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  1. AlphaAtlas

    The New York Times Claims Facebook Shared More Data Than it Disclosed

    The New York Times just published a scathing report on Facebook's data sharing practices. Citing over 60 interviews and "hundreds of pages of Facebook documents obtained by The New York Times, generated in 2017 by the company's internal system for tracking partnerships," the publication claims...
  2. AlphaAtlas

    Facebook Reveals Photo API Bug

    On their developer website, Facebook revealed a bug in their Photo API that "may have affected people who used Facebook Login and granted permission to third-party apps to access their photos." Facebook claims some "third parties" may have had access to more photos than they were supposed to...
  3. AlphaAtlas

    ZeniMax Settles with Facebook in Oculus Lawsuit

    Gamesindustry.biz reports that ZeniMax and Facebook have finally settled their long-running lawsuit over Oculus technology. As a reminder, the trouble started when John Carmack left ID for Oculus in 2013. ZeniMax sued shortly after that, claiming that Carmack and Oculus stole some of ID's...
  4. AlphaAtlas

    Facebook is in an Arms Race with Adblockers

    While Facebook is reportedly "at war" with itself and the public, the BBC reports that Facebook is also fighting another kind of war. The social media giant is allegedly using a number of tricks to fool popular ad blocking plugins, including "breaking up the word 'sponsored,'" inserting hidden...
  5. AlphaAtlas

    Over 200 Pages of Internal Facebook Communications are Released

    The UK Parliament published over 200 pages of internal Facebook emails they recently seized, and media outlets all over the world are picking through them. Among other things, the BBC points out the documents revealed that Netflix, Badoo, Lyft, and Airbnb all used Facebook friend data to...
  6. cageymaru

    Google and Facebook Cross "The Creepy Line"

    In the following video, John Stossel interviews Peter Schweizer who is the writer of the documentary "The Creepy Line." The documentary takes a hard look at Google and Facebook to determine if they are crossing ethical lines when they track and data mine every moment of our lives to sell the...
  7. AlphaAtlas

    Facebook Considered Selling User Data Years Ago

    According to a report by the Wall Street Journal, Facebook considered directly selling API access to other companies between 2012 and 2014. According to TechCrunch, the WSJ's allegations come from sealed court documents from a lawsuit by app developer Six4Three. By all accounts, Facebook never...
  8. AlphaAtlas

    Country Officials Outraged Over Zuckerberg's Absence from Hearings

    As we've reported before, this is a bad time to be Facebook. The company is under fire for a number of scandals around the world, and now, they're facing outrage from parliamentarians who intended to question Zuckerberg over the Cambridge Analytica data scandal. Instead of getting Facebook's...
  9. AlphaAtlas

    Facebook Documents Seized by UK Government

    The Guardian reports that the UK Parliament has seized a cache of documents "alleged to contain significant revelations about Facebook decisions on data and privacy controls that led to the Cambridge Analytica scandal." Parliament reportedly invoked a rare mechanism to "compel" Ted Kramer, the...
  10. AlphaAtlas

    Facebook is Leaking More Information

    This is a bad year for Facebook, to say the least. The social media company has suffered from a number of scandals, many of which where started by internal leaks, and according to the BBC, that trend is only going to continue. Late last night, TechCrunch leaked a internal memo from a departing...
  11. AlphaAtlas

    Facebook Now Displays How Much Time You Spend on Facebook

    Back in June, TechCrunch reported that Facebook was working on a feature that tracks the time users spend on the social media platform. Apparently, that feature took some time to develop, as Facebook just rolled it out this week. On the surface, a way to track excessive Facebook usage seems like...
  12. AlphaAtlas

    Facebook is Allegedly Divided by Internal Conflict

    Following a long period of negative media coverage this year, the Wall Street Journal reports that Mark Zuckerberg told top employees that Facebook is "at war," and that he plans "to lead the company accordingly." But this internal shift seems to be creating some friction within the company. An...
  13. AlphaAtlas

    Facebook Applies for Patent to Figure Out Who You Live With

    Facebook apparently applied for a patent titled "Predicting Household Demographics Based on Image Data" in May 2017, and that patent just went public this month. True to its name, the patent suggests that Facebook intends to extrapolate relationships based on pictures posted to a user's page...
  14. AlphaAtlas

