Articles about Facebook

Facebook has issued an apology after its search algorithms apparently went haywire and started to suggest a range of strange, and often NSFW, videos to users.

Throughout Thursday night into Friday morning, a range of bizarre search suggestions were displayed to anyone who started typing "video of". Some of the suggestions were offensive, and it didn't take long for screenshots to be shared on Twitter.

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In the latest part of its clean-up exercise, Facebook has removed pages of the far-right, anti-Islamic group Britain First. The social network has also closed down the pages of the leaders of the group -- well-known in the UK, and also brought to US attention after Donald Trump shared its tweets.

The ban is such that Britain First will not be able to create any pages in the future. Facebook says that the group has repeatedly violated rules against hate speech, and denies that the bans are an infringement of free speech.

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It is a number of years since Facebook acquired mobile data compression firm Onavo, but in recent weeks concern mounted about how the social network's Onavo VPN tool collects user data.

The collection of user data while an app or service is being used is one thing, but a security researcher noticed that Onavo seemed to gather certain snippets of user data even when switched off.

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After initially launching in countries with slower internet connections, Facebook Messenger Lite ultimately spread to other parts of the world. The cut-down version of the app gave access to a subset of its big brother's features, and now Facebook has added support for video chat.

The app has proved popular even in countries with easy access to decent internet and mobile connections, as users eschew super-sized apps in favor of more diminutive versions. The addition of this important and popular feature is only going to increase its appeal.

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BlackBerry -- yep, them -- has filed a lawsuit against Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, claiming that the companies infringed on patents relating to BlackBerry Messenger.

This is not the first time the company has sued other tech firms, drawing on its back catalog of over 40,000 patents in a bid to pull in money through licensing fees. BlackBerry insists, however, that litigation is "not central to [its] strategy."

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Facebook frequently uses surveys to gauge user opinion about features, changes and ideas. One recent such survey raised more than a few eyebrows as the social network asked whether it was OK for a man to ask a child for sexual pictures.

That any company should, essentially, ask whether pedophilia is acceptable is more than a little strange, but for such a question to come from such a big name as Facebook almost defies belief. The survey appeared over the weekend, surprising those who saw the questions.

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Facebook is far from immune to tinkering with its News Feed, but its recent experiment has been deemed a complete failure. Last year, the Explore Feed received a limited public launch following a period of beta testing, effectively separating news from friends and posts from pages.

Several months later, Facebook has realized what we probably could have told it from the offset: "People don't want two separate feeds." The company was heavily criticized by those living in the countries where the experiment ran, as they said it was harder to find important information.

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It’s time to wrap up all these 2018 predictions, so here are my final three in which Apple finds a new groove, IBM prepares for a leadership change, and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg gives up a dream.

Apple has long needed a new franchise. It’s been almost eight years since the iPad (Apple’s last new business) was introduced. Thanks to Donald Trump’s tax plan, Cupertino can probably stretch its stock market winning streak for another 2-3 years with cash repatriation, share buy-backs, dividend increases and cost reductions, but the company really needs another new $20+ billion business and it will take every one of those years to get a new one up to scale.

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Just last week Facebook was hit with the news that its privacy settings -- as well as the way the company uses personal data -- are illegal in Germany. Now the social network has been threatened with fines for tracking people through third-party websites.

The tracking affects even people who do not have a Facebook account, and this is something that a Belgian court took exception to. Belgium's privacy watchdog also told Facebook to delete data that had been illegally collected about Belgian citizens.

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Facebook and privacy are not words that really belong in the same sentence, so the idea that the social network is offering a VPN tool might well raise your suspicions. Back in 2013, Facebook acquired Onavo, the company behind the VPN tool Protect.

Recently, users of the Facebook iOS app noticed a link to something labelled Protect within settings. While this appears to be a built-in setting, it is in fact just a link to the Onavo Protect VPN app -- and the idea of a Facebook-owned VPN tool being promoted from within the Facebook app has people concerned. Take a look at the app description, and you may well understand why.

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Facebook is no stranger to privacy-related controversy, and now a German court has ruled that the social networks' use of personal data is illegal. The court in Berlin also said that Facebook's default privacy settings violate German consumer law.

The case was brought by the federation of German consumer organisations (VZBV) which said Facebook failed to provide its users with sufficient information, and also that people were automatically opted into features.

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Facebook has confirmed that it is currently testing what it describes as a "downvote" button. But the social network is at pains to stress that this is absolutely not the "dislike" button people have been asking for.

The idea behind the feature is to give users the chance to downvote comments -- it does not appear to give the same option to posts. In currents tests, downvoting only appears on public Pages, and it's something that’s unlikely to spread to profiles.

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The election authority in Seattle says that Facebook has violated city finance laws. Regulations are in place that require the company to reveal who paid for campaign ads on the social network.

The Seattle Ethics and Elections Commission is seeking information about advertising spending for city elections that took place last year. Facebook risks a fine of up to $5,000 per ad if this information is not provided.

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Facebook has announced a new advertising policy which ban ads for cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin. The ban also applies to ICOs because they are "frequently associated with misleading or deceptive promotional practices."

The social network says that the new policy is a part of a drive to improve the "integrity and security of financial product and services ads," but it explains that it is keeping its guidelines "intentionally broad" to start with.

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Facebook recently promised big changes to the way its News Feed works, and Mark Zuckerberg has now revealed that the social network will start to place a greater emphasis on local news. At least it makes a change from constantly banging on about fake news.

It's part of the company's desire to increase civic engagement, with the Facebook CEO saying that there is a direct link between reading local news and people getting involved in helping out with local causes. The changes are coming to the US first and will then spread to the rest of the world.

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