TheNewsGuru

Tag: Facebook

  • Facebook oversight board upholds Trump ban

    Facebook oversight board upholds Trump ban

    Donald Trump’s ban from Facebook and Instagram has been upheld by Facebook’s Oversight Board.

    But it criticised the permanent nature of the ban as beyond the scope of Facebook’s normal penalties.

    It has ordered Facebook to review the decision and “justify a proportionate response” that is applied to everyone, including ordinary users.

    The former president was banned from both sites in January following the Capitol Hill riots.

    The Oversight Board said the initial decision to permanently suspend Mr Trump was “indeterminate and standardless”, and that the correct response should be “consistent with the rules that are applied to other users of its platform”.

    Facebook must respond within six months, it said.

    At a press conference, Oversight Board co-chair Helle Thorning-Schmidt admitted: “We did not have an easy answer.”

    The Board was due to announce its decision last month but delayed the ruling in order to review more than 9,000 public responses to cases, it said.

    In the meantime, Mr Trump, who is also banned from Twitter, launched a new website on Tuesday to update supporters with his thoughts.

    The ruling means that Mr Trump’s suspension remains in place for now.

    The Oversight Board decided that Mr Trump had broken Facebook’s community standards, and upheld the ban.

    But it is the “indefinite” part of the ban that it took issue with.

    “It is not permissible for Facebook to keep a user off the platform for an undefined period, with no criteria for when or whether the account will be restored,” it said in a statement.

    Applying that type of ban to Mr Trump was not following any clear procedure, it said.

    The Board argued that Facebook had essentially issued “a vague, standardless penalty and then [referred] this case to the Board to resolve”.

    It said doing so meant “Facebook seeks to avoid its responsibilities” – and sent the decision back to Facebook.

    Often referred to as “Facebook’s Supreme Court”, it was set up to rule on difficult or controversial moderation decisions made by Facebook.

    It was established by Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg but operates as an independent entity, although its wages and other costs are covered by Facebook. It is made up of journalists, human rights activists, lawyers and academics.

    The committee has already ruled on nine cases including a comment that seemed derogatory to Muslims. The post from a user in Myanmar, removed for breaking hate-speech rules, was found by the board not to be Islamophobic when taken in context.

    It decisions

    Following the Capitol Hill riots on 6 January, Facebook announced it was banning Mr Trump for breaking its “glorification of violence” rules.

    Hundreds of his supporters entered the complex as the US Congress attempted to certify Joe Biden’s victory in last year’s presidential election.

    Mr Trump was acquitted of a charge of inciting insurrection at the US Capitol in his second impeachment trial in February, after being accused of encouraging the violence in which five people lost their lives.

    The social network had originally imposed a 24-hour ban after the attack which was then extended “indefinitely”.

    Mr Zuckerberg announced that the risks of allowing Mr Trump to post were “simply too great”.

    The former president has also been banned from Twitter and YouTube.

  • Facebook: Get Your Knees Off My Neck -Ademola Adedoyin

    Facebook: Get Your Knees Off My Neck -Ademola Adedoyin

    Ademola Adedoyin

    It was in the afternoon of Friday March 5, 2021 when the nightmare strolled in casually like a minor irritant that will fizzle out in few days, if not in hours.

    I was on my way to keep an appointment with my dentist when a call came through while on Awolowo Road, Ikoyi. It turned out to be a call that signalled the beginning of a long, frustrating, distressing and hellish ordeal in the hands of evil souls whose business is the invasion of your social media spaces for all the malevolent intentions you can ever imagined.

    The Satanic soul at the other end had impersonated an official of my children’s school, asking me to confirm my attendance of a Parent Teachers’ Association virtual meeting scheduled for the next day, with a request to click on the code sent to me to enable me access the meeting. I fell for the antic of the techie and my nightmare began.

    It was less than 10 minutes thereafter that the first call came in to inform me that my Facebook page had been compromised by hackers and that phony stuff had been posted on my wall. A subsequent attempt to use my WhatsApp also failed as the grifters had similarly invaded my space on that social media platform as well.

    What to do? Simple one: get an IT savvy professional to recover the accounts and get the scammers off the accounts.

    Simple?

