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Senate committee votes to subpoena Facebook, Google and Twitter CEOs
They're set to grill Zuckerberg, Pichai and Dorsey over Section 230 protections.
Mark Zuckerberg will stream a speech on ‘free expression’ Thursday
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is planning to give a speech Thursday about his views on free expression and voice. Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook post that it's the "most comprehensive take I've written about my views, why I believe voice is important, how giving people voice and bringing people together go hand in hand, how me might address the challenges that more voice and the internet introduce, and the major threats to free expression around the world."
Congress will grill Mark Zuckerberg over Libra October 23rd
Mark Zuckerberg will be under the spotlight of regulators once again when Facebook's CEO testifies before the Financial Services Committee this month. The congressional panel is set to grill him October 23rd over Facebook's planned cryptocurrency Libra and digital wallet Calibra.
Mark Zuckerberg hints finger tracking is coming to Oculus
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg hinted a finger-tracking feature is on the way for Oculus headsets. Ahead of his opening keynote at Oculus Connect 6, he posted a video that showed hands making the letters O and C and holding up six fingers. That's a clear reference to the conference, as if the text on his post and an OC6 logo at the end weren't enough. "I'm excited to share our latest work in augmented and virtual reality," he wrote.
Facebook will share data on hate speech suspects with French courts (update)
Facebook is handing over identifying information to French courts on people suspected of using hate speech on its social network. "This is huge news, it means that the judicial process will be able to run normally," Cédric O, France's minister for the digital sector, told Reuters. "It's really very important, they're only doing it for France." Update 6/25/19 9PM ET: A Facebook spokesperson told us: "As a matter of course, we will no longer refer French law enforcement authorities to the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty process to request basic information in criminal hate speech cases. However, as we do with all court orders for information, even in the US, we will scrutinize every order we receive and push back if is overbroad, inconsistent with human rights, or legally defective."
Facebook co-founder urges FTC to break up the company
Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes has joined the chorus of prominent voices calling for regulators to break up the social networking colossus. In a New York Times op-ed, he wrote that his college roommate and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg had "unchecked power" and that his "influence is staggering, far beyond that of anyone else in the private sector or in government."
Facebook’s FTC fine could cost it between $3 and $5 billion
Although Facebook's growth has slowed down over the past year, all the controversies it has faced in recent months haven't had an effect on its bottom line. But that may be changing. Today, during its Q1 2019 earnings report, Facebook reported a total revenue of $15.1 billion, a 26 percent year-over-year increase. The most interesting part, however, is that Facebook says it estimates spending between $3 and $5 billion as part of an ongoing investigation by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) into its data-sharing practices.
Facebook may add a dedicated news tab later this year
Mark Zuckerberg has revealed he may add a dedicated tab for "high-quality news" to Facebook, perhaps by the end of the year. The section would reportedly be free for users, though Facebook might pay publishers whose work is featured. Zuckerberg mooted the idea in a conversation with Axel Springer CEO Mathias Döpfner, as part of his goal this year to hold discussions about the future of technology in society.
Mark Zuckerberg outlines a 'privacy-focused' revamp of Facebook
Facebook doesn't have a sterling reputation for privacy given its numerous data scandals, and Mark Zuckerberg wants to address it. In a reflection of what he said during a recent fiscal results call, the CEO outlined plans to rework more of Facebook's services around a "privacy-focused" approach over the next few years. This includes "simple, intimate" places where no one else can see your data, the use of end-to-end encryption, a reduced amount of permanent content, greater safety and secure data storage. Zuckerberg also vowed more interoperability between apps and networks.
UK parliament report will call for 'sweeping' regulation of Facebook
The UK Parliament's Facebook document dump is close to creating serious legal trouble for the social network. According to The Guardian, the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee plans to release a report on February 18th calling on the UK government to enact "sweeping" legislation regulating Facebook's activities. The findings will assert that Facebook can't be trusted to police its own data handling, and that CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been "duplicitous."
Facebook at 15: The long road to social media dominance
Facebook's come a long way since it launched 15 years ago today, on February 4th, 2004. Known as TheFacebook.com when it was created by Mark Zuckerberg and friends from Harvard, the service has gone from a "directory of information for college students" to a social media giant with more than 2.32 billion users every month. And that's not even counting people using services it acquired over the past few years, such as Instagram and WhatsApp, each with more than 1.3 billion users of their own. But while Facebook has had plenty of impressive milestones in its history, it has also dealt with a good deal of controversies. From the Cambridge Analytica data privacy scandal to the spread of fake news on its site, Facebook has had to put out a lot of fires, especially in recent years. So, as the company turns 15, let's go back in time and take a look at 15 of the biggest Facebook headlines since it was born.
