Facebook

There were plenty of unanswered questions at the end of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s second day of testimony before Congress.

For many questions, Zuckerberg said he would need to consult with his team to provide answers – at times exhibiting a surprising lack of familiarity with the privacy debate that has sprung up around his company’s activities …

Expand
Expanding
Close

Our sister site 9to5Mac provided a roundup of some of the key take-outs from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s testimony to Congress yesterday – including some of the things he didn’t say, thanks to a photograph of his briefing notes.

Reaction to Zuckerberg’s responses have been mixed, but investors seemed satisfied as Facebook stock closed 4.5% up on the day …

Expand
Expanding
Close

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has apologized to Congress in a written statement ahead of his testimony before two committee hearings today and tomorrow.

The statement suggests that the company didn’t do enough to prevent misuse because the company is ‘idealistic and optimistic’ but it now recognizes that it made a ‘big mistake’ in failing to put sufficient safeguards in place …

Expand
Expanding
Close

If you’re wondering whether you were one of the 87M Facebook users whose data was accessed by Cambridge Analytica, you may find out today. For Brits, at least, the BBC reports that users will receive one of two messages this afternoon letting them know whether or not they were affected …

Expand
Expanding
Close

At a time when Facebook is under fire for failing to protect user data, it is ironically facing a $33M fine for refusing to allow police access to WhatsApp messages between suspected fraudsters …

Expand
Expanding
Close

There seems no end in sight to the Facebook privacy saga. Facebook first revealed that up to 87M people may have had their data harvested by Cambridge Analytica, 71M of them Americans.

The political consultancy denies this, TechCrunch reporting that it claims to have licensed data for up to 30M people, and saying that none of this data was used to help the Trump campaign …

Expand
Expanding
Close

Facebook continues to work on regaining the trust of users after the Cambridge Analytica revelations. After earlier pointing to instructions for removing permissions granted to apps running on the platform, the company has now streamlined the process to make it easier to do …

Expand
Expanding
Close

A memo written in 2016 has just come to light in which a Facebook VP argues that ‘questionable’ and deceptive tactics to grow the platform are justified – even if they cost someone their life.

The memo was written by one of Facebook’s longest-serving execs, Andrew “Boz” Bosworth …

Expand
Expanding
Close

Concerns over Facebook’s privacy policies don’t appear to be diminishing. Some users taking advantage of the opportunity to download an archive of all the data Facebook holds in their account are discovering a surprise: it includes videos they shot but never posted …

Expand
Expanding
Close

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg reportedly plans to accept an invitation to testify before Congress on the user data privacy controversy. The Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday demanded that the chief exec appear before them, and the House Energy and Commerce Committee also expects Zuckerberg to testify.

Lawmakers want to know how the social network seemingly permitted data from around 50 million users to be used to influence the US presidential election …

Expand
Expanding
Close

Pressure is growing on Facebook to explain its failure to protect customers against misuse of their data by a firm of political consultants.

Both US and UK governments have demanded that CEO Mark Zuckerberg personally appear before them to give testimony. But in the case of the UK, Zuckerberg has already refused …

Expand
Expanding
Close

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has run full-page newspaper ads apologizing for the privacy breach that allowed a researcher to collect user data that was later used by Cambridge Analytica to help elect Trump. Fallout so far has included investigations in the US and UK, lawsuits and a petition.

The ads were run in the Washington Post, New York Times, Wall Street Journal and six UK newspapers …

Expand
Expanding
Close

The fallout from the Facebook privacy controversy continues. After it was revealed that a firm of political consultants carried out a data-harvesting exercise disguised as a personality quiz, the latest developments include a lawsuit and a Mozilla-led petition for privacy changes to the app …

Expand
Expanding
Close