    Not exactly, as the turn of events has shown. The first step taken by the IT professional was to put his skills into play to recover the accounts. The efforts yielded prompt and positive result in respect of my WhatsApp platform.

    But for the Facebook account, minutes yielded to hours and hours to second day, and it became clear that this is one ordeal that will not end in a flash. The task of recovering the account by the IT guy hit a blank wall when it was discovered that the children of hades that hacked into the account have succeeded in replacing my email address with their own.

    Given the situation, only Facebook can retrieve this account from these con artists and then restore it to the actual owner. To Facebook, we took the case.

    To request Facebook’s intervention, the following steps were taken:

    In a series of correspondences to Facebook, the social media platform company was informed that the recent changes effected in the email and password of the account were fraudulent and should be duly removed.

    Facebook responded and promptly took hold of the account and made it inaccessible to both the actual owner and the hacker. Unfortunately, after about two weeks, to my consternation and agony, the account was released, not to me, but to the swindlers.

    Unfazed, we pressed on through other correspondences to Facebook, requesting it to take the hackers off the account. It was in the course of our efforts to reclaim the account that we found that the con artists now operate the account with another email address and obviously a new username. These discovery was also promptly communicated to Facebook, even though we aee yet to get a response up till now.

    To put Facebook on its toes and to make it do the needful, we have also utilised the public space to bring this ordeal to Facebook and public attention.

    The day after the hackers took over my Facebook account, we put the notice below to my contacts on WhatsApp platform:

    To all my WhatsApp/Facebook Contacts:

    This is to notify you on the violation of my Facebook space by some con artists who are hell bent on swindling my unsuspecting friends on the social media platform. The hacking occurred on Friday March 5, 2021. Their cheap antic is to present me as a fortunate beneficiary of a ridiculous finance scheme and now urging my friends to also take advantage of the said phantom scheme.

    We have already lodged a formal complaint with Facebook and the issue is being looked into. While this is on, these desperate tricksters are getting more desperate in their bid to fleece unsuspecting potential victims. PLEASE IGNORE ALL MESSAGES PURPORTEDLY COMING FROM ME INVITING YOU TO PARTICIPATE IN ANY MONEY YIELDING SCHEME.

    Such message could come through the Facebook space or may be directly addressed to you by the grifters.

    Please ignore them while we work at getting Facebook authorities to retrieve the account from these petty scammers.

    We did not stop at this, since the swindlers also did not relent in posting fraudulent materials on the hacked account.

    Following the posting of another fraudulent material on the wall of the hacked account on March 31st, we devised another means to further bring the issue to the attention of Facebook and the public, with the notice below:

    To all my Facebook Contacts:

    Still on the issue of the violation of my Facebook space by some con artists who are hell bent on swindling my unsuspecting friends on the social media platform, please take note of the submission below:

    You are kindly advised to unfriend this old account from your friends’ list. Picture of old account is attached to this message.

    Refusal to unfriend this my old account leaves you vulnerable to the antics of the scammers.

    Sincere appreciation.

    While one expected that this notice and those before it will help to enable Facebook appreciate the seriousness of the situation, the organisation appears to have left everything in the hands of automated devices that just churn out responses fed into them years back.

    For instance, for our March 31st notice to my Facebook and WhatsApp friends, this was all we got from the organisation:

    Hi Ademola,

    Thanks for letting us know about something you think may go against our Community Standards.
    Reports like yours are an important part of making Facebook a safe and welcoming environment for everyone. In this case, we received the profile you reported and found that it doesn’t go against our Community Standards.

    Note: If you see something on someone’s profile that shouldn’t be on Facebook, be sure to report the specific content (ex: a photo or video), instead of the entire profile. This will help us review your report more accurately.

    Thanks,

    The Facebook Team

    When the swindlers posted another bogus message on 9th April and we repeated the notice of March 31st above, Facebook also repeated its auto generated response which we got earlier, word for word.

    Now, Facebook is dealing with human beings and not machines. A situation where all cases are treated same way and the same automated responses are given in different and varying circumstances cannot be the best that Facebook can offer its teeming clients. Facebook can and must do better.

    Take this case as an example. Between Friday March 5 and afternoon of Sunday April 11 that I’m writing this, the hackers have posted at least six phony materials on the hacked wall. First on the day they did the hacking, then 6th March, 7th March, 31st March, 9th April and 10th April.

