Whatsapp in talks to launch mobile payments service in Indonesia August 20, 2019 Whatsapp is said to be in discussions with several digital payments firms in Indonesia over plans to offer mobile transactions over its platform. If a deal were reached, it would make Indonesia only the second country worldwide where Whatsapp offers the service. Read more: NSO denies Whatsapp spyware can hack data The firm is currently [...]
Senior MP slams ‘disingenuous’ Facebook response over Cambridge Analytica evidence August 13, 2019 The chair of the parliamentary committee probing Facebook’s alleged contradictory evidence to MPs has branded the tech giant’s response “disingenuous”. Facebook has been accused of giving inconsistent evidence about when it first learned that personal data had been misused for political advertising. Read more: MPs call on Facebook to explain ‘contradictory’ Cambridge Analytica evidence Asked [...]
Facebook confirms ‘news tab’ launch in US as it offers newspapers $3m to reproduce content August 10, 2019 Facebook is set to launch a “news tab” in the US, confirming reports that it has been contacting media companies to license their stories. The social media giant has offered new executives up to $3m (£2.48m) a year to license their publications headlines and previews of articles a new tab, as reported by the Wall [...]
Facebook ‘still flooded with fake reviews’ despite regulator warning August 6, 2019 Facebook is failing to crack down on a “thriving” marketplace of fake reviews on its website, despite being told by regulators to tackle the problem, a new investigation has revealed. Consumer group Which found dozens of groups on the social media site that recruit people to write fake reviews on ecommerce sites such as Amazon [...]
Privacy regulators ‘concerned’ by Facebook’s Libra cryptocurrency August 5, 2019 The UK information commissioner has joined global regulators in worries over Facebook’s plans to launch its own cryptocurrency. Elizabeth Denham said she was “concerned” over the lack of detail on how Facebook and its partners will handle personal information. Read more: Facebook’s libra cryptocurrency ‘poses global currency threat’ The social network’s role is considered particularly [...]
MPs call on Facebook to explain ‘contradictory’ Cambridge Analytica evidence August 1, 2019 MPs have ramped up the pressure on Facebook to explain alleged contradictions in its testimony about the Cambridge Analytica data scandal. Facebook executives told a parliamentary committee they had learned that user data had been misused for political advertising following a Guardian report in December 2015. Read more: ITV used Facebook to find Jeremy Kyle [...]
Facebook fact checkers stumped by satire amid crackdown on harmful content July 30, 2019 Third-party fact checkers tasked with flagging misinformation on Facebook have been forced to reconsider how they handle humorous posts due to the number of people misinterpreting satire as fact. Full Fact, which carries out fact checking services on Facebook in the UK, has urged the social media firm to introduce a new rating for humorous [...]
Trump’s tweets do bitcoin and Facebook a favour July 23, 2019 Donald Trump’s recent tweet about bitcoin and that Facebook’s new quasi-crypto the “libra” would get the full force of the US regulators if they “want to become a bank” has put the crypto kitty amongst the pigeons. Why now? Surely Trump doesn’t care about bitcoin? Well, it was timed just before Facebook had to testify [...]
Israeli security firm NSO denies Whatsapp spyware can hack data from Google Cloud, iCloud and Facebook July 19, 2019 Israeli cyber security company NSO has denied telling customers that its Whatsapp-hacking spyware is capable of hacking people’s data from the servers of Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft. NSO’s smartphone malware, named Pegasus, has been used by governments for a number of years to spy on specific individuals and how they use their smartphones, [...]
Facebook launches crackdown on scam ads following Martin Lewis lawsuit July 16, 2019 Facebook has launched a new tool to fight fake adverts on its platform following a lawsuit filed by money saving guru Martin Lewis. Lewis, who founded personal finance website Money Saving Expert, sued the social media platform last year over fake Facebook adverts that used his name and image. Read more: Facebook to be slapped [...]