facebook should be broken up and that the Justice Department's antitrust division needs to begin an investigation. Antitrust law makes such a proposal tough to execute because the government would have to take the company to court and win. It is rare to break up a company but not unheard of, with Standard Oil and AT&T being the two biggest examples. SENSE OF RESPONSIBILITY Hughes co-founded Facebook in 2004 at Harvard with Zuckerberg and Dustin Moskovitz. He left Facebook in 2007, and has said in a LinkedIn post he made half a billion dollars for his three years of work. "It's been 15 years since I co-founded Facebook at Harvard, and I haven't worked at the company in a decade. But I feel a sense of anger and responsibility," Hughes said. Facebook lost several executives after a bruising series of privacy and disinformation scandals since 2016. The founders of Instagram and WhatsApp have left, as has the executive who took over WhatsApp last year. Chief Product Officer Chris Cox, who had been at the company for 13 years and was one of Zuckerberg's closest lieutenants, stepped down in March around the same time Facebook announced a pivot towards more private messaging. He later cited "artistic differences" with Zuckerberg as his reason for leaving, without elaborating. Critics say the company's pivot to privacy, which will introduce more encrypted communications, will restrict Facebook's ability to police propaganda, hate speech and other abusive behaviours. Cox focused on improving tools to catch banned content in recent years. Despite its scandals, the company's core business has proven resilient. Facebook has blown past earnings estimates in the past two quarters and its stock price barely budged in response to Hughes' opinion piece. Hughes suggested Zuckerberg should be held responsible for privacy and other lapses at the company, echoing a call earlier this month by Democratic US Senator Ron Wyden to hold the CEO individually liable for "repeated violations" of privacy. "The government must hold Mark accountable. For too long, lawmakers have marvelled at Facebook's explosive growth and overlooked their responsibility to ensure that Americans are protected and markets are competitive," Hughes said. LAWMAKER PRESSURE Senator Elizabeth Warren, who is seeking the Democratic nomination for the 2020 presidential election, has vowed to break up Facebook, Amazon.com Inc and Alphabet Inc's Google if elected. "Today's big tech companies have too much power—over our economy, our society, & our democracy. They've bulldozed competition, used our private info for profit, hurt small businesses & stifled innovation. It's time to #BreakUpBigTech," Warren said on Twitter on Thursday. Representative Ro Khanna, a California Democrat, said in a statement he agreed in retrospect that US regulators should not have approved Facebook's acquisition of Instagram and WhatsApp. "The way forward is to heavily scrutinize future mergers and to ensure no company has anti-competitive platform privileges," Khanna said. In one of a number of scandals to hit the company, Facebook is accused of inappropriately sharing information belonging to 87 million users with the now-defunct British political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica. Facebook has been in advanced talks with the US Federal Trade Commission to settle a year-old investigation and said last month it expected to spend between $3 billion and $5 billion. On Monday, Republican and Democratic US senators criticized reported plans for the settlement, calling on the FTC to impose harsher penalties and more restrictions on Facebook's business practices. Hughes said he last met with Zuckerberg in the summer of 2017, several months before the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke. "Mark is a good, kind person. But I'm angry that his focus on growth led him to sacrifice security and civility for clicks," Hughes said. Adam Mosseri, Facebook's previous head of news feed who recently took over Instagram, responded to Hughes on Twitter. "Regulation is important and necessary, but I'm not convinced breaking us up is the right path. Would love to chat about it if you're open," Mosseri said.

Facebook rejects co-founder Chris Hughes call for breakup, senator urges US antitrust probe

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/india-news/facebook-co-founder-says-it-is-time-to-break-up-the-company-217297">Facebook</a> is unwittingly auto-generating content for terror-linked groups that its artificial intelligence systems do not recognise as extremist, according to a complaint made public on Thursday.

The National Whistleblowers Center in Washington carried out a five-month study of the pages of 3,000 members who liked or connected to organisations proscribed as terrorist by the US government.

Researchers found that the Islamic State group and al-Qaeda were "openly" active on the social network.

More worryingly, the <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/facebook-removes-more-pages-tied-to-russian-operators-216645/amp">Facebook</a>'s own software was automatically creating "celebration" and "memories" videos for extremist pages that had amassed sufficient views or "likes."

The Whistleblower's Center said it filed a complaint with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on behalf of a source that preferred to remain anonymous.

"Facebook's efforts to stamp out terror content have been weak and ineffectual," read an executive summary of the 48-page document shared by the center.

"Of even greater concern, Facebook itself has been creating and promoting terror content with its auto-generate technology."

Survey results shared in the complaint indicated that Facebook was not delivering on its claims about eliminating extremist posts or accounts.

The company told AFP it had been removing terror-linked content "at a far higher success rate than even two years go" since making heavy investments in technology.

"We don't claim to find everything and we remain vigilant in our efforts against terrorist groups around the world," the company said.

Facebook and other social media platforms have been under fire for not doing enough to curb messages of hate and violence, while at the same time criticised for failing to offer equal time for all viewpoints, no matter how unpleasant.

Facebook in March announced bans at the social network and Instagram on praise or support for white nationalism and white separatism.

 
&nbsp;

Facebook is unwittingly auto-generating content for terror-linked groups that its artificial intelligence systems do not recognise as extremist, according to a complaint made public on Thursday.