    To some of these posts, a few of my friends have had cause to comment, stating that the account has been hacked.

    If Facebook has a proactive and up and running Contents Analysis Unit and Customers Complaints Department, by now, it should have been able to come to the realisation that since someone complained about this particular account on March 5/6, only materials of dubious and doubtful financial transactions are regularly posted on its walls. When you juxtapose that with the informed commentaries and articles on contemporary issues that have graced that wall in the last five years, should that not raise suspicion? Should that not raise the antenna of the guys at Facebook that some swindlers are probably at work? Even if the account will not be immediately returned to the original owner, does that not call for circumspection, and taking a decision to hold back the account until all issues pertaining to it are verified and resolved. Can’t Facebook do better than this?

    I call on Facebook to resolve this depressing issue. For every fraudulent post emblazoned on my picture, it is a poisoned arrow shot straight into the heart; into my soul. Indeed, in the last five weeks, Facebook and these hackers have their knees on my neck. I’m truly in pains. In distress. I need them to take their knees off my neck by putting an end to the embarrassing and depressing situation that these satanic souls have put me.

    For every minute that Facebook remains indifferent to my ordeal, the organisation and the hackers have their knees on my neck.

    In the event that Facebook continues to remain indifferent to this anomaly, we will certainly not hesitate to explore other avenues to resolve this. Certainly, there are consequences for such official aloofness in high places.

    Adedoyin, Journalist, Communication Specialist, wrote in from Ikeja, Lagos.

  • Whatsapp, Instagram, Facebook suffer global downtime

    Whatsapp, Instagram, Facebook suffer global downtime

    WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook suffered an outage in Nigeria and worldwide on Friday night.

    A lot of users were unable to send or receive messages. Some users also reported that they failed to even log in to WhatsApp Web.

    Social media users particularly those using WhatsApp couldn’t send or receive messages on the the platform for more than an hour.

    TheNewsGuru.com, TNG reports that apart from WhatsApp, both Facebook and Instagram were also not working for many users. According to popular downtime reporting service, more than 28,500 people reported issues with Instagram and over 34,127 users were witnessing problems with WhatsApp.

    The cited source suggests that over 49 percent of WhatsApp users were facing connection issue, 48 percent people were unable to send or receive messages on the platform and 2 percent were not able to log in.

    Downdetector showed that around 57 percent Facebook users reported about total blackout and 29 percent were not even able to access the social media app. Around 66 percent of Instagram users were not able to News Feed as well as its official website.

    In case you are not aware, Downdetector is a site that tracks outages by collating status reports from users.

    TNG reports that the three social media platforms is no up and running.

  • Facebook to label all posts about COVID-19 vaccines

    Facebook to label all posts about COVID-19 vaccines

    Facebook Inc, on Monday said it had started adding labels to posts that discussed the safety of the shots and would soon label all posts about the vaccines.

    The social media company, which has been criticised by lawmakers and researchers for allowing vaccine misinformation to spread on its platforms, said in a blog post that measures were now in place to check that.

    It also said it was launching a tool in the U.S. to give people information about where to get COVID-19 vaccines and adding a COVID-19 information area to Instagram, its photo-sharing site.

    False claims and conspiracies about the COVID-19 vaccines have proliferated on social media platforms during the pandemic.

    Facebook and Instagram, which recently tightened their policies after long taking a hands-off approach to vaccine misinformation, remain home to large accounts, pages and groups that promote false claims about the shots and can be easily found through keyword searches.

    Facebook’s Chief Product Officer, Chris Cox, said in an interview that the company had taken viral false claims “very seriously” but said there was “a huge gray area of people who had concerns.

    “The best thing to do in that huge gray area is just to show up with authoritative information in a helpful way, be a part of the conversation and do it with health experts,” Cox added.

    The company said it was labelling Facebook and Instagram posts that discussed the safety of COVID-19 vaccines with text, saying the vaccines went through safety and effectiveness tests before approval.

    In the blog post, it also said since expanding its list of banned false claims about the coronavirus and vaccines in February, it had removed an additional 2 million pieces of content from Facebook and Instagram.

