TheNewsGuru

Tag: Facebook

  • EU files charges against Facebook for cunningly taking over WhatsApp

    The European Union (EU) antitrust regulators have filed charges against Facebook Inc for providing misleading information during its takeover of WhatsApp, opening the company to a possible fine of 1 percent of its turnover, according to a Reuters report.

    According to the report, the statement of objections sent to Facebook will not have an impact on the approval of the $22 billion merger in 2014, the European Commission said in a statement on Tuesday.

    The issue regards a WhatsApp privacy policy change in August in which it said it would share some users’ phone numbers with parent company Facebook, triggering investigations by a number of EU data protection authorities.

    The Commission said Facebook had indicated in its notification of the acquisition of WhatsApp that it would be unable reliably to match the two companies’ user accounts.

    “In today’s Statement of Objections, the Commission takes the preliminary view that, contrary to Facebook’s statements and reply during the merger review, the technical possibility of automatically matching Facebook users’ IDs with WhatsApp users’ IDs already existed in 2014,” it said.

    “At this stage, the Commission, therefore, has concerns that Facebook intentionally, or negligently, submitted incorrect or misleading information to the Commission, in breach of its obligations under the EU Merger Regulation,” it added.

    While Facebook has until January 31 to respond, if the Commission’s concerns are confirmed, it can impose a fine on the US company of up to 1 percent of turnover.

  • German officials warn Facebook of fines over fake news

    German officials have recently threatened to fine Facebook over hate speech and fake news, local media reported.

    Thomas Oppermann, parliamentary leader of Germany’s centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), on Friday told Der Spiegel that tougher measures should be designed against the spread of offending and fake messages.

    “If after taking the necessary checks Facebook doesn’t promptly remove the offending messages with 24 hours, then Facebook has to reckon with a severe fine of up to 500,000 euros (523,000 dollars),” Oppermann said.

    The official advised Germans to timely report hateful messages within 24 hours to “market-leading platforms” like Facebook for further information check.

    Oppermann added that these platforms should set up special departments in Germany that could provide users with round-the-clock legal protection. He said other measures would also be taken to keep a healthy environment on the internet.

    Minister of Justice Heiko Mass in an article published Saturday on Sueddeutsche Zeitung also cautioned Facebook against “legal consequences” if it doesn’t delete “insults, hatred against certain groups” or slanderous contents on its platform.

    Mass added that penalty was also being considered to provide effective incentives for quick action.

    Adam Mosseri, vice president of Facebook in charge of news feed, on Thursday said a program had been started to work with third-party fact checking organizations to enable users to report a hoax.

    Facebook has been under pressure for a while as fake news stories have been abundant on its network during this U.S. election year, misleading voters and having impacted the result of the presidential election.

    German mainstream media worry about such a potential impact on the results of German elections next year. The European country is facing the rise of far right-wing groups.

  • Facebook Year in Review: Bug sees old photos, posts reappearing

    Facebook Year in Review: Bug sees old photos, posts reappearing

    If you have seen your old photos on Facebook re-appearing, you are not alone as many users have complained that the photos they had posted months ago are resurfacing on their pages.

    According to a report in Boston Globe on Friday the complaints came after Facebook told users on Thursday that it had compiled videos for them that showed their “year in review”, essentially a video slideshow of individuals’ photos from 2016 that they can share with their friends.

    The report quoted Stephanie Milot, a reporter for PC Magazine, who wrote that four of her photos were re-posted Friday.

    The new photos did not merely re-appear on timeline but the posts were marked with new dates and timestamps – confusing the users as if they had been posted anew.

    However, Facebook has said that it was aware of the issue and currently investigating.

    Facebook’s help forum has received many queries regarding the issue. Many users, after Friday’s Facebook glitch, were led to believe that their accounts were hacked.

    “Tonight I have seen two posts on my page as new posts, but both are from 6 months ago, and are old posts. Why is this happening? Have I been hacked?” the report cited one user writing.

    Earlier this year, Facebook had mistakenly said that some of its 1.79 billion users were dead.

  • S-Court throws gavel at Facebook, others for sexual offence, cybercrime videos

    S-Court throws gavel at Facebook, others for sexual offence, cybercrime videos

    The Supreme Court of India on Monday sought responses from three Internet search engines and social networking site, Facebook, on a plea that sought curbs on sharing of videos related to sexual offences and cybercrime.

    A bench of Justice Madan B. Lokur and Justice Uday Umesh Lalit sought responses from Google India, Yahoo India, Microsoft Corporation (India) Ltd. and Facebook by January 9 on NGO Prajwala’s plea seeking a defined place where one could report such rape videos and seek their blocking.

    The court’s notices for response came during the course of hearing of a letter by Hyderabad-based non-governmental organization Prajwala along with two rape videos. The two videos submitted in a pen drive showed a man raping a woman and another man filming it.

    The NGO’s lawyer Aparna Bhat said videos of sexual offences are shot and posted online, and pleaded for court directions to them to take steps to curb cybercrime.

    As the court sought responses on the plea, Additional Solicitor General, Maninder Singh, told the bench about the steps taken by the government and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to curb cybercrime.

    The CBI happens to be the nodal agency to deal with the cases of cybercrime.

    The government said this in response to an August 28 direction by the top court, asking the Information Technology Ministry about the way it could assist in reporting and blocking videos of rape under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012, which are in circulation on social networking websites.

    As ASG Maninder Singh said that a debate is on in the country and abroad on making public the identity of sexual offender, the court said the identity of an alleged rape offender should not be made public merely on the registration of an offence but only after conviction.

    The court said if a person gets acquitted even then he would suffer damage to his image because of prior disclosure of his identity. “It will tarnish the image of a person, (even) if he is acquitted in the sexual offence case,” the bench said.

    The bench said if a person is acquitted of a sexual offence, the CBI will not investigate him for the cybercrime aspect of the offence.

    Pointing to National Crime Record Bureau statistics on a sharp rise in cases of sexual violence against children, the apex court asked the Centre to include in the list of measures for curbing crimes against women, the steps to protect children from sexual violence.

    The NGO’s co-founder Sunitha Krishnan is engaged in the rescue and rehabilitation of victims of trafficking for sex trade.