Facebook's scandals aren't stopping it from making tons of money
We're all well aware that Facebook had a dreadful 2018, and 2019 isn't looking any better, what with the company being plagued by scandals surrounding data privacy and the spread of toxic content on its site. But despite those controversies, Facebook's business has continued to rack up billions of dollars over the past few months, although its user growth has indeed started to slow down a bit. And now we know how Facebook closed out the year, thanks to its Q4 2018 earnings report. Today, the social network giant reported that it earned $16.9 billion in revenue, up 30 percent year-over-year. Monthly active users reached 2.32 billion, up nine percent over a year ago.
Mark Zuckerberg defends Facebook with ‘The Facts’ op-ed
Despite seeing off Congress and the European Parliament, Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook apology tour shows no signs of stopping. His latest peace offering is a Wall Street Journal op-ed titled, "The Facts About Facebook." It sees him pausing to reflect on Facebook's past ahead of its 15th birthday -- "I built a service people could use to connect and learn about each other" -- before diving into a defence of its ad-targeting exploits.
Mark Zuckerberg's resolution is to talk about tech's place in society
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg sets himself a challenge each year. In the past, he's created an AI assistant for his home and committed to learning Mandarin. This time around, after a torrid year where Facebook faced myriad privacy scandals, he's planning to hold a number of public discussions about how technology plays a role in the future of society.
Didn’t think Facebook could get any worse? Think again.
Just about 24 hours ago, we published a story recapping Facebook's terrible 2018. But the year isn't over, and it looks like the drama is going to continue until the bitter end. According to an investigation by The New York Times that cites interviews with more than 60 people, including former Facebook employees, the company gave Amazon, Microsoft, Netflix, Spotify and other tech firms far greater access to user data than previously disclosed. Earlier this month, the paper reported how some of these companies were receiving favored access to people's information, but we didn't know it was allegedly giving certain ones the ability to read, write and delete private messages.
After Math: Where are the adults
It's been quite the week of tantrums by the man-babies who run some of the largest companies in the tech industry. While Elon Musk cried and stamped his feet through what should have been a softball 60 Minutes interview, Twitter head Jack Dorsey spent much of his week encouraging everybody to visit sunny, genocidal Myanmar. And let's not even get started on what have become Mark Zuckerberg's weekly Facebook fiascos. Still, it's nice to see that at least some online institutions still have grownups behind the wheel.
Facebook’s internal documents show its ruthlessness
As expected, the UK Parliament has released a set of internal Facebook emails that were seized as part of its investigation into the company's data-privacy practices. The 250-page document, which includes conversations between Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other high-level executives, is a window into the social media giant's ruthless thinking from 2012 to 2015 -- a period of time when it was growing (and collecting user data) at an unstoppable rate. While Facebook was white-listing companies like Airbnb, Lyft and Netflix to get special access to people's information in 2013, it went out of its way to block competitors such as Vine from using its tools.
Mark Zuckerberg dismissed the risks of sharing user data
As Facebook continues to face scrutiny over its privacy practices following the Cambridge Analytica debacle, ongoing investigations into the company are giving us a look at what kind of access Facebook gave other companies to its user data as well as the discussions surrounding those decisions. The UK's Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee just released a slew of internal documents regarding Facebook's handling of user data, some of which reveal that the company granted certain companies -- such as Airbnb, Lyft and Netflix -- special access to that data. But those documents also show that CEO Mark Zuckerberg didn't see a scandal like Cambridge Analytica coming.
UK Parliament seizes internal Facebook documents
The UK Parliament is determined to get to the bottom of Facebook's data privacy practices, whether or not Mark Zuckerberg is willing to testify. Digital Culture, Media and Sport committee (DCMS) chairman Damian Collins used an uncommon process to force the founder of software developer Six4Three to hand over internal Facebook documents while he was on a business trip to London. The files reportedly include details of Facebook data decisions that enabled the Cambridge Analytica scandal, including emails between executives and conversations with Zuckerberg.
Zuckerberg says stepping down at Facebook is 'not the plan'
Once again, there has been a bombshell report about Facebook and once again, execs are doing the rounds on cable news. This time instead of Sheryl Sandberg, it's CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and his tone in a CNN Business interview was not nearly as apologetic as we saw the company earlier this year after news broke about Cambridge Analytica. As we've seen lately, he didn't directly address many of the claims made about Facebook's behavior, but characterized them as generally inaccurate, saying "It is not clear to me at all that the report is right" about the New York Times article that sparked this latest round of criticism.