    Facebook said it had also implemented temporary measures including reducing the reach of content from users who repeatedly shared content marked false by fact-checkers.

  • Facebook asks court to dismiss U.S. government, states antitrust cases

    Facebook asks court to dismiss U.S. government, states antitrust cases

    Facebook asked a federal court on Wednesday to dismiss major antitrust cases filed by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and nearly every U.S. state, saying they failed to show the company had a monopoly or harmed consumers.

    “By a one-vote margin, in the fraught environment of relentless criticism of Facebook for matters entirely unrelated to antitrust concerns, the agency decided to bring a case against Facebook,” Facebook said in its response to the FTC complaint.

    “None of the harms typically alleged in antitrust actions is alleged here,” it said.

    In lawsuits filed in December, the FTC and states asked the court to force the social media giant to sell two prized assets, its messaging app WhatsApp and photo-sharing app Instagram. U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in the District of Columbia will hear the cases.

    The FTC and states accused Facebook of breaking antitrust law to keep smaller competitors at bay and snapping up social media rivals, like Instagram for $1 billion in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014 for $19 billion.

    All told, the federal government and states filed five lawsuits against Facebook and Alphabet’s Google last year following bipartisan outrage over use and misuse of social media clout both in the economy and in the political sphere.

    In its response to the FTC lawsuit, Facebook argued that the government failed to show that Facebook had a monopoly in a clearly defined market or that it had hurt consumers.

    The company also dismisses emails cited in the FTC lawsuit written by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other executives expressing worry about the competitive threat posed by Instagram and WhatsApp.

    “Lacking facts to establish either unlawful conduct or harm to consumers, the FTC attempts to bolster its claims with a grab-bag of selectively quoted internal emails and messages from Facebook executives.

    “These are offered to show that Facebook was concerned about competitive threats from Instagram and WhatsApp – but also many, many other firms,” Facebook said in its response.

    Separately, in the lawsuit brought by dozens of states and territories, Facebook argued that the states case should be dismissed because the states failed to show that they were harmed by Facebook and because they waited more than four years.

    The states and FTC have until April 7 to respond.

  • Russia sues Google, Facebook, Twitter for not deleting protest content

    Russia sues Google, Facebook, Twitter for not deleting protest content

    Russian authorities are suing five social media platforms for allegedly failing to delete posts urging children to take part in illegal protests, the Interfax news agency cited a Moscow court as saying on Tuesday.

    Twitter, Google, Facebook each have three cases against them, with each violation punishable by a fine of up to 4 million roubles (around 54,000 dollars), and cases have also been filed against Tiktok and Telegram, the report said.

    The cases were opened after protests nationwide over last month’s jailing of Alexei Navalny, a prominent critic of President Vladimir Putin.

    Navalny and his supporters say his 30-month sentence, for alleged parole violations related to an embezzlement case, was trumped up for political reasons, something the authorities deny.

    Google declined to comment on the Interfax report. Facebook, Twitter, Tiktok and Telegram did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

    The cases against Google, Facebook and Twitter will be heard on April 2, the agency said.

  • Facebook, Google to start paying for news content

    Facebook, Google to start paying for news content

    Australia is on course to become the first country to require social media giant Facebook and search giant Google to pay for news content.

    Member of the Australian Parliament, Josh Frydenberg, who is the federal treasurer and deputy leader of the Liberal Party, made this known in an emailed statement on Friday.

    He said Australia will introduce landmark legislation to force Alphabet’s Google and Facebook to pay publishers and broadcasters for content next week.

    “The bill will now be considered by the parliament from the week commencing 15 February 2021,” Frydenberg stated.

    The US search and social media giants have pressed Australia to soften the legislation.

    Google had specifically said the bill is “unworkable” and that it will force it to pull out of the country altogether.

    Senior executives from both companies have held talks with Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Frydenberg.

    But, a senate committee examining the proposals had remained adamant and had recommended no amendments.

  • Zuckerberg blocks Nnamdi Kanu from Facebook

    Zuckerberg blocks Nnamdi Kanu from Facebook

    The leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Mazi Nnamdi Kanu has been blocked from the social media platform by Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook.

    The media and publicity secretary of IPOB, Emma Powerful made this known in a statement made available to newsmen on Wednesday.

