Facebook researchers have found that 1 in 8 of its users report engaging in compulsive use of social media that impacts their sleep, work, parenting or relationships, according to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

Facebook said Thursday it's changing its name to Meta. "From now on, we''ll be metaverse first, not Facebook first," CEO Mark Zuckerberg said during the company's Oculus Connect event. "Over time you won't need to use Facebook to use our other services." This should highlight the companies longer-term effort to help build a "metaverse" that will bring physically distant people closer together.

When Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen was asked what motivated her to share a trove of internal company documents with 18 news organizations and researchers in India and the Middle East, her response was straightforward. “The reason I wanted to do this project is because I think the Global South is in danger,” she said.

A new research paper written by a team of academics and computer scientists from Spain and Austria has demonstrated that it's possible to use Facebook's targeting tools to deliver an ad exclusively to a single individual if you know enough about the interests Facebook's platform assigns them.

Facebook is back online after a six-hour outage due to DNS routing problems. The outage took down Instagram, Whatsapp, Messenger, and Oculus VR as well.

An Iowa data scientist with a computer engineering degree and a Harvard MBA has come forward as the whistleblower leaking damaging information about Facebook. They've now also filed at least eight complaints with America's Securities and Exchange Commission, which has broad oversight over financial markets and has the power to bring charges against companies suspected of misleading investors. To buttress the complaints, the whistleblower secretly copied "tens of thousands" of pages of internal Facebook research, which summarizes her ultimate conclusion: "that the company is lying to the public about making significant progress against hate, violence and misinformation.

Social media may be bad for our health, argues long-time technology reporter/commentator Kara Swisher in the New York Times.

Facebook's WhatsApp was fined a record 225 million euro by the Irish data protection regulator on Thursday after the EU privacy watchdog pressured Ireland to raise the penalty for the company's privacy breaches.

Partly at issue is how WhatsApp share information with parent company Facebook, according to the commission. The decision brings an end to a GDPR inquiry the privacy regulator started in December 2018. WhatsApp said it disagrees with the decision and plans to appeal. "We have worked to ensure the information we provide is transparent and comprehensive and will continue to do so," a WhatsApp spokesperson said via email.

Five social media giants failed to remove 84% of antisemitic posts in May and June -- and Facebook performed the worst despite announcing new rules to tackle the problem, a new report finds.

Executives at the social network have clashed over CrowdTangle, a Facebook-owned data tool that revealed users’ high engagement levels with right-wing media sources.

Interesting perspective:

Apple has brazenly, in broad daylight, stormed into the Bank of Facebook, looted its most precious resource, and, camouflaged under the noble cause of giving privacy controls to the consumer, fled the scene.

A new feature is being introduced to iPhones and iPads this week which is causing a huge rift between Apple and Facebook: It will allow device users to say no to having their data collected by apps.

The exposed data includes the personal information of over 533 million Facebook users from 106 countries, including over 32 million records on users in the US, 11 million on users in the UK, and 6 million on users in India. It includes their phone numbers, Facebook IDs, full names, locations, birthdates, bios, and, in some cases, email addresses.

Henri Verdier, France’s ambassador for digital affairs, said the decision was both personal and political. He decided on February 1 that he would permanently leave the social network and the messaging app it owns.

“If a business is built on misleading users on data exploitation, on choices that are no choices at all, then it does not deserve our praise. It deserves reform.”

Australia is presently embroiled in two major showdowns with superpowers. One is with China. The other is with Google and Facebook.

Apple uses now privacy labels to inform users about some of the data types an app may collect, and whether that data is linked to them or used to track them. And a picture comparing those privacy labels for different messaging apps (Signal, iMessage, WhatsApp, Facebook Messanger) is quite interesting.

Facebook could face a large fine if Instagram is found to have broken European Union privacy laws.

It seems that when you report anything in VR-games, your headset data - including what you see and do - are transmitted to FB and they can do with it and keep it as long as they want. No restrictions.

2020年10月に299ドルで発売予定の Oculus Quest 2。装着したVRゲームのヘッドセットから Facebook に、ゲームの世界であなたが何を見てどんなことをやったのたか、という情報が送信される、というのは本当なのでしょうか。しかも、そのデータを何に使い、どれくらい保管するかの裁量には制限がないようです。

A European Union privacy regulator has sent Facebook a preliminary order to suspend data transfers to the U.S. about its EU users, WSJ reported Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter, an operational and legal challenge for the company that could set a precedent for other tech giants.

WSJは水曜日に、EUのプライバシー規制当局がFacebookに、EUユーザーに関する米国へのデータ転送を一時停止するための予備的命令を送ったと報告した。問題に詳しい人から言うと、他の大手企業の先例を作ることができる会社の運用上および法的な課題。

Facebook “Download Your Information” feature only gives you part of the picture. Information about advertisers uploading lists with your personal information is limited in time and prevents users from exercising their rights.

Your digital self is fragmented and wholly owned by third parties – but identity activist Kaliya Young has a plan to help us pull ourselves together, and make tech fairer for all.

Off-Facebook activity includes information that businesses and organizations share with us about your interactions with them, such as visiting their apps or websites. Paul-Olivier fought for 4 years to make Facebook implement this feature - read more here.

Despite promising access, Facebook’s “clear history” tool is MIA for most of the United States, with no clear release date.

The federal government seems increasingly likely to take action on platform giants such as Facebook and Google. Antitrust intervention has emerged as the likely focal point of such efforts.

A data scientist way to control social media instead of been controlled.

Remember last week when I profiled NationBuilder, the election software used by both Boris Johnson and Donald Trump? Well, it turns out NationBuilder has been buying voters' data from a company accused by Facebook of vioolating its users' privacy.

We’re publishing a white paper that sets forth five questions about data portability and privacy that we hope will help advance a global conversation.

A coffee shop makes an experiment where they get free coffee by liking their Facebook page. Then, show them how much data they gather within a few minutes just with a like.

The next big technological shift is to a world where every individual can manage and (optionally) monetise their personal data. Companies like Facebook and Google already make billions because they know everything about us via our online habits. What if we could take a cut? What if we could own and sell our data directly?

Anna Ansku Tuomainen has created a folder (linked in the title) to support us in communicating MyData. The 101 doc is currently mostly about the conference but you are encouraged to creatively use the materials also for any comms needs you have. Also important is to remember to tag @mydataorg in your tweets and posts so those can be forwarded in the main channel.

This is an incredible article by Shoshana Zuboff, the Harvard Professor that wrote 'The Age of Surveillance Capitalism'. I strongly recommend you to read it as what she says also is related to what's being done in MyData. What she says is very much the essence of what we have to tackle.