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Facebook is the most popular social media service in the world with 2.32 billion monthly active users as of December 31, 2018

Facebook is the most popular social media service in the world with 2.32 billion monthly active users as of December 31, 2018. It also averages 1.52 billion daily active users as of December 2018.

Facebook was launched in February of 2004 (as The Facebook) for college students and then rapidly grew as it opened the service to more than those with a .edu email address. It was the subject of the 2010 movie called “The Social Network“.

In 2012, the social media giant offered its IPO and Facebook earned the title of the fastest company to grow to $250 billion market capitalization in the S&P 500.

In recent years, the company has been at the center of attention related to its role in the Russian interference in the 2016 US election. Since then, it’s been a continual stream of negative news for the company. They recently had all of their enterprise certificates for iOS revoked after it was discovered they had repackaged Onavo VPN as a ‘Research’ app and were paying teens $20/month to sneakily sideload it.

In early 2019, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced a “privacy shift” for the company. He outlined a detailed vision for the future of the social media platform, specifically its messaging services. Notably, in contrast to how the company operates today, he says the future of the platform will be privacy-focused with features like end-to-end encryption, interoperability between its various apps like Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, reducing how long it holds data, secure storage of personal data, and more.

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Facebook bans deepfakes, but not deceptively edited videos like Pelosi one

Facebook bans deepfakes

In a move designed to counter misinformation during the 2020 presidential election campaign, Facebook bans deepfakes: extremely convincing fake videos created using AI techniques.

Deepfakes use machine learning to analyze the way someone’s face moves as they voice different sounds. AI can then create fake video that mimics the movements needed for any word. This can then be combined with either chopped-up sound clips of the real person, or an impressionist, to create entire fake speeches that are hard to tell from real video footage…


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WhatsApp hack sees Facebook sue; company pays Cambridge Analytica fine

WhatsApp hack sees Facebook sue

Facebook is suing an Israeli company for a WhatsApp hack which allowed various governments to spy on more than 1,000 users, reports ReutersThe attack was made possible by a security vulnerability in the app, later fixed.

WhatsApp sued Israeli surveillance firm NSO Group on Tuesday, accusing it of helping government spies break into the phones of roughly 1,400 users across four continents in a hacking spree whose targets included diplomats, political dissidents, journalists and senior government officials…


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Zuckerberg Vision Pro comment

US Attorney General and UK/AU officials hit Facebook over encrypted messaging apps, Apple could be targeted too

After Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced this past spring that the company would build end-to-end encryption into all of its products and services, government officials from the US, UK, and Australia are set to share a public letter requesting Facebook halts its plan to include total privacy for its apps. And with Apple’s iMessage already featuring end-to-end-encryption, could it be targeted soon as well?


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Instagram ‘Threads’ promoting direct messaging with standalone chat app

Instagram Threads messaging app

Instagram has officially launched a stand-alone messaging app today called Threads. The company describes it as a “camera-first messaging app” that will give users “a new way to message with close friends in a dedicated, private space.” Threads is a stand-alone app but it will integrate with a user’s Instagram Direct messages.


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