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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 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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Universal Music Group and Facebook sign multi-year licensing agreement

Music giant Universal Music Group has today announced a new “multi-year” licensing agreement with Facebook that will expand across the social company’s product line. The move will soon bring UMG’s music catalog to Facebook, Instagram, and Oculus. The news follows a similar agreement made between UMG and YouTube earlier this week.


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Facebook trialling system to combat revenge porn – but you have to upload your nudes …

Facebook is trialling an interesting new approach to combatting revenge porn, when someone uploads intimate photos of a former partner to the Internet.

The system it is trying would prevent specific photos ever being uploaded to Facebook, Instagram or Messenger – but you do have to privately share them with Facebook first …


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Report: Apple blocking Facebook’s Instant Articles paywall tool on iOS over subscription revenue disagreement

Facebook is introducing a new way for publishers to monetize content using its Instant Articles format, but the feature won’t be coming to iOS anytime soon according to Recode. That’s because the service will require a paid subscription, and Apple wants its usual cut for revenue generated through the App Store.


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