    TheNewsGuru.com (TNG) reports Kanu’s Facebook account was blocked after his revealing live broadcast of Tuesday night, according to Powerful.

    The statement reads: “The Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) is appalled at the despicable attitude of Facebook for blocking the Facebook page of our leader, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, after his expository and explosive live broadcast on Tuesday night. It is not only baffling but too petty for a global social media giant like Facebook to allow itself to be used by agents of oppression in Nigeria to suppress the truth.

    “We strongly condemn this attitude of Facebook managers in Lagos and Abuja who collude with corrupt Nigerian government officials to suppress the free flow of Information via their platform. This unconscionable and reprehensible attitude amounts to partnering with perpetrators of human rights abuses and other criminal activities masterminded by the Nigeria state against innocent citizens.

    “The Fulani-controlled federal government and its foot soldiers – terrorist herdsmen and bandits – have continued to subjugate indigenous nations in the country, including Biafrans with the intent for conquest. These foot soldiers on a daily basis unleash all sorts of mayhem on the innocent and hapless indigenous peoples while the federal government mischievously remains docile.

    “These vampires masquerading as herdsmen have forcibly seized our forests and converted our farms to grazing fields for their cattle. They have equally turned our ancestral lands to slaughterhouses where they kill with impunity in most dehumanising manners, innocent locals going about their legitimate business. They commit these crimes unchallenged by security operatives. They kidnap for ransoms, maim and rape our women. They feed their cattle with our crops, and Facebook is saying we don’t have a right to cry out?

    The IPOB spokesperson described the attitude of the Zuckerberg-managed Facebook as oppressive and prevention of information flow, which he said was similar to how the British government prevented information from Biafra from going out during the Nigerian Civil War of 1967 — 1970.

    “Now that our leader has started exposing the atrocities of these wolves in human clothing, Facebook has decided to be an accomplice to mass murder and oppressive tendencies of Fulani Janjaweed rulers of Nigeria. Why should Facebook block the account of the leader of the largest peaceful mass movement in the world for speaking the bitter truth people are too terrified to talk about?

    “Why hasn’t Facebook prevailed on the perpetrators of these heinous crimes in Nigeria to stop their atrocities instead of denying innocent victims media access? Facebook is quick to fall for the lie of agents of oppression and accuse us of hate speech but fails to realise that hate action begets hate speech if in the Facebook lexicon, bitter truth translates to hate speech.

    “This unholy act is only akin to what Britain and her allies did to Biafra during the Genocidal War of 1967-70 when they imposed land, air and media blockade on Biafra in order to deny the truth about the ongoing genocide from going out.

    “Facebook, it seems does not want the atrocities of Fulani killer herdsmen to come to the knowledge of the world but they have failed woefully. Facebook is today assisting an oppressive government that pampers, frees and settles ‘captured’ terrorists while doing nothing to protect or rehabilitate victims of terror.

    “But our message to Facebook is simple: no matter how hard you try to suppress the gospel of truth being preached by our leader, the struggle for Biafra liberation cannot be slowed down. On the contrary, our efforts will be intensified because Biafra restoration is a divine mandate that must be accomplished in this era.

    “We are very resolute in our resolve to restore Biafra and will not be deterred. If you like, block all Biafran activists on your platform, we shall keep pushing on until Biafra is fully restored,” the statement added.

    In the release, however, IPOB spokesman enumerated other options to be explored in getting information from Kanu henceforth.

    “We, therefore, wish to encourage our leader’s teeming global audience to follow him and hook up to his live broadcasts via IPOB’s numerous other platforms. Our leader can be followed through many other platforms such as Twitter, YouTube, IPOB Community Radio App, Radio Biafra app, satellite and FM.

    “May we therefore remind all those compromised local staff of Facebook in Lagos and Abuja that but for Nnamdi Kanu and IPOB, their families in their communities would have today been overrun by herdsmen and terrorists. An accomplice to a cruel man will surely get the reward of cruelty!” it further stated.

  • Zuckerberg bans Trump from Facebook, Instagram indefinitely

    Zuckerberg bans Trump from Facebook, Instagram indefinitely

    Facebook has extended the ban placed on Facebook and Instagram accounts of President Donald Trump.

    Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook made this known in a statement on Thursday.

    He stated that the ban is indefinite and for at least the next two weeks until the peaceful transition of power is complete.

    The statement reads: “The shocking events of the last 24 hours clearly demonstrate that President Donald Trump intends to use his remaining time in office to undermine the peaceful and lawful transition of power to his elected successor, Joe Biden.

    “His decision to use his platform to condone rather than condemn the actions of his supporters at the Capitol building has rightly disturbed people in the US and around the world.

    “We removed these statements yesterday because we judged that their effect — and likely their intent — would be to provoke further violence.

    “Following the certification of the election results by Congress, the priority for the whole country must now be to ensure that the remaining 13 days and the days after inauguration pass peacefully and in accordance with established democratic norms.

    “Over the last several years, we have allowed President Trump to use our platform consistent with our own rules, at times removing content or labeling his posts when they violate our policies.

    “We did this because we believe that the public has a right to the broadest possible access to political speech, even controversial speech.

    “But the current context is now fundamentally different, involving use of our platform to incite violent insurrection against a democratically elected government.

    “We believe the risks of allowing the President to continue to use our service during this period are simply too great.

    “Therefore, we are extending the block we have placed on his Facebook and Instagram accounts indefinitely and for at least the next two weeks until the peaceful transition of power is complete”.

  • Trump’s favourite social media app, Twitter, others suspend his accounts over Capitol violence

    Trump’s favourite social media app, Twitter, others suspend his accounts over Capitol violence

    Twitter and Facebook suspended Donald Trump on Wednesday over posts accused of inflaming violence in the US Capitol, as social media scrambled to respond to mayhem by supporters buying into his baseless attacks on the integrity of the election.

    The unprecedented sanctions came after the president took to social media to repeat his numerous false claims about fraud and other impropriety in the election he lost to Joe Biden.

    “This is an emergency situation and we are taking appropriate emergency measures, including removing President Trump’s video,” said Facebook vice president of integrity Guy Rosen.

    “We removed it because on balance we believe it contributes to rather than diminishes the risk of ongoing violence.”

    Facebook barred Trump from posting at the social network or its Instagram service for 24 hours, saying his messages were promoting violence.

    Trump’s falsehoods, ranging from specific allegations to broad conspiracy theories, also prompted Facebook to change a label added to posts aiming to undermine the election results.

    The new label reads: “Joe Biden has been elected president with results that were certified by all 50 states. The US has laws, procedures, and established institutions to ensure the peaceful transfer of power after an election.”

    An activist group calling itself a mock Facebook oversight board said sanctions against Trump at the social network were long overdue.

    “This is too little, too late,” the group said in a statement.

    “Donald Trump has breached Facebook’s own terms and conditions multiple times. His account is not just a threat to democracy but to human life.”

    The crackdown came after Trump’s supporters stormed the US Capitol in an attack that led to one woman being shot and killed by police, interrupting congressional debate over Biden’s election victory.

    The assault came after the president had urged supporters to march on the seat of government during a speech outside the White House in which he alleged baselessly that the election had been stolen from him.

    He later released a video on social media in which he repeated the false claim — even telling the mob “I love you.”

    YouTube removed the video in line with its policy barring claims challenging election results.

    Twitter said Trump’s messages were violations of the platform’s rules on civic integrity and that any future violations “will result in permanent suspension of the @realDonaldTrump account.”

    The messaging platform said Trump’s account would be locked for 12 hours and that if the offending tweets were not removed, “the account will remain locked.”

    Facebook said it would search for and remove content which praised the storming of the Capitol or encouraged the violence.

    The platform said it would seek to take down additional calls for protests, including peaceful ones, if they violated a curfew imposed by the city of Washington, or any attempts to “re-stage” the storming of Congress.

    “The violent protests in the Capitol today are a disgrace,” a Facebook spokesperson said.

    “We prohibit incitement and calls for violence on our platform. We are actively reviewing and removing any content that breaks these rules.”

    Facebook maintained that it was in contact with law enforcement officials and continued to enforce bans on QAnon conspiracy group, militarized social movements, and hate groups.

    A #StormTheCapitol hashtag was blocked at Facebook and Instagram, according to the internet titan.