WikiLeaks Shop Banned From Facebook, No Explanation Given

The official Facebook account for the WikiLeaks Shop has been banned from the platform without explanation.

The shop raises money for Julian Assange’s defense fund by selling merch.

Speaking to the Gateway Pundit, the person who runs the account said that “it seems they banned us for posting a graphic of one of our Free Assange t-shirts.”

The last post on the account before it was removed was simply a black t-shirt with “Free Assange” written across it in white lettering.

“We’ve had no warnings and they won’t say what rule we broke,” the admin explained. “We contacted Facebook support and they were unable to assist us.”

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/02/wikileaks-shop-banned-facebook-no-explanation-given/

#wikileaks #assange #facebook #DeleteFacebook #thinkabout #why
📡@cRyPtHoN_INFOSEC_DE
📡@cRyPtHoN_INFOSEC_EN
📡@BlackBox_Archiv
📡@NoGoolag

Google and Facebook Killed Free

Is the mania for subscriptions a choice, or the only path in an ad system dominated by giants?

We’re constantly being nudged to pay to subscribe.

There are all those paid streaming video and music services. News organizations, including The New York Times, want subscribers. Your favorite dating site, email service or messaging app might also ask you to pay for stuff you once got free. Paid subscriptions are nothing new, but increasingly they seem to be the future of everything.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/03/09/technology/google-and-facebook-killed-free.html

#subscriptions #google #facebook #DeleteFacebook #DeleteGoogle #thinkabout #why
📡@cRyPtHoN_INFOSEC_FR
📡@cRyPtHoN_INFOSEC_EN
📡@cRyPtHoN_INFOSEC_DE
📡@BlackBox_Archiv
📡@NoGoolag

Facebook does not plan to notify half-billion users affected by data leak

(Reuters) - Facebook Inc did not notify the more than 530 million users whose details were obtained through the misuse of a feature before 2019 and recently made public in a database, and does not currently have plans to do so, a company spokesman said on Wednesday.

Business Insider reported last week that phone numbers and other details from user profiles were available in a public database. Facebook said in a blog post on Tuesday that “malicious actors” had obtained the data prior to September 2019 by “scraping” profiles using a vulnerability in the platform’s tool for synching contacts.

The Facebook spokesman said the social media company was not confident it had full visibility on which users would need to be notified. He said it also took into account that users could not fix the issue and that the data was publicly available in deciding not to notify users. Facebook has said it plugged the hole after identifying the problem at the time.

The scraped information did not include financial information, health information or passwords, Facebook said. However, the collated data could provide valuable information for hacks or other abuses.

Facebook, which has long been under scrutiny over how it handles user privacy, in 2019 reached a landmark settlement with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission over its investigation into allegations the company misused user data.

Ireland’s Data Protection Commission, the European Union’s lead regulator for Facebook, said on Tuesday it had contacted the company about the data leak. It said it received “no proactive communication from Facebook” but was now in contact.

The July 2019 FTC settlement requires Facebook to report details about unauthorized access to data on 500 or more users within 30 days of confirming an incident.

The Facebook spokesman declined to comment on the company’s conversations with regulators but said it was in contact to answer their questions.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-data-leak/facebook-does-not-plan-to-notify-half-billion-users-affected-by-data-leak-idUSKBN2BU2ZY

#facebook #DeleteFacebook #data #leak #database #thinkabout
📡 @nogoolag 📡 @blackbox_archiv

Facebook is down

https://developers.facebook.com/status

#facebook #DeleteFacebook #down
📡 @nogoolag 📡 @blackbox_archiv

Facebook axes 16,000 accounts for trading fake reviews after UK intervenes

(Reuters) - Social media company Facebook Inc suspended 16,000 accounts for selling or buying fake reviews of products and services on its platforms, after the Britain’s competition watchdog intervened for the second time, the regulator said.

U.S.-based Facebook also made further changes to detect, remove and prevent paid content which could mislead users on its platforms, including popular photo-sharing app Instagram, UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said on Friday.

“We have engaged extensively with the CMA to address this issue. Fraudulent and deceptive activity is not allowed on our platforms, including offering or trading fake reviews,” a Facebook representative said.

The CMA began a crackdown on false reviews from 2019 when it first asked Facebook and e-commerce platform eBay Inc to check their websites after it found evidence of a growing marketplace for misleading customer reviews on the platforms.

Facebook has also been under scrutiny by the CMA for antitrust concerns over the technology company’s acquisition of GIF website Giphy. It has been under pressure the world over for its data sharing practices as well as fake news and hate speech.

“The pandemic has meant that more and more people are buying online, and millions of us read reviews to enable us to make informed choices when we shop around. That’s why fake and misleading reviews are so damaging,” said CMA Chief Executive Andrea Coscelli.

CMA’s crackdown on Facebook coincides with Britain’s efforts to set up a dedicated digital markets unit within the regulatory authority to specifically look at governing digital platforms.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-britain-reviews/facebook-axes-16000-accounts-for-trading-fake-reviews-after-uk-intervenes-idUSKBN2BW168

#facebook #DeleteFacebook #fake #reviews #uk
📡 @nogoolag 📡 @blackbox_archiv

Why You Should Stop Using Your Facebook Messenger App

If you’re one of the 1.3 billion people using Facebook Messenger, then you need to switch to an alternative. Facebook has suddenly confirmed significant delays with much needed security enhancements to the platform, enhancements that its own executives say are “essential.” Here’s what you need to know.

“The lessons of the past five years make it absolutely clear that technology companies and governments must prioritize private and secure communication.” So said senior Facebook exec Will Cathcart in a Wired opinion piece this week.

