Scotland Yard Twitter account and website hacked
The Twitter account of Scotland Yard has been hit by hackers, resulting in a series of strange and offensive tweets being sent to hundreds of thousands of followers. The website for the Metropolitan Police was also hacked.
Tweets sent by the hackers made references to Keemstar as well as drill artist Digga D, calling for the rapper to be freed from prison. The attack by hackers also resulted in a series of emails being sent out to journalists via the Metropolitan Police's official email address.
F-Secure's Data Discovery Portal reveals what the big tech companies know about you
In an age where people want -- even expect -- everything for free, particularly online, the price we pay for using various services is our privacy. Social networks are obvious collectors of personal data, but it doesn't end there... and who really knows what information has been collected about them over the years?
This is what F-Secure hopes to cast a light on with its new Data Discovery Portal which aims to "expose the true cost of using some of the web's most popular free services". It covers Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Snapchat and Twitter.
Twitter redesign rolls out on the web
Twitter is rolling out a faster, redesigned version of its website, bringing not only a new look to the desktop, but also a range of new features.
It's now possible to bookmark tweets -- something users have been asking for for a very long time -- there is a darker dark mode, and the Explore feature from Twitter's mobile apps makes its way to the web. There's certainly a lot to like, but the fact that the new look is not optional is likely to grate with some users.
FTC to fine Facebook $5 billion for Cambridge Analytica privacy violations
The Federal Trade Commission has voted to hit Facebook with a $5 billion fine for privacy violations relating to the Cambridge Analytica scandal. While this is the largest fine ever handed out by the FTC, the impact on Facebook's coffers is going to be minimal; this is how much revenue the company generates in a month.
Although the fine has not been officially confirmed -- and neither the FTC nor Facebook are commenting on the matter -- a Friday vote on the fine is said to have gone 3-2 in favor of approving it. The size of the penalty has been described variously as a "parking ticket" and "barely a tap on the wrist". Democrat Senator Ron Wyden reacted by saying: "No level of corporate fine can replace the necessity to hold Mark Zuckerberg personally responsible for the flagrant, repeated violations of Americans' privacy".
US Court of Appeals says Trump can't block people on Twitter
Donald Trump's love of Twitter is legendary and often ridiculed; it is also the source of frequent controversy.
The US president is huge fan of ranting, raving and venting steam in tweet storms, but his famed love of sycophants also comes to the fore. Many people who have responded to his tweets critically have found themselves blocked. Now the US Court of Appeal says this is a violation of their First Amendment rights.
The Twitter app is returning to macOS
For more than a year, macOS users have been without an official desktop Twitter client -- more on that shortly. But now, thanks to Project Catalyst for macOS 10.15 Catalina, a Twitter app is making its way back to Mac.
Twitter says that Apple's Project Catalyst means that it has been easy to use the code from the iOS version of the client to create a native macOS app. The company has also revealed just why it was the Mac Twitter client disappeared in the first place.
Facebook will pay you to gather information from you
That Facebook gathers personal information from its users should come as no surprise -- it could be argued that it is the social network's raison d' être. Following numerous privacy scandals, and the controversial (and since-closed) Research and Onavo programs, Facebook is now ready to be open about its data collection, and is even willing to pay people for this.
The new "Study from Facebook" app gives Facebook users the chance to volunteer to share information about their app usage -- and get paid for divulging this information. Sound good to you?
Twitter looks into whether white nationalists and supremacists should be banned
In a world that appears to be lurching ever further to the right, it is perhaps little wonder that white nationalists, white supremacists and other extremists are becoming more prevalent online. Social media sites have a balancing act to perform -- not wanting to be seen to be advocating censorship, but also removing troublesome elements from their networks.
And this is the problem that Twitter faces. The platform has long been home to a glut of racist content and users -- as well as other unsavoury material -- and now the site is conducting research to determine how best to tackle this. Specifically, it is looking at whether white nationalists and supremacists should simply be banned, or whether their posts should be left available for others to debate.
Game of Thrones' divisive finale sure has people talking...
Game of Thrones has never been a show to play things safe. Every time viewers thought they knew where things were going, the series would usually prove them wrong -- often with an unexpected death, or a twist hardly anyone saw coming.
The eighth and final season has just ended, and it’s fair to say -- like much of the eighth season (episode five, The Bells, in particular) -- the finale left viewers divided. I personally loved it (albeit not unreservedly), while my colleague Brian Fagioli hated it. Either way, people have been talking about it.
Privacy: Twitter 'inadvertently' collected and shared location data of some users
Social media services are hardly regarded as bastions of privacy, and the latest slip-up by Twitter goes some way to showing why. Twitter has revealed that it "may have accidentally collected location data" about users, that this data was shared with one of its "trusted partners".
Twitter blames the "inadvertent" data collection on a bug, and says that the issue affects some iOS users. It also says that precise location data was not collected or shared, but zip code or city-level only.
The rapid rise of the social media influencer
One of the key trends of the last few years has been the growth of influencer marketing via sponsored content on social media.
New research from marketing platform Socialbakers into Instagram marketing shows that in North America, influencer-sponsored posts have grown by over 150 percent from 2018 to 2019.
New York attorney general to investigate Facebook for scraping 1.5 million users' email contacts
Following the revelation that Facebook "unintentionally" scraped and uploaded 1.5 million users' email contacts, the New York attorney general's office has announced that it is opening an investigation into the social media giant.
Attorney general Letitia James said that it is "time Facebook is held accountable for how it handles consumers' personal information".
Why every enterprise needs data loss prevention for all social media channels
Security leaders face tough decisions when it comes to using social media in the workplace. Social and other digital channels are fundamentally changing the way modern businesses communicate. They’re tied to critical operations ranging from customer support to marketing to internal collaboration. Avoiding them isn’t an option. At the same time, relying on the security and privacy settings of these platforms can leave your company open to a serious incident.
It doesn’t help that social media comes with an enormous attack surface. The sheer scale of message creation on these platforms makes it especially hard to prevent the leakage of private data, like personally identifiable information (PII) and other privileged information. Security teams need to stop relegating social media as a communications channel. It is essentially a public cloud environment, and needs to be protected as such.
How to delete the contacts that Facebook may have scraped from you
With its invasive advertising, scant regard for privacy, and often poor approach to security, Facebook has done little over the years to win itself many friends. But to help boost your list of friends, it is possible that Facebook may have uploaded your email contacts without your knowledge.
The aim of this was to help find people you might know on the social network, but as there was little warning about the uploading of such private and sensitive information, there was an understandable backlash. If you're concerned about what Facebook has uploaded on your behalf, here's how to delete the contacts that may have been scraped from you.
Facebook: er, actually it was millions of Instagram passwords we stored in plain text, not thousands
With no fanfare whatsoever, Facebook has revealed that it stored the passwords for millions of Instagram accounts in plain text.
The news came as the company quietly updated a blog post from last month in which it revealed that it had stored hundreds of millions of unencrypted Facebook passwords on its servers. At the time, the company said "tens of thousands" of Instagram users were affected. Revising this figure upwards, Facebook says: "We now estimate that this issue impacted millions of Instagram users".
Recent Headlines
BetaNews, your source for breaking tech news, reviews, and in-depth reporting since 1998.
Regional iGaming Content
© 1998-2025 BetaNews, Inc. All Rights Reserved. About Us - Privacy Policy - Cookie Policy - Sitemap.