Facebook is unwittingly auto-generating content for terror-linked groups that its artificial intelligence systems do not recognise as extremist, according to a complaint made public on Thursday. The National Whistleblowers Center in Washington carried out a five-month study of the pages of 3,000 members who liked or connected to organisations proscribed as terrorist by the US government. Researchers found that the Islamic State group and al-Qaeda were "openly" active on the social network. More worryingly, the Facebook's own software was automatically creating "celebration" and "memories" videos for extremist pages that had amassed sufficient views or "likes." The Whistleblower's Center said it filed a complaint with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on behalf of a source that preferred to remain anonymous. "Facebook's efforts to stamp out terror content have been weak and ineffectual," read an executive summary of the 48-page document shared by the center. "Of even greater concern, Facebook itself has been creating and promoting terror content with its auto-generate technology." Survey results shared in the complaint indicated that Facebook was not delivering on its claims about eliminating extremist posts or accounts. The company told AFP it had been removing terror-linked content "at a far higher success rate than even two years go" since making heavy investments in technology. "We don't claim to find everything and we remain vigilant in our efforts against terrorist groups around the world," the company said. Facebook and other social media platforms have been under fire for not doing enough to curb messages of hate and violence, while at the same time criticised for failing to offer equal time for all viewpoints, no matter how unpleasant. Facebook in March announced bans at the social network and Instagram on praise or support for white nationalism and white separatism.

Facebook 'unwittingly' auto-generating terror content: US Whistleblower centre

Micro-blogging website Twitter blocked more than 166,000 accounts between July and December 2018, for violations related to the promotion of terrorism. The company also said that there is a steady decrease in terrorist groups trying to use the platform owing to its "zero-tolerance policy enforcement".

The rate of suspension was down by 19 per cent compared to the previous period (January-June 2018), Twitter announced in a blog post highlighting details of its transparency report.

Twitter has suspended over 1.4 million accounts since August 2015 for promoting terrorism.

The company said its methodology to bring down the terror accounts were producing results - nearly 91 per cent of accounts promoting terrorism related content were proactively removed by its internal technology. Twitter said that in the majority of cases, it took action at the account setup stage - before the account even tweets.

The greater threat for social media giants such as <a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/google-facebook-twitter-have-to-do-more-to-fight-fake-news-european-union-212915">Facebook, Google and Twitter</a> is the pressure from regulatory and government bodies worldwide to remove extremist content more rapidly or face heavy-handed legislation. Many times, these organisations have failed over the years as several men and women joined terror organisations with the help of their Twitter and Facebook accounts.

Due to sheer convenience, affordability and broad reach of numerous social media platforms, terrorist groups have increasingly used social media to propagate hatred and recruit new members into their organisation.

Though Twitter says that the sharp decrease in the number of accounts suspended is indicative of a larger trend, it is now observing that year-on-year the numbers of terrorist organisations attempting to use their service is reducing.

In the past, Twitter has taken down the official pages of terror groups and disqualified their accounts, but many of them have been able to propagate their messages by asking their followers to publish pictures and videos.

Twitter also said that it received eight per cent fewer global requests to remove content, though the US topped the chart with 30 per cent of global government information requests. Requests from the UK (13 per cent), India (6 per cent), Germany (6 per cent) and France (5 per cent) together account for 30 per cent of all global information requests, and 29 per cent of all global accounts specified, the company said.

Micro-blogging website Twitter blocked more than 166,000 accounts between July and December 2018, for violations related to the promotion of terrorism. The company also said that there is a steady decrease in terrorist groups trying to use the platform owing to its "zero-tolerance policy enforcement".

Micro-blogging website Twitter blocked more than 166,000 accounts between July and December 2018, for violations related to the promotion of terrorism. The company also said that there is a steady decrease in terrorist groups trying to use the platform owing to its "zero-tolerance policy enforcement". The rate of suspension was down by 19 per cent compared to the previous period (January-June 2018), Twitter announced in a blog post highlighting details of its transparency report. Twitter has suspended over 1.4 million accounts since August 2015 for promoting terrorism. The company said its methodology to bring down the terror accounts were producing results - nearly 91 per cent of accounts promoting terrorism related content were proactively removed by its internal technology. Twitter said that in the majority of cases, it took action at the account setup stage - before the account even tweets. The greater threat for social media giants such as Facebook, Google and Twitter is the pressure from regulatory and government bodies worldwide to remove extremist content more rapidly or face heavy-handed legislation. Many times, these organisations have failed over the years as several men and women joined terror organisations with the help of their Twitter and Facebook accounts. Due to sheer convenience, affordability and broad reach of numerous social media platforms, terrorist groups have increasingly used social media to propagate hatred and recruit new members into their organisation. Though Twitter says that the sharp decrease in the number of accounts suspended is indicative of a larger trend, it is now observing that year-on-year the numbers of terrorist organisations attempting to use their service is reducing. In the past, Twitter has taken down the official pages of terror groups and disqualified their accounts, but many of them have been able to propagate their messages by asking their followers to publish pictures and videos. Twitter also said that it received eight per cent fewer global requests to remove content, though the US topped the chart with 30 per cent of global government information requests. Requests from the UK (13 per cent), India (6 per cent), Germany (6 per cent) and France (5 per cent) together account for 30 per cent of all global information requests, and 29 per cent of all global accounts specified, the company said.