Cathcart currently heads WhatsApp, and his article focuses on the need for end-to-end encryption to be protected. He’s absolutely right. Such encryption is “essential,” there is “serious pressure to take it away,” and it “should not be taken for granted.”

I have warned users before to quit Facebook Messenger for alternatives. Beyond its lack of encryption, the platform is also open to content monitoring by Facebook itself, and I have also reported on other serious issues with its handling of your private data.

Now, this week, we have seen three separate events, all of which should give you every reason you need to make that change, to quit Messenger. First Cathcart’s rallying cry for users to use platforms with end-to-end encryption in place. Second, Facebook admitting that such security will not come to Messenger until some time in 2022, at the earliest. And, finally, another story on Facebook’s data mishandling.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/zakdoffman/2021/04/10/stop-using-facebook-messenger-on-your-apple-iphone-or-google-android-phone/

#facebook #DeleteFacebook #messenger #android #google #apple #smartphone #thinkabout
📡 @nogoolag 📡 @blackbox_archiv

Google's short-lived data-advantage

There's a lot of ways to think about the movement to tame Big Tech, but one of the more useful divisions to explore is the "Night of the Comet" people versus the "Don't Believe the Criti-Hype" people.

This is a division over the value of the data that Google, Facebook and other large tech firms have amassed over the years – data on their users, sure, but also data on the advertisers and publishers they serve with their ad-tech platforms.

Big Tech companies and their investors are really bullish on the value of this commercial data-advantage: they say that spying on us – the users – lets them manipulate our opinions and activities so that we buy or believe the things their advertisers pay them to push.

More quietly, their investors believe that the data-advantage extends to publishers and advertisers, a deep storehouse of data that makes it effectively impossible for anyone else to do the precision targeted that Big Tech manages, which is why they have such fat margins.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/11/halflife/#minatory-legend

#google #DeleteGoogle #facebook #DeleteFacebook #BigData #BigTech #AdTech #thinkabout #comment
📡 @nogoolag 📡 @blackbox_archiv

Revealed: the Facebook loophole that lets world leaders deceive and harass their citizens

Facebook has repeatedly allowed world leaders and politicians to use its platform to deceive the public or harass opponents despite being alerted to evidence of the wrongdoing.

The Guardian has seen extensive internal documentation showing how Facebook handled more than 30 cases across 25 countries of politically manipulative behavior that was proactively detected by company staff.

The investigation shows how Facebook has allowed major abuses of its platform in poor, small and non-western countries in order to prioritize addressing abuses that attract media attention or affect the US and other wealthy countries. The company acted quickly to address political manipulation affecting countries such as the US, Taiwan, South Korea and Poland, while moving slowly or not at all on cases in Afghanistan, Iraq, Mongolia, Mexico, and much of Latin America.

“There is a lot of harm being done on Facebook that is not being responded to because it is not considered enough of a PR risk to Facebook,” said Sophie Zhang, a former data scientist at Facebook who worked within the company’s “integrity” organization to combat inauthentic behavior. “The cost isn’t borne by Facebook. It’s borne by the broader world as a whole.”

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/apr/12/facebook-loophole-state-backed-manipulation

#facebook #DeleteFacebook #loophole #manipulation #investigation #thinkabout
📡 @nogoolag 📡 @blackbox_archiv

Another huge data breach, another stony silence from Facebook

The social media giant is still a law unto itself. Can anybody hold it to account?

Half a billion Facebook users’ accounts stolen. Personal information compromised. Telephone numbers and birth dates drifting across the internet being used for God knows what. And for four days, from Facebook’s corporate headquarters, nothing but silence.

If this sounds familiar, it’s because it is. This week saw reports of a massive new Facebook breach and everything about it, from Facebook’s denials of the words “data” and “breach” to its repeated refusal to answer journalists’ questions, has been uncannily reminiscent of the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

Three years on, “Cambridge Analytica” is a byword for mass-data abuse, Facebook has been fined billions of dollars for failing to protect users’ data and... not a thing has changed. If ever there were a moment to understand how profoundly all systems of accountability have failed, and continued to fail, it is this.

Last week Nick Clegg, vice president of global affairs at Facebook, admitted on The Verge website that the Cambridge Analytica scandal had “rocked Facebook right down to its foundations”. And yet it has learned nothing. It has paid no real price (the record $5 billion fine it paid to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is literally no price at all to Facebook), suffered no real consequences, and failed to answer any questions over the involvement of its executives.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/apr/11/another-huge-data-breach-another-stony-silence-from-facebook

#facebook #DeleteFacebook #data #breach #comment #thinkabout
📡 @nogoolag 📡 @blackbox_archiv

Developers, it’s time for you to choose a side - Clean up the web!

Will you help rid the web of privacy-invading tracking or be complicit in it?

🚮 Remove third-party scripts from Google, Facebook, etc.
This includes Google Analytics (one of the most prevalent trackers in the world), YouTube videos, Facebook login widgets, etc.

These scripts enable people farmers like Google and Facebook to track people across the web as they go from site to site. If you embed them in your site, you’re complicit in enabling this tracking.

And yes, that absolutely includes fucking Google AMP.

https://cleanuptheweb.org/

👉🏼 Read as well: Nobody is flying to join Google’s FLoC - #Brave, #Vivaldi, #Edge, and #Mozilla are all out

https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/16/22387492/google-floc-ad-tech-privacy-browsers-brave-vivaldi-edge-mozilla-chrome-safari

#cleanuptheweb #floc #google #DeleteGoogle #facebook #DeleteFacebook #tracking #thinkabout
📡 @nogoolag 📡 @blackbox_archiv