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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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Opinion: Apple’s privacy-first approach has downsides but is really paying dividends now

HomePod reviews almost universally agreed on two things: the speaker sounds incredibly impressive for the size and price, and Apple’s smart speaker is the least-smart one on the market. Both Amazon’s Echo and Google’s Home speakers were found to be significantly more capable when it comes to answering questions and carrying out tasks.

This is not, of course, coincidence. Amazon opens its Alexa ‘recipes’ up to any third-party developer, and Google has long snaffled-up as much data as it can to make its smart assistants as capable as possible. Apple, in contrast, carefully controls the personal data available to both itself and to third-party developers …


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Zuckerberg plans to testify to Congress as Facebook makes it easier to see data held on users

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 …


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Opinion: Facebook’s mishandling of a crisis, and newsfeed failure, means #DeleteFacebook is a serious threat

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Whenever a big company is in the news for the wrong reason, it’s never long before a #Delete<Company> hashtag appears. We saw it most recently with #DeleteUber.

The thing about these campaigns is that some people do – but most don’t. If Facebook were simply facing a one-off controversy over its negligence in allowing a third-party to misuse data, then with the right handling, it would soon be business as usual.

But the signs so far are that the social network isn’t handling this crisis well. Couple this to longstanding grumbles about newsfeeds, and the #DeleteFacebook campaign could easily become a serious threat to the company’s future …


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Large-scale polls show low level of trust in Facebook privacy as firm apologizes with full-page ads

Facebook earnings

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 …


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Tim Cook calls for ‘well-crafted regulation’ in light of Facebook data mining controversy

Apple Qualcomm Tim Cook

At the China Development Forum today, Tim Cook was asked about the leak of Facebook user data that saw Cambridge Analytica amass information on 50 million users. As reported by Bloomberg, Cook stated that the Facebook controversy is another sign that “well-crafted” regulations are necessary to protect user data…


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Analysis of Facebook ‘Protect’ VPN code raises more questions

Facebook

Updated with Facebook comment at the end

Facebook caused a lot of raised eyebrows when it incorporated the Onavo Protect iOS VPN app into its own app in a feature it called Protect.

Facebook billed it as protecting user data, but in practice it does the opposite, allowing Facebook to collect and analyze your data. A new analysis of the Onavo Protect code by security researcher Will Strafach raises more questions …


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Facebook using 2FA cell numbers for spam, replies get posted to the platform

Facebook

Facebook is reportedly spamming some users by text, using a cell number they provided only for use in two-factor authentication.

In common with many services, Facebook allows you to protect your account by requiring a code when you first login from a new device. That code is texted to a cell number you provide for the purpose – but a number of users have reported it being used without their permission for notifications about posts by friends …


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Facebook announces new Messenger features to help couples ‘feel the love’ this Valentine’s Day

Starting when the clock officially turns to February 14th in your location, Facebook Messenger will offer a slew of Valentine’s Day features for those couples who are madly in love. The company announced the features in a blog post, saying that they allow for you to “feel the love with Messenger.”


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