Twitter suspends over 166,000 accounts for promoting terrorism

The social network Facebook said Monday that it removed over 97 fake accounts, pages and groups from Russia. Watch full video to know more.

Facebook removes over 97 fake accounts tied to Russia

Over the past year, a team of as many as 260 contract workers in Hyderabad, India has ploughed through millions of Facebook Inc photos, status updates and other content posted since 2014.

The workers categorise items according to five "dimensions," as Facebook calls them.

These include the subject of the post - is it food, for example, or a selfie or an animal? What is the occasion - an everyday activity or major life event? And what is the author's intention - to plan an event, to inspire, to make a joke?

The work is aimed at understanding how the types of things users post on its services are changing, Facebook said. That can help the company develop new features, potentially increasing usage and ad revenue.

Details of the effort were provided by multiple employees at outsourcing firm Wipro Ltd over several months. The workers spoke on condition of anonymity due to fear of retaliation by the Indian firm. Facebook later confirmed many details of the project. Wipro declined to comment and referred all questions to Facebook.

The Wipro work is among about 200 content labelling projects that Facebook has at any time, employing thousands of people globally, company officials told Reuters.

Many projects are aimed at "training" the software that determines what appears in users' news feeds and powers the artificial intelligence underlying many other features.

The labelling efforts have not previously been reported.

"It's a core part of what you need," said Nipun Mathur, the director of product management for AI at Facebook. "I don't see the need going away."

The content labelling program could raise new privacy issues for Facebook, according to legal experts consulted by Reuters. The company is facing regulatory investigations worldwide over an unrelated set of alleged privacy abuses involving the sharing of user data with business partners.

The Wipro workers said they gain a window into lives as they view a vacation photo or a post memorialising a deceased family member. Facebook acknowledged that some posts, including screenshots and those with comments, may include user names.

The company said its legal and privacy teams must sign off on all labelling efforts, adding that it recently introduced an auditing system "to ensure that privacy expectations are being followed and parameters in place are working as expected."

But one former Facebook privacy manager, speaking on condition of anonymity, expressed unease about users' posts being scrutinized without their explicit permission. The European Union's year-old General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has strict rules about how companies gather and use personal data and in many cases requires specific consent.

"One of the key pieces of GDPR is purpose limitation," said John Kennedy, a partner at law firm Wiggin and Dana who has worked on outsourcing, privacy and AI.

If the purpose is looking at posts to improve the precision of services, that should be stated explicitly, Kennedy said. Using an outside vendor for the work could also require consent, he said.

It remains unclear exactly how GDPR will be interpreted and whether regulators and consumers would see Facebook's internal labelling practices as problematic. Europe's top data privacy official declined to comment on possible concerns.

A Facebook spokeswoman said: "We make it clear in our data policy that we use the information people provide to Facebook to improve their experience and that we might work with service providers to help in this process."

US Senator Mark Warner, a Democrat and leading critic of social media, told Reuters in a statement that large platforms increasingly are "taking more and more data from users, for wider and more far-reaching uses, without any corresponding compensation to the user."

Warner said he is drafting legislation that would require Facebook to "disclose the value of users' data, and tell users exactly how their data is being monetized."

The project

Human-powered content labelling also referred to as "data annotation," is a growth industry as companies seek to harness data for AI training and other purposes.

Self-driving car companies such as Alphabet Inc's Waymo have labellers identify traffic lights and pedestrians in videos to fortify their AI. Voice assistant developers including Amazon.com Inc have people annotate customer audio to improve AI's ability to decipher speech.

Facebook launched the Wipro project in April last year. The Indian firm received a $4 million contract and formed a team of about 260 labellers, according to the workers. Last year, the work consisted of analyzing posts from the prior five years.

After completing that, the team in December was cut to about 30 and shifted to labelling each month posts from the prior month. Work is expected to last through at least the end of 2019, they said.

Facebook confirmed the staffing changes but declined to comment on financial details.

The company said its analysis is ongoing so it could not provide any findings from the labelling or resulting product decisions. It has not told labellers the purpose or results of the project, and the workers said all they have inferred from their limited view is that selfies are increasingly popular.

The Wipro labellers and Facebook said the posts are a random sampling of text-based status updates, shared links, event posts, Stories feature uploads, videos and photos, including user-posted screenshots of chats on Facebook's various messaging apps. The posts come from Facebook and Instagram users globally, in languages including English, Hindi and Arabic.

Each item goes to two labellers to check the accuracy, and a third if they disagree, Facebook said. Workers said they see on average 700 items per day. Facebook said the target average is lower.

Facebook confirmed labellers in Timisoara, Romania and Manila, the Philippines are involved in the same project.

Among Facebook's other labelling projects, one worker in Hyderabad for outsourcing vendor Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp said he and at least 500 colleagues look for sensitive topics or profane language in Facebook videos.

The aim is to train an automated Facebook tool that enables advertisers to avoid sponsoring videos that are, for example, adult or political, Facebook said. Cognizant did not respond to a request for comment.

Another application of labelling involved the social network's Marketplace shopping feature, where it automated category recommendations for new listings by first having labellers and product experts categorize some existing listings, Facebook's Mathur said.

Private posts

Facebook users are not offered the chance to opt out of their data being labelled.

