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Outcry after Facebook sponsors gala featuring Brett Kavanaugh

Company is listed as a ‘gold circle’ sponsor for rightwing group Federalist Society dinner where justice will be keynote speaker

www.theguardian.com|Edward Helmore

Facebook is facing criticism for sponsoring the annual gala dinner of the Federalist Society, the powerful rightwing legal group behind the nomination of the conservative supreme court justice Brett Kavanaugh.

The Federalist Society has played a key role in the decades-long Republican strategy to pack US courts with conservatives, which has been advanced under Donald Trump’s administration. The group’s executive vice-president, Leonard Leo, advised the president on Kavanaugh’s controversial appointment.

Facebook’s sponsorship of the Federalist Society’s dinner, which was first reported by Popular Information, will now renew anxiety about a company which recently decided that it will not vet political advertising for accuracy in the run-up to the 2020 US elections.

The event drew protests on Thursday evening, including a large video screen playing the testimony of Dr Christine Blasey Ford, the California psychologist who accused Kavanaugh of sexual assault. Kavanaugh’s appointment was subsequently confirmed despite Ford’s testimony.

Twitter to ban all political advertising, raising pressure on Facebook

Social network’s move comes as Facebook faces controversy over ads that promote misinformation

www.theguardian.com|Julia Carrie Wong

Twitter will ban all political advertising, the company’s CEO has announced, in a move that will increase pressure on Facebook over its controversial stance to allow politicians to advertise false statements.

The new policy, announced via Jack Dorsey’s Twitter account on Wednesday, will come into effect on 22 November and will apply globally to all electioneering ads, as well as ads related to political issues. The timing means the ban will be in place in time for the UK snap election.

We’ve made the decision to stop all political advertising on Twitter globally. We believe political message reach should be earned, not bought. Why? A few reasons…

— jack @jack  4:05 PM · Oct 30, 2019

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Elizabeth Warren got behind the Facebook employees slamming Mark Zuckerberg for allowing lies in political ads

The two Democratic politicians tweeted their support for the Facebook workers who oppose the company's stance on lies in political ads.

www.businessinsider.com|Charlie Wood

1. Facebook used to refuse ads that were proven to contain lies or misinformation.
2. Facebook changed their policy to allow lies and misinformation after  Zuckerberg meet with far right media exec’s, Tucker Carlson, Lindsey Graham and Trump
3. Facebook ran Trump campaign ads about Biden - Ukraine conspiracy theory, that has been proven to be a lie by fact checkers.
4. Facebook REFUSED to stop running the ads even after Joe Biden’s formal request.
5. AOC asked Zuckerberg if ‘she could run ads on Facebook falsely claiming that Republican lawmakers voted for her Green New Deal. Zuckerberg replied, "I think probably" - Oct 24. 2019
6. Facebook STOPPED running a fake ad that Republican Lindsey Graham supported the New Green Deal on Oct. 29, 2019

According to an internal letter obtained by The New York Times on Monday, 250 Facebook employees are petitioning CEO Mark Zuckerberg to change the company's policy not to fact-check political advertising.

“Misinformation affects us all. Our current policies on fact checking people in political office, or those running for office, are a threat to what FB stands for,” they wrote.

“We strongly object to this policy as it stands. It doesn’t protect voices, but instead allows politicians to weaponize our platform by targeting people who believe that content posted by political figures is trustworthy.”

"Courageous workers at Facebook are now standing up to the corporation's leadership, challenging Zuckerberg's disturbing policy on allowing paid, targeted disinformation ads in the 2020 election," Ocasio-Cortez tweeted.

"Facebook's own employees know just how dangerous their policy allowing politicians to lie in political ads will be for our democracy," she wrote. "Mark Zuckerberg should listen to them — and I applaud their brave efforts to hold their own company accountable.",  Warren's tweet a few hours later sharply criticized Facebook's policy and urged Zuckerberg to reverse his stance.

Facebook prompts outcry after including ‘alt-right’ website Breitbart in ‘high quality’ news section

Inclusion comes amid criticism of tech company's relationship with right-wing groups

www.independent.co.uk

Earlier this month, Mr Zuckerberg was criticised by liberal commentators for hosting informal talks and off-the-record dinners with conservative journalists, including Fox News host Tucker Carlson. ... and Lindsey Graham

• “Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos had worked directly with a white nationalist and a neo-Nazi to write and edit an article defining the “alt-right” movement and advancing its ideas.”, The Guardian
• Breitbart writer Jack Hadfield caught running a secret White Supremacist Facebook Group, Think Progress

Breitbart, a publication that has been criticised for repeatedly inaccurate and incendiary reporting, has raised concerns about Facebook’s editorial judgement.