    Reviewers Don't Trust Facebook's Portal

    Reviewers have had their hands on Facebook's Portal for some time, and the verdict is pretty much the same everywhere: Portal is one of the best video calling devices ever made. The Wall Street Journal calls it the "most immersive video-chatting experiences I've ever had," while CNET praises the...
  15. cageymaru

    Students Revolt Against Facebook Sponsored "Summit Learning" Curriculum

    Students at Brooklyn's Secondary School for Journalism staged a walkout in protest of the adoption of Facebook sponsored educational tools. Summit Learning is a web-based curriculum designed by Facebook engineers and is financially backed by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla...
  16. AlphaAtlas

    France Will Embed Regulators Inside Facebook

    In what Reuters claims to be "the first move of its kind," the French government will embed a number of regulators inside Facebook and "examine how the social media giant combats hate speech online." Starting in January, the regulators will stay there for 6 months. An official said that "The...
  17. cageymaru

    Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Turns down UK Parliament Request to be Interviewed

    Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has again turned down an invitation from UK and Canadian lawmakers to appear in London to politely discuss disinformation and fake news on the social media site. Instead of sending Mr. Zuckerberg to be questioned about Cambridge Analytica and other issues, Facebook...
  18. cageymaru

    Facebook Has Patented Generating Friend Suggestions Based on Real Life Contact

    Facebook has been awarded a patent that would allow it to track real life encounters between its users. It will use the Bluetooth connectivity and other hardware on phones to track, log and find other users in the same vicinity. It will be able to read gyro data to determine that the users...
  19. cageymaru

    Hackers Are Selling Access to Private Facebook Data for 10 Cents per Account

    Often politicians, researchers, corporate entities and citizens discuss the human toll of social media hacks and fierce debates ensue from those crimes, pertaining to what private account data is worth. Hackers in Russia have attached a price tag of 10 cents per account as they attempt to sell...
  20. AlphaAtlas

    Oculus Rift Update Could be More Modest Than Previously Planned

    Last week, Oculus co-founder Brendan Iribe left the company, and Techcrunch seemed to think that it wasn't on the best of terms. An "inside source" claimed that Facebook canceled the "Rift 2", and now a "a source familiar with the matter" is going into more detail. The Oculus Rift's successor...
  21. FrgMstr

    Facebook Dilemma - What You Need to Know

    If you use Facebook, or know someone that does, this is very much worth your viewing time. Frontline PBS has done an excellent job and putting a lot of facts together, all in one place...or two places actually. Videos.
  22. AlphaAtlas

    Facebook Fined 500,000 Pounds for Cambridge Analytica Scandal

    The UK's Information Commissioner's Office slapped Facebook with 500,000 pound fine for the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which translates to about $641,000 USD. The office says "Between 2007 and 2014, Facebook processed the personal information of users unfairly by allowing application...
  23. AlphaAtlas

    Oculus Co-Founder Leaves Facebook Amid Rift 2 Cancellation Reports

    In a Facebook post, Oculus co-founder Brendan Iribe announced that he's leaving Facebook. On the surface of things, the departure seems to be relatively amicable, as most high profile departures are. However, Techcrunch seems to think that his departure is related to the cancellation of the...
  24. AlphaAtlas

    Facebook is Looking for a Cybersecurity Firm to Buy

    A report by The Information claims that Facebook is looking for a cybersecurity firm to buy. According to four anonymous insiders, Facebook approached multiple companies with talks about an acquisition, but the report didn't mention any companies by name. Facebook suffered from a big security...
  25. cageymaru

    Facebook Accused of Inflating Ad-Watching Metrics by 900% to Deceive Advertisers

    A new lawsuit accuses Facebook of inflating ad-watching metrics by up to 900%. Facebook allegedly knew for over a year that its average-viewership numbers were wrong and simply remained quiet. Facebook then leveraged these lies to sell premium video advertising on its platform because...
  26. cageymaru

    Facebook Estimates That Only 30 Million Accounts Compromised by Hackers

    Facebook has issued a new statement about the recent "View As" hack of the company where up to 90 million customers were affected. Now Facebook is certain that only 30 million users had their personal information exposed to the hackers. This personal information includes Facebook Messenger...
  27. AlphaAtlas

    Facebook Launches Their First Home Hardware

    Facebook launched their first 2 home-grown hardware products today. The Portal and Portal+ both feature Alexa integration, 4 beamforming microphones, stereo speakers, and a "Smart Camera" that "uses AI to keep everyone in the frame - panning and zooming automatically no matter where the...
  28. cageymaru