At Wipro, the posts being examined include not only public posts but also those that are shared privately to a limited set of a user's friends. That ensures the sample reflects the range of activity on Facebook and Instagram, said Karen Courington, director of product support operations at Facebook.

Facebook's data policy does not explicitly mention manual analysis.

"We provide information and content to vendors and service providers who support our business, such as by providing technical infrastructure services, analyzing how our products are used, providing customer service, facilitating payments or conducting surveys," the policy states.

Europe's GDPR also requires companies to delete user data upon request. Facebook said it has the technology to routinely sync labelled posts with both deletion requests and changes to content privacy settings.

Facebook and other companies are testing techniques to curtail the need for outsourced labelling, in part to analyze more data faster and cheaper. For instance, AI training data for news feed rankings and photo descriptions for the blind came from hashtags on Instagram posts, Facebook's Mathur said.

"We try to minimise the number of things we send out," he said.

Over the past year, a team of as many as 260 contract workers in Hyderabad, India has ploughed through millions of Facebook Inc photos, status updates and other content posted since 2014.

Over the past year, a team of as many as 260 contract workers in Hyderabad, India has ploughed through millions of Facebook Inc photos, status updates and other content posted since 2014. The workers categorise items according to five "dimensions," as Facebook calls them. These include the subject of the post - is it food, for example, or a selfie or an animal? What is the occasion - an everyday activity or major life event? And what is the author's intention - to plan an event, to inspire, to make a joke? The work is aimed at understanding how the types of things users post on its services are changing, Facebook said. That can help the company develop new features, potentially increasing usage and ad revenue. Details of the effort were provided by multiple employees at outsourcing firm Wipro Ltd over several months. The workers spoke on condition of anonymity due to fear of retaliation by the Indian firm. Facebook later confirmed many details of the project. Wipro declined to comment and referred all questions to Facebook. The Wipro work is among about 200 content labelling projects that Facebook has at any time, employing thousands of people globally, company officials told Reuters. Many projects are aimed at "training" the software that determines what appears in users' news feeds and powers the artificial intelligence underlying many other features. The labelling efforts have not previously been reported. "It's a core part of what you need," said Nipun Mathur, the director of product management for AI at Facebook. "I don't see the need going away." The content labelling program could raise new privacy issues for Facebook, according to legal experts consulted by Reuters. The company is facing regulatory investigations worldwide over an unrelated set of alleged privacy abuses involving the sharing of user data with business partners. The Wipro workers said they gain a window into lives as they view a vacation photo or a post memorialising a deceased family member. Facebook acknowledged that some posts, including screenshots and those with comments, may include user names. The company said its legal and privacy teams must sign off on all labelling efforts, adding that it recently introduced an auditing system "to ensure that privacy expectations are being followed and parameters in place are working as expected." But one former Facebook privacy manager, speaking on condition of anonymity, expressed unease about users' posts being scrutinized without their explicit permission. The European Union's year-old General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) has strict rules about how companies gather and use personal data and in many cases requires specific consent. "One of the key pieces of GDPR is purpose limitation," said John Kennedy, a partner at law firm Wiggin and Dana who has worked on outsourcing, privacy and AI. If the purpose is looking at posts to improve the precision of services, that should be stated explicitly, Kennedy said. Using an outside vendor for the work could also require consent, he said. It remains unclear exactly how GDPR will be interpreted and whether regulators and consumers would see Facebook's internal labelling practices as problematic. Europe's top data privacy official declined to comment on possible concerns. A Facebook spokeswoman said: "We make it clear in our data policy that we use the information people provide to Facebook to improve their experience and that we might work with service providers to help in this process." US Senator Mark Warner, a Democrat and leading critic of social media, told Reuters in a statement that large platforms increasingly are "taking more and more data from users, for wider and more far-reaching uses, without any corresponding compensation to the user." Warner said he is drafting legislation that would require Facebook to "disclose the value of users' data, and tell users exactly how their data is being monetized." The project Human-powered content labelling also referred to as "data annotation," is a growth industry as companies seek to harness data for AI training and other purposes. Self-driving car companies such as Alphabet Inc's Waymo have labellers identify traffic lights and pedestrians in videos to fortify their AI. Voice assistant developers including Amazon.com Inc have people annotate customer audio to improve AI's ability to decipher speech. Facebook launched the Wipro project in April last year. The Indian firm received a $4 million contract and formed a team of about 260 labellers, according to the workers. Last year, the work consisted of analyzing posts from the prior five years. After completing that, the team in December was cut to about 30 and shifted to labelling each month posts from the prior month. Work is expected to last through at least the end of 2019, they said. Facebook confirmed the staffing changes but declined to comment on financial details. The company said its analysis is ongoing so it could not provide any findings from the labelling or resulting product decisions. It has not told labellers the purpose or results of the project, and the workers said all they have inferred from their limited view is that selfies are increasingly popular. The Wipro labellers and Facebook said the posts are a random sampling of text-based status updates, shared links, event posts, Stories feature uploads, videos and photos, including user-posted screenshots of chats on Facebook's various messaging apps. The posts come from Facebook and Instagram users globally, in languages including English, Hindi and Arabic. Each item goes to two labellers to check the accuracy, and a third if they disagree, Facebook said. Workers said they see on average 700 items per day. Facebook said the target average is lower. Facebook confirmed labellers in Timisoara, Romania and Manila, the Philippines are involved in the same project. Among Facebook's other labelling projects, one worker in Hyderabad for outsourcing vendor Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp said he and at least 500 colleagues look for sensitive topics or profane language in Facebook videos. The aim is to train an automated Facebook tool that enables advertisers to avoid sponsoring videos that are, for example, adult or political, Facebook said. Cognizant did not respond to a request for comment. Another application of labelling involved the social network's Marketplace shopping feature, where it automated category recommendations for new listings by first having labellers and product experts categorize some existing listings, Facebook's Mathur said. Private posts Facebook users are not offered the chance to opt out of their data being labelled. At Wipro, the posts being examined include not only public posts but also those that are shared privately to a limited set of a user's friends. That ensures the sample reflects the range of activity on Facebook and Instagram, said Karen Courington, director of product support operations at Facebook. Facebook's data policy does not explicitly mention manual analysis. "We provide information and content to vendors and service providers who support our business, such as by providing technical infrastructure services, analyzing how our products are used, providing customer service, facilitating payments or conducting surveys," the policy states. Europe's GDPR also requires companies to delete user data upon request. Facebook said it has the technology to routinely sync labelled posts with both deletion requests and changes to content privacy settings. Facebook and other companies are testing techniques to curtail the need for outsourced labelling, in part to analyze more data faster and cheaper. For instance, AI training data for news feed rankings and photo descriptions for the blind came from hashtags on Instagram posts, Facebook's Mathur said. "We try to minimise the number of things we send out," he said.