• In 2018, Wikipedia editors voted to ban the publication as a source of fact in its articles “due to its unreliability”.
• During the 2016 presidential election, Breitbart promoted a widely-debunked conspiracy theory about senior Democratic Party figures being involved in a child sex ring and spread baseless claims that Huma Abedin, a Hillary Clinton aide, was involved with terrorism.
• It has also repeatedly published anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant views, as well as publishing journalists who deny climate change.
• However, it has also faced criticism for its reluctance to crack down on white nationalism and far-right hate on its platform.

Facebook has also been criticised in recent weeks for its policy decision to not fact check political adverts.

• “Facebook is paying some publishers $1 million to $3 million a year”, Bloomberg
• “Watch Mark Zuckerberg duck a question about including Breitbart in Facebook's News tab ”, Mashable

“I’ve always thought that he wanted to make things right by conservatives”, Republican attendee at Zuck’s dinner

• Giving fake election news higher visibility
• Running Russian ads for Trump
• Running Russian ads against Hillary Clinton
• Facebook confirmed its partner Cambridge Analytica stole data on 87 million users - which the Trump Campaign (Brad Parscale) used the data to target ads

Inside Mark Zuckerberg's private meetings with conservative pundits

The lengthy, off-the-record gatherings were held at one of the Facebook founder’s homes in California.

www.politico.com

1. Sept 19: Facebook's Zuckerberg met with Trump at the White House
2. Sept 24: Facebook changed its advertising policy to allow LIES in political ads
3. Sept 25 to Oct 1: Trump campaign spent over $1.6 million on Facebook ads, many of which included false or misleading claims about Biden
4. Oct 3: CNN REFUSES to air Trump’s Biden ads
5. Oct 8:  Facebook rejects Biden campaign's request to remove Trump ads containing false information

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been hosting informal talks and small, off-the-record dinners with conservative journalists, commentators and at least one Republican lawmaker in recent months to talk about issues like free speech and discuss partnerships.

The dinners [at Zuck’s home], which began in July, are part of Zuckerberg’s broader effort to cultivate friends on the right amid outrage by President Donald Trump and his allies over alleged “bias” against conservatives at Facebook and other major social media companies. "I’m under no illusions that he’s a conservative but I think he does care about some of our concerns,” said one person familiar with the gatherings, which multiple sources have confirmed.

• #LeningradLindsey Graham, senator from South Carolina
• Mary Katharine Ham, CNN commentator
• Ben Shapiro, conservative commentator 
• Matt Continetti, AEI fellow and former Washington Free Beacon editor
• Guy Benson, Town Hall editor and Fox News contributor
• Brent Bozell, Media Research Center founder
• Byron York, Washington Examiner chief political correspondent and Fox News contributor - confirmed his attendance 

“The discussion in Silicon Valley is that Zuckerberg is very concerned about the Justice Department, under Bill Barr, bringing an enforcement action to break up the company,” said one cybersecurity researcher and former government official based in Silicon Valley. “So the fear is that Zuckerberg is trying to appease the Trump administration by not cracking down on right-wing propaganda.”

Facebook is refusing to take down a Trump ad making false claims about Joe Biden

So are YouTube, Twitter, and most news networks.

www.vox.com|Emily Stewart

• The Washington Post, Factcheck.org and Politifact have already debunked Trump’s Biden conspiracy theory. 
• Oct. 4, 2019: Ukrainian Prosecutor General Ruslan Ryaboshapka says he has no evidence of Biden wrongdoing.
• Facebook Just Gave Trump Permission to Lie,  Motherboard

The Trump campaign has released a 30-second video ad accusing the former vice president of promising Ukraine money for firing a prosecutor investigating a company with ties to Biden’s son, Hunter Biden — essentially, the false conspiracy at the center of the impeachment inquiry President Trump is now facing. 

CNN refused to air the ad because there is no evidence for the claims it is making. But not Facebook — or multiple other tech platforms and media outlets like YouTube, Twitter, MSNBC, and Fox, for that matter. Instead, the Menlo Park, California-based company is going to let it stay — and rack up millions of views in the process. 