    Man Who Uploaded Viral Deadpool Movie to Facebook Sentenced to Prison

    In 2016, Trevon Franklin uploaded a pirated copy of Deadpool to Facebook. The viral video was seen 6,386,456 times and the government was seeking a 6 month prison sentence in federal court. After accepting a plea deal where he admitted guilt, the judge sentenced him to 3 weeks in prison. He...
  29. AlphaAtlas

    Instagram Might Share Location Data With Facebook

    Techcrunch got a tip suggesting that Instagram could share location data with Facebook in the future. Jane Manchun Wong previously reported on prototypes of Instagram Video Calling and Music Stickers, which eventually turned into features, and now she says an Instagram prototype has a new...
  30. cageymaru

    Oculus Seeks to Invest into Location-Based Virtual Reality

    Facebook's Oculus subsidiary is testing the waters for investments into location-based VR centers such as movie theaters and arcades in malls. They seek to strike deals with the producers of VR content and the owners of the establishments to use and promote Oculus products. They also seek to...
  31. cageymaru

    Facebook "View As" Hack Affects over 90 Million Accounts

    Facebook has acknowledged being hacked on Tuesday, September 25th and the security issue directly affected almost 50 million accounts and another 40 million indirectly. The "View As" feature that Facebook implemented in July 2017 is the source of the security issue. The "View As" feature...
  32. cageymaru

    USTV on YouTube Strikes Oculus with Copyright Infringement Claims

    USTV on YouTube has hit Facebook's Oculus division with copyright infringement claims for video Oculus uploaded to YouTube from the Oculus Connect 5 event. The USTV channel has clips from the Oculus Quest reveal integrated into their news show. It is unknown if an algorithm at YouTube or USTV...
  33. AlphaAtlas

    Facebook Uses 2FA Phone Numbers for Targeted Ads

    Following a story on Gizmodo claiming that Facebook was using information users never willingly gave up, Facebook confirmed that it uses 2FA phone numbers to send targeted ads to users. Facebook users noticed they were getting spammed on their 2FA phone numbers a couple of months ago, but the...
  34. cageymaru

    YouTube VR Coming Soon to Oculus Go

    Soon you will be able to watch YouTube VR on your Oculus Go headsets! Want to get up close and personal with your favorite rockstar, sit in the driver's seat of a race car, or experience a trip that takes you out of this world? YouTube VR turns every video on the platform into your own virtual...
  35. cageymaru

    Billionaire LA Times Owner Calls Social Media the 'Cancer' of Our Times

    Billionaire owner of the LA Times and Chairman/CEO of biotech firm NantKwest, Patrick Soon-Shiong is campaigning to change how we consume news. He views social media as a serious problem that is causing issues with this generation's ability to maintain a long enough attention span. He...
  36. cageymaru

    Oculus Announces the Standalone Oculus Quest VR System

    Oculus has announced the Spring 2019 availability of the $399 Oculus Quest standalone VR system. The wireless system doesn't need a PC or smartphone to experience VR content. It features six degrees of freedom touch controllers, state of the art optics and built in audio. Sensors in the...
  37. AlphaAtlas

    Instagram Founders Leave Facebook

    The New York Times reports that Instagram's co-founders, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, are leaving Facebook. Facebook bought Instagram for a cool $1 Billion way back in 2012, and the platforms have remained more or less separate ever since then. The departure seemed relatively amicable when...
  38. cageymaru

    Facebook Allegedly Allowed Employers to Block Women from Seeing Job Ads

    The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has accused Facebook of assisting employers in targeting job advertising to only certain classes of people. In this case, women were allegedly completely excluded from being able to see job ads from employers that intentionally chose to block women by...
  39. cageymaru

    Teens Know That Social Media Companies Want to Manipulate Them

    Teens are addicted to social media, but a new study finds that they are cognizant that the companies are manipulating them. Social media companies like Snapchat have activities that require that you send at least one message to a group of friends or family members at least once a day to...
  40. cageymaru

    Facebook Announces That Content Filtering and Other Fixes Will Take Years to Develop

    Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg has addressed content filtering, election interference and other issues in a recent post to his personal Facebook page. One of the key complaints against the company during the congressional hearings was content filtering to keep misinformation off the social media...
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