Facebook 'labels' posts by hand, posing privacy questions

Australian political parties are using voter email addresses to find matching social media profiles then combining them with the country's compulsory electoral roll data, illustrating how privacy scandals have done little to slow the march of data-driven campaigning.

While the use of data and public profiles from Facebook, Twitter and other social media for political campaigning has become widespread globally, Australia is one of the most open countries in the world to online information gathering by political operatives.

"Most Australians have little idea about how many data points organisations like political parties, let alone Facebook, have on each of them," said Glenn Kefford, a political scientist at Macquarie University who has written extensively about data-driven campaigning.

"They would be shocked and probably disgusted."

Australia, which goes to the polls on May 18, is one of the few Western democracies where voting is compulsory.

What's more, Australian political parties and candidates are exempt from privacy laws covering access to the electoral roll data - full names and addresses - that all 16 million voters are required to provide.

In the United States, just 60 per cent of adults are registered to vote, limiting the number of voters whose electoral roll information can be dragged into a data profile.

Last year, Europe introduced sweeping laws requiring political organisations to get specific permission before scraping a person's data from another website.

Australia's government, however, rejected calls for a review of its exemption from privacy laws.

The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner said it has been asking the government for over a decade to overturn that exemption and "continues to hold the view that this exemption should be re-examined in light of the changing digital environment and data collection practices".

Click match

Branches of the left-leaning Labor and Greens parties, the conservative Liberals and the rural-focused Nationals have all hired consultants to run the U.S.-owned campaigning software NationBuilder, a Reuters analysis of party websites shows.

Privately held NationBuilder, which counted several senior Facebook personnel among its early investors and markets itself as politically neutral, launched its social media "match" function in 2013 but stopped automatically offering it in Europe in 2018 due to new digital privacy laws.

NationBuilder's vice president of strategic partnerships, Toni Cowan-Brown, said the company was looking at spreading its "model of privacy by default and consent" beyond Europe but it had not stopped offering its "match" function by default in Australia.

"It's a very delicate line between innovation and privacy," Cowan-Brown said. "The way customers are innovating is very cool and we don't want to stifle that."

In 2018, amid a political data harvesting scandal involving now-defunct British political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica, Facebook made it more difficult for third-party apps like NationBuilder to harvest some user data, although it still lets them import people's profile photo and name based on an email address match.

NationBuilder is trying to regain access to Facebook event RSVPs, the only data it uses that is affected by the new policy, said Cowan-Brown. Unlike Cambridge Analytica, the firm does not pull data on a person's emotions or habits, Cowan-Brown added.

NationBuilder customers can also collect the names of people who "like" or comment on their Facebook posts.

Facebook declined to comment on interactions with NationBuilder specifically but said third-party apps could no longer ask for access to personal information such as religious or political views, relationship status, education or work history.

The company has also limited access to information in its groups, pages and events features, a spokeswoman said.

With Twitter, NationBuilder customers can under certain circumstances import a person's written profile bio, location, personal website, as well as their name and photo and tweets when a customer is mentioned, Cowan-Brown said.

Twitter said its data reflected information that users choose to share publicly.

"Our API (application programming interface) provides broad access to public Twitter data that users have chosen to share with the world," Twitter said in an emailed response to Reuters.

Marketers dream

The major parties also prospect for email addresses with social media "petitions" about hot-button topics, some collecting emails addresses without a person typing it, thanks to other software linked to the person's Facebook account.

"It is a wet dream for marketers," said Curtis Harrison, a NationBuilder consultant who has worked on Australian political campaigns for five years.

"You start off with an email address, and once you get that email address you get a name. And once you get a name you get a phone number. Once you get that phone number you get more and more and more."

Attorney-General Christian Porter said in an email the exemption was "designed to encourage freedom of political communication and support the operation of the electoral and political process". He did not respond to a question about whether politicians had access to too much voter data.