• Mark Zuckerberg said an Elizabeth Warren presidency would 'suck' for Facebook, leaked audio reveals, CNN - Oct 1, 2019
• Elizabeth Warren Has Started Using Mark Zuckerberg’s Leaked Audio In Her Instagram Ads, Forbes -  Oct 3, 2019
• Warren attacks Facebook for 'quietly' changing its political ad policy after Zuckerberg's meeting with Trump, CNBC - Oct. 8, 2019

Facebook leak contained phone numbers for 419 million users

Another month, another Facebook data breach. As reported by TechCrunch, security researcher Sanyam Jain was able to locate an online database containing phone numbers linked to user IDs for over 419 million Facebook users. While linking phone numbers to user IDs is bad enough, in some cases the data included the user’s real name, gender, …

thenextweb.com|Napier Lopez

Facebook told TechCrunch “the data set is old and appears to have been obtained before [the company] made changes last year to remove people’s ability to find others using their phone numbers.” The company says that data set has since been taken down and that it has no evidence Facebook accounts were actually compromised. 

it’s another worrisome incident in a series of major data breaches at Facebook – in May, data for 49 million Instagram users was leaked as well.

The exposed server contained more than 419 million records over several databases on users across geographies, including 133 million records on U.S.-based Facebook users, 18 million records of users in the U.K., and another with more than 50 million records on users in Vietnam.

This is the latest security lapse involving Facebook data after a string of incidents since the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which saw more than 80 million profiles scraped to help identify swing voters in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Facebook removed 3 billion fake accounts over a six-month period

Facebook said it had removed more than 3 billion fake accounts over the past two quarters, a spike in inauthentic activity that the tech giant attributed to “unsophisticated” bad actors that are caught in the act of creating scores of fake profiles in batches.

www.washingtonpost.com

Between October and March, Facebook reported it removed or labeled 

• 11.1 million pieces of terrorist content
• 52.3 million instances of violent or graphic content
• 7.3 million posts, photos or other uploads containing hate speech
• 1.4 million pieces of content that violated its rules against selling guns, gun parts or ammunition
• 1.5 million items about drugs, including marijuana.

Facebook and Instagram Finally Ban White Nationalism and White Separatism

Facebook and Instagram will finally ban white nationalism and white separatism on their networks in a move that will be implemented next week. The decision, first reported by Motherboard but announced by Facebook on its website, comes after the social media giant spent years splitting hairs about the difference between white nationalism and white supremacy. And there’s still the question of how well Facebook can police white nationalist content among its 2 billion users.

gizmodo.com|Matt Novak

“We didn’t originally apply the same rationale to expressions of white nationalism and separatism because we were thinking about broader concepts of nationalism and separatism – things like American pride and Basque separatism, which are an important part of people’s identity,” Facebook said.

Facebook has officially banned white supremacist content since at least last year, but the company deemed white nationalism and white separatism as perfectly acceptable. White nationalism is a belief that white people should be in charge of a given nation, while white separatism is a desire to establish a whites-only nation by banishing people of color and heavily restricting immigration.

Both ideologies rely heavily on the concept of white supremacy, the idea that people of color are inferior to white people, despite the fact that the basic question of who counts as “white” is something that racists can’t even agree upon. Facebook has seemingly decided that it’s not worth trying to distinguish between white supremacy and other forms of racism.

“We decided that the overlap between white nationalism, [white] separatism, and white supremacy is so extensive we really can’t make a meaningful distinction between them,” Brian Fishman, policy director of counterterrorism at Facebook, told Motherboard. “And that’s because the language and the rhetoric that is used and the ideology that it represents overlaps to a degree that it is not a meaningful distinction.”

Facebook will also launch a new program on the website to redirect people who are searching for white extremist content to get help. 

Facebook provided Gizmodo with the following examples of posts that would be taken down:

• “Yes, I am a white nationalist. No, I am not a racist.”
• “I am not anti-Muslim, I just think white people need their own separate nation.”
• “Asians are taking all of our jobs. This is why white separatism is the only way we can survive.”
• “What’s the answer to this immigration problem? White separatism.”

Here are the data brokers quietly buying and selling your personal information

You’ve probably never heard of many of the data firms registered under a new law, but they’ve heard a lot about you. A list, and tips for opting out.

www.fastcompany.com|Steven Melendez and Alex Pasternack

Thanks to a new Vermont law requiring companies that buy and sell third-party personal data to register with the Secretary of State, we’ve been able to assemble a list of 121 data brokers operating in the U.S. It’s a rare, rough glimpse into a bustling economy that operates largely in the shadows, and often with few rules.

