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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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Ahead of iOS 13, Facebook publishes blog post defending its use of location data in iOS

iOS 13 is set to be released to the public later this month, and Facebook is looking to get out ahead of some of the changes to location settings in the update. Facebook has published a new blog post detailing how iOS 13 affects its access to your location data, while reaffirming that users are “in control” of their location settings.


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Facebook Dating available now, with Secret Crush feature, but concerns raised

Facebook Dating available now in the US

Facebook Dating has now officially launched in the US – which could be particularly good news for shy singles with a secret crush on one of their Facebook friends. There’s a specific feature designed to let you know whether the feeling is mutual without the risk of embarrassment.

You can also choose between including or excluding friends-of-friends in your pool of potential dates…


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How to turn off Facebook face recognition

Facebook just changed how its face recognition features work, here’s how to turn them off

Facebook has updated how its face recognition features work and will be turned off for some users by default going forward. However, for those accounts in which the features have already been turned on, users will have to manually opt out. Read along for what’s changed, and how to turn off Facebook’s face recognition.


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Facebook beefing up election interference measures, but researchers unhappy

Facebook boosts countermeasures for election interference in 2020

Facebook said today that it is beefing up its measures designed to prevent foreign interference in the 2020 presidential election. Election interference by foreign states was found to have played a role in 2016.

A declassified version of a joint intelligence community report revealed that the CIA, FBI, and NSA all agree that Russia interfered in the 2016 US presidential election with fake social media posts and other activities. A number of individuals were subsequently charged with criminal offenses as a result of investigations into this…


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Facebook dark mode in testing, after it was promised earlier this year

Facebook dark mode in testing

Facebook dark mode has been one of the most frequent requests from app users, with the company promising it earlier this year, and it seems it is now in testing.

As with many unannounced tests in social media apps, it was discovered by computer science student Jane Manchun Wong digging into the code. It was Wong who recently spotted a “snooze” feature in Twitter that allows users to temporarily silence notifications…


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Report: iOS 13 to limit VoIP API for apps like Facebook and WhatsApp, eliminate background activity

Apple privacy

A new report today from The Information details a change coming with iOS 13 that will force WhatsApp and others to redesign their messaging apps. The small but notable change has to do with how third-party apps use iOS to make internet voice calls with the PushKit VoIP API and also run in the background which will be restricted come this fall.


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$5B Facebook fine could be confirmed this week, but won’t be the end of it

Facebook fine won't be the end of it

A report today says that a rumored $5 billion Facebook fine could be confirmed this week, with the U.S. Department of Justice signing off on the proposal by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

The FTC reportedly plans to fine Facebook $5 billion — the largest penalty ever imposed on a company — for the Cambridge Analytica scandal and other privacy breaches


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Comment: My kids aren’t getting social media accounts and yours probably shouldn’t either

A few weeks ago, I got asked by a local church to talk to their parents about strategies to help monitor their kids’ social media use. This topic is one I get asked about a lot, and I know that a lot of parents are struggling with it. When they brought me up there, they were looking for a silver bullet of an app, service, or method to use to help make sure their kids don’t get into trouble on social media. I started the talk with a simple statement: your kids don’t need social media accounts and you don’t either.


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