A spokesman for the Labor Party's shadow attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, said the political exemption was "put in place to facilitate political engagement, which is a foundation of our system of representative democracy".

When the Australian Labor Party posted on Facebook a video of two of its leaders bantering on a campaign bus last month, artist Jaymie Faber was one of 1,600 people who clicked "like", automatically sending the party's NationBuilder database her name and Facebook photo.

From there, the party could manually enter her public profile information, which included her employment situation and home city, to match with electoral roll information.

"While I never intended for the information to be collected into a database, I also accept that I had the knowledge that it could be a possibility," Faber told Reuters.

"I don't believe that it should be allowed or legal to be collected in such a matter but unfortunately it is."

Australian political parties are using voter email addresses to find matching social media profiles then combining them with the country's compulsory electoral roll data, illustrating how privacy scandals have done little to slow the march of data-driven campaigning.

Australian political parties are using voter email addresses to find matching social media profiles then combining them with the country's compulsory electoral roll data, illustrating how privacy scandals have done little to slow the march of data-driven campaigning. While the use of data and public profiles from Facebook, Twitter and other social media for political campaigning has become widespread globally, Australia is one of the most open countries in the world to online information gathering by political operatives. "Most Australians have little idea about how many data points organisations like political parties, let alone Facebook, have on each of them," said Glenn Kefford, a political scientist at Macquarie University who has written extensively about data-driven campaigning. "They would be shocked and probably disgusted." Australia, which goes to the polls on May 18, is one of the few Western democracies where voting is compulsory. What's more, Australian political parties and candidates are exempt from privacy laws covering access to the electoral roll data - full names and addresses - that all 16 million voters are required to provide. In the United States, just 60 per cent of adults are registered to vote, limiting the number of voters whose electoral roll information can be dragged into a data profile. Last year, Europe introduced sweeping laws requiring political organisations to get specific permission before scraping a person's data from another website. Australia's government, however, rejected calls for a review of its exemption from privacy laws. The Office of the Australian Information Commissioner said it has been asking the government for over a decade to overturn that exemption and "continues to hold the view that this exemption should be re-examined in light of the changing digital environment and data collection practices". Click match Branches of the left-leaning Labor and Greens parties, the conservative Liberals and the rural-focused Nationals have all hired consultants to run the U.S.-owned campaigning software NationBuilder, a Reuters analysis of party websites shows. Privately held NationBuilder, which counted several senior Facebook personnel among its early investors and markets itself as politically neutral, launched its social media "match" function in 2013 but stopped automatically offering it in Europe in 2018 due to new digital privacy laws. NationBuilder's vice president of strategic partnerships, Toni Cowan-Brown, said the company was looking at spreading its "model of privacy by default and consent" beyond Europe but it had not stopped offering its "match" function by default in Australia. "It's a very delicate line between innovation and privacy," Cowan-Brown said. "The way customers are innovating is very cool and we don't want to stifle that." In 2018, amid a political data harvesting scandal involving now-defunct British political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica, Facebook made it more difficult for third-party apps like NationBuilder to harvest some user data, although it still lets them import people's profile photo and name based on an email address match. NationBuilder is trying to regain access to Facebook event RSVPs, the only data it uses that is affected by the new policy, said Cowan-Brown. Unlike Cambridge Analytica, the firm does not pull data on a person's emotions or habits, Cowan-Brown added. NationBuilder customers can also collect the names of people who "like" or comment on their Facebook posts. Facebook declined to comment on interactions with NationBuilder specifically but said third-party apps could no longer ask for access to personal information such as religious or political views, relationship status, education or work history. The company has also limited access to information in its groups, pages and events features, a spokeswoman said. With Twitter, NationBuilder customers can under certain circumstances import a person's written profile bio, location, personal website, as well as their name and photo and tweets when a customer is mentioned, Cowan-Brown said. Twitter said its data reflected information that users choose to share publicly. "Our API (application programming interface) provides broad access to public Twitter data that users have chosen to share with the world," Twitter said in an emailed response to Reuters. Marketers dream The major parties also prospect for email addresses with social media "petitions" about hot-button topics, some collecting emails addresses without a person typing it, thanks to other software linked to the person's Facebook account. "It is a wet dream for marketers," said Curtis Harrison, a NationBuilder consultant who has worked on Australian political campaigns for five years. "You start off with an email address, and once you get that email address you get a name. And once you get a name you get a phone number. Once you get that phone number you get more and more and more." Attorney-General Christian Porter said in an email the exemption was "designed to encourage freedom of political communication and support the operation of the electoral and political process". He did not respond to a question about whether politicians had access to too much voter data. A spokesman for the Labor Party's shadow attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, said the political exemption was "put in place to facilitate political engagement, which is a foundation of our system of representative democracy". When the Australian Labor Party posted on Facebook a video of two of its leaders bantering on a campaign bus last month, artist Jaymie Faber was one of 1,600 people who clicked "like", automatically sending the party's NationBuilder database her name and Facebook photo. From there, the party could manually enter her public profile information, which included her employment situation and home city, to match with electoral roll information. "While I never intended for the information to be collected into a database, I also accept that I had the knowledge that it could be a possibility," Faber told Reuters. "I don't believe that it should be allowed or legal to be collected in such a matter but unfortunately it is."