Even Vermont’s first-of-its-kind law, which went into effect last month, doesn’t require data brokers to disclose who’s in their databases, what data they collect, or who buys it. Nor does it require brokers to give consumers access to their own data or opt out of data collection. Brokers are, however required to provide some information about their opt-out systems under the law–assuming they provide one.

Snopes joined Facebook’s group of third-party fact checkers in 2016, at first volunteering its services and the next year accepting a lump $100,000 payment for their work. 

At this time we are evaluating the ramifications and costs of providing third-party fact-checking services, and we want to determine with certainty that our efforts to aid any particular platform are a net positive for our online community, publication, and staff.

In comments to Poynter, Snopes VP of operations Danny Green said the process needed to be improved:

With a manual system and a closed system — it’s impossible to keep on top of that stuff… It doesn’t seem like we’re striving to make third-party fact checking more practical for publishers — it seems like we’re striving to make it easier for Facebook. At some point, we need to put our foot down and say, ‘No. You need to build an API.’

The amount that Facebook has paid out has increased, but also become more variable. Fact-checkers get paid per factcheck, but only up to a certain amount per month. The amount of money that’s flowing to all of Facebook’s 34 fact-checkers probably remains in the single-digit millions.

For perspective, Facebook generated $16.9 billion in revenue just last quarter. That same quarter, the company’s average revenue per user reached $7.37, so the money coming in from a million or two users over the course of just three months would be enough to cover the global factchecking costs for the year.

Facebook includes 51 fact-checking organizations (including Snopes) in what must be an outdated list on its website. The contracts are signed on an annual basis, however, and a Facebook spokesperson told me there are now 34 organizations doing this work.

74 percent of Facebook users don’t realize the site collects their interests to target ads, Pew survey says

The survey looks at how Americans feel about the data Facebook collects about them.

www.washingtonpost.com|https://www.facebook.com/aohlheiser

• If a user doesn’t provide interests or affiliations, Facebook will ASSIGN them one. The accuracy is between 60-70%. What’s the algorithm?
• Some Facebook users will actually update their interests if Facebook screws up #FACEPALM

Facebook keeps a running list of things it has learned about you for advertisers. At this point, the list isn’t incredibly hard to find: Go to your account settings, click on “ads,” and the list will appear, ready for you to peruse or modify as you see fit.

These lists have been public for a while. In preelection 2016, The Washington Post compiled a list of 98 categories that Facebook might use to build a portrait of you for advertisers. 

Once they had a chance to view this list, a slim majority — 51 percent — were not comfortable with Facebook collecting this information about them, according to the report, which was released Wednesday.

The survey was conducted in 2018, several months after Facebook suspended Cambridge Analytica for improperly collecting data from Facebook users, a revelation that caused a major crisis of trust for the platform. The news was the catalyst for congressional hearings and an attempt to encourage users to quit Facebook. The company also announced that it would provide more information to users about how ads work on Facebook.

“We consistently find that there’s a paradox at the center of generalized privacy research,” said Lee Rainie, director of Internet and technology research at Pew.

— About half (51 percent) of Facebook users are assigned a political label by Facebook.

— About 2 in 10, 21 percent, were assigned a “multicultural affinity” group.

More popular apps are sending data to Facebook without asking

MyFitnessPal, TripAdvisor and other mobile apps may be violating EU privacy law by sending info to Facebook without asking permission, although who's to blame may vary.

www.engadget.com

It's not just dating and health apps that might be violating your privacy when they send data to Facebook. A Privacy International study has determined that "at least" 20 out of 34 popular Android apps are transmitting sensitive information to Facebook without asking permission, including Kayak, MyFitnessPal, Skyscanner and TripAdvisor. This typically includes analytics data that sends on launch, including your unique Android ID, but can also include data that sends later. The travel search engine Kayak, for instance, apparently sends destination and flight search data, travel dates and whether or not kids might come along.

While the data might not immediately identify you, it could theoretically be used to recognize someone through roundabout means, such as the apps they have installed or whether they travel with the same person.

Many of the apps are free, suggesting that they make money from data-sharing and advertising.

"I'm proud of the progress we've made in 2018 and grateful to everyone who has helped us get here," Mark Zuckerberg

"We're a very different company today than we were in 2016, or even a year ago. We've fundamentally altered our DNA to focus more on preventing harm in all our services, and we've systematically shifted a large portion of our company to work on preventing harm," Mark Zuckerberg