After data scandals, Australia faces an election under heavy profiling

President Donald Trump on Friday evening took to Twitter and slammed social media censorship in reaction to Facebook's recent crackdown of conspiracy theorists. Watch full video to know more.

US President Donald Trump slams censorship on social media

A YouTube musical celebrity was sentenced Friday in a Chicago courtroom to 10 years in prison for enticing girls as young as 14 to produce sexually explicit videos of themselves.

Austin Jones, who posted online videos of himself performing songs for a fan base of primarily teenage girls, was arrested in 2017 and pleaded guilty earlier this year to one count of child pornography.&nbsp;

As part of his plea, Jones admitted to a total of six identified victims and approximately 30 attempts to persuade other girls to send him child pornography, according to prosecutors.

A federal judge on Friday imposed a 10-year prison sentence on the 26-year-old, who could have gotten as little as five years or as many as 20, according to sentencing guidelines.&nbsp;

Prosecutors, pointing to text messages, alleged in a sentencing memorandum filed with the court that Jones targeted young girls under the pretence of "auditions" for modelling and other opportunities.&nbsp;

"I'm just trying to help you! I know you're trying your hardest to prove you're my biggest fan. And I don't want to have to find someone else," Jones told one 14-year-old victim via Facebook messenger, according to the court filing.

Prosecutors said Facebook tipped off the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children about Jones's conversations with 14- and 15-year-old girls using the social media service's private messaging feature.

Jones's defence lawyers had asked that he be sentenced to five years on the basis of mitigating circumstances having to do with the man's childhood.&nbsp;

"Austin was a victim of sexual and emotional abuse by his father from age six until age 10. He was young, helpless and scared," his attorney's wrote in a court filing.&nbsp;

They claimed Jones suffered from severe depression and other mental health problems.

A YouTube musical celebrity was sentenced Friday in a Chicago courtroom to 10 years in prison for enticing girls as young as 14 to produce sexually explicit videos of themselves.

A YouTube musical celebrity was sentenced Friday in a Chicago courtroom to 10 years in prison for enticing girls as young as 14 to produce sexually explicit videos of themselves. Austin Jones, who posted online videos of himself performing songs for a fan base of primarily teenage girls, was arrested in 2017 and pleaded guilty earlier this year to one count of child pornography. As part of his plea, Jones admitted to a total of six identified victims and approximately 30 attempts to persuade other girls to send him child pornography, according to prosecutors. A federal judge on Friday imposed a 10-year prison sentence on the 26-year-old, who could have gotten as little as five years or as many as 20, according to sentencing guidelines. Prosecutors, pointing to text messages, alleged in a sentencing memorandum filed with the court that Jones targeted young girls under the pretence of "auditions" for modelling and other opportunities. "I'm just trying to help you! I know you're trying your hardest to prove you're my biggest fan. And I don't want to have to find someone else," Jones told one 14-year-old victim via Facebook messenger, according to the court filing. Prosecutors said Facebook tipped off the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children about Jones's conversations with 14- and 15-year-old girls using the social media service's private messaging feature. Jones's defence lawyers had asked that he be sentenced to five years on the basis of mitigating circumstances having to do with the man's childhood. "Austin was a victim of sexual and emotional abuse by his father from age six until age 10. He was young, helpless and scared," his attorney's wrote in a court filing. They claimed Jones suffered from severe depression and other mental health problems.

US YouTube star gets 10 years in prison for child porn

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/india-news/cyclone-fani-65-km-from-gopalpur-80-km-away-from-puri-in-odisha-imd-215530">Cyclone Fani 65 km from Gopalpur, 80 km away from Puri in Odisha: IMD</a>

India's Metrological Department(IMD) in its latest update said Cyclone Fani was just 65 kilometres from Gopalpur and 80 kilometres from Puri in Odisha.

The Cyclone Warning Division of the IMD said the wind speed of the '<a href="https://www.wionews.com/photos/cyclone-fani-and-why-it-is-so-powerful-215425">extremely severe Cyclone Fani</a>'&nbsp;could reach 200-230 kilometres when it makes the landfall in the afternoon.&nbsp;

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/facebook-bans-louis-farrakhan-alex-jones-and-milo-yiannopoulos-215520">Facebook bans Louis Farrakhan, Alex Jones and Milo Yiannopoulos</a>

Facebook on Thursday banned controversial black activist leader Louis Farrakhan, far-right icon Alex Jones and several others in a heightened crackdown on hate content at the leading social network.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/last-jailed-kim-jong-nam-assassination-suspect-doan-thi-huong-freed-215518">Last jailed Kim Jong Nam assassination suspect Doan Thi Huong freed</a>

A Vietnamese woman accused of assassinating the North Korean leader's half-brother was freed from prison Friday, ending legal proceedings stemming from the killing despite criticism that the real culprits never faced justice.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/india-news/cyclone-fani-likely-to-make-landfall-in-afternoon-at-least-1-million-evacuated-in-odisha-215523">Cyclone Fani likely to make landfall in afternoon, at least 1 million evacuated in Odisha</a>

Ahead of cyclone Fani hitting the coast, the Odisha government informed overnight on Thursday that nearly one million people were evacuated in the last 24 hours from vulnerable districts.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/crew-capsule-destroyed-during-april-test-accident-confirms-spacex-215535">Crew capsule destroyed during April test accident, confirms SpaceX</a>

Nearly two weeks after a fiery explosion during a ground test of its new crew capsule, SpaceX confirmed on Thursday that the vehicle was destroyed, but neither the company nor NASA, its primary customer, have publicly acknowledged the nature of the mishap.

&nbsp;

Cyclone Fani 65 km from Gopalpur, 80 km away from Puri in Odisha: IMD India's Metrological Department(IMD) in its latest update said Cyclone Fani was just 65 kilometres from Gopalpur and 80 kilometres from Puri in Odisha.

Cyclone Fani 65 km from Gopalpur, 80 km away from Puri in Odisha: IMD India's Metrological Department(IMD) in its latest update said Cyclone Fani was just 65 kilometres from Gopalpur and 80 kilometres from Puri in Odisha. The Cyclone Warning Division of the IMD said the wind speed of the 'extremely severe Cyclone Fani' could reach 200-230 kilometres when it makes the landfall in the afternoon. Facebook bans Louis Farrakhan, Alex Jones and Milo Yiannopoulos Facebook on Thursday banned controversial black activist leader Louis Farrakhan, far-right icon Alex Jones and several others in a heightened crackdown on hate content at the leading social network. Last jailed Kim Jong Nam assassination suspect Doan Thi Huong freed A Vietnamese woman accused of assassinating the North Korean leader's half-brother was freed from prison Friday, ending legal proceedings stemming from the killing despite criticism that the real culprits never faced justice. Cyclone Fani likely to make landfall in afternoon, at least 1 million evacuated in Odisha Ahead of cyclone Fani hitting the coast, the Odisha government informed overnight on Thursday that nearly one million people were evacuated in the last 24 hours from vulnerable districts. Crew capsule destroyed during April test accident, confirms SpaceX Nearly two weeks after a fiery explosion during a ground test of its new crew capsule, SpaceX confirmed on Thursday that the vehicle was destroyed, but neither the company nor NASA, its primary customer, have publicly acknowledged the nature of the mishap.

News brief: Big stories of the day

Social media giant Facebook has banned Louis Farrakhan, Alex Jones and others saying that the people it banned violated a set of policies that prohibit “dangerous individuals and organizations. Watch full video to know more.

Facebook bans ‘Dangerous individuals’ including Louis Farrakhan and Alex Jones

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/police-arrest-suspect-in-university-of-north-carolina-shooting-214919">Police arrest suspect in University of North Carolina shooting; 2 killed</a>

Police have arrested a suspect in a shooting that left two people dead and four others injured, three critically, on Tuesday at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/is-leader-abu-bakr-al-baghdadi-made-latest-video-in-remote-area-iraq-pm-adel-abdul-mahdi-214903">IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi made latest video in 'remote area': Iraq PM Adel Abdul Mahdi</a>

Islamic State remains a potent threat around the world despite reduced capabilities, Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi said on Tuesday, adding its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had made his latest video appearance in a "remote area".

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/india-news/cyclone-fani-imd-issues-yellow-warning-in-odisha-predicting-heavy-rainfall-214909">Cyclone Fani: IMD issues 'yellow warning' in Odisha predicting heavy rainfall</a>

The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) on Tuesday issued a 'yellow warning' for Odisha coast predicting heavy to very heavy rainfall at isolated places such as Boudh, Kalahandi, Sambalpur, Deogarh, and Sundargarh.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/calling-on-armed-forces-to-continue-operation-freedom-venezuelas-guaido-214896">Maduro appears with defence minister as Guaido calls to continue 'Operation Freedom'</a>

Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido called for a fresh round of protests on Wednesday against President Nicolas Maduro, after clashes broke out between security forces and anti-regime demonstrators.

<a href="https://www.wionews.com/world/got-a-crush-on-another-facebook-user-the-social-network-will-help-you-connect-214893">Got a crush on another Facebook user? The social network will help you connect</a>

As part of a revamp unveiled Tuesday Facebook aims to foster real-world relationships and make the platform a more intimate place for groups of friends.

Police arrest suspect in University of North Carolina shooting; 2 killed Police have arrested a suspect in a shooting that left two people dead and four others injured, three critically, on Tuesday at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

Police arrest suspect in University of North Carolina shooting; 2 killed Police have arrested a suspect in a shooting that left two people dead and four others injured, three critically, on Tuesday at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi made latest video in 'remote area': Iraq PM Adel Abdul Mahdi Islamic State remains a potent threat around the world despite reduced capabilities, Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi said on Tuesday, adding its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi had made his latest video appearance in a "remote area". Cyclone Fani: IMD issues 'yellow warning' in Odisha predicting heavy rainfall The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) on Tuesday issued a 'yellow warning' for Odisha coast predicting heavy to very heavy rainfall at isolated places such as Boudh, Kalahandi, Sambalpur, Deogarh, and Sundargarh. Maduro appears with defence minister as Guaido calls to continue 'Operation Freedom' Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido called for a fresh round of protests on Wednesday against President Nicolas Maduro, after clashes broke out between security forces and anti-regime demonstrators. Got a crush on another Facebook user? The social network will help you connect As part of a revamp unveiled Tuesday Facebook aims to foster real-world relationships and make the platform a more intimate place for groups of friends.

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