“Social Media Roundup” is a weekly roundup of news pertaining to all of your favorite websites and applications used for social networking. As you start the new work week, “Social Media Roundup” will help you stay up-to-date on all the important social media news you need to know.
Fake Accounts Getting Blocked And Fact Checking Of Photos/Videos
Facebook announced this past week that the company is going to fact check photos and videos. In the announcement Facebook’s VP of Product Management Guy Rosen, Chief Security Officer Alex Stamos, Product Manager Samidh Chakrabarti, Product Manager Tessa Lyons and Product Management Director Rob Leathern all provided updates.
Rosen pointed out that there are four main election security areas that the company is working on. This includes combating foreign interference, removing fake accounts, increasing ads transparency and reducing the spread of false news.
Stamos said that the term “fake news” is used for describing different types of activity that the company is looking to prevent. So first the company needs to define what is actually fake. The most common issues are fake identities (when an actor conceals their identity or takes the identity of another individual/group), fake audiences (tricks to artificially expand the audience), false facts (assertion of false information) and false narratives (intentionally divisive headlines and language that exploits disagreements and sows conflict). Stamos pointed out that false narratives is the most difficult for the company because different news outlets and consumers have can “have completely different on what an appropriate narrative is even if they agree on the facts.” Upon understanding the various kinds of “fake” that is needed to deal with, Facebook has to distinguish between motivations for the spreading of misinformation.
And Stamos pointed out that the most common motivation for the majority of misinformation is money. The more traffic to sites those organizations gain, the more money they make. “When we’re fighting financially motivated actors, our goal is to increase the cost of their operations while driving down their profitability. This is not wholly unlike how we have countered various types of spammers in the past,” Stamos said.
Another class of organized actors is people that are looking to artificially influence public debate. This includes private yet ideologically motivated groups or full-time employees of state intelligence services. And their targets might be foreign or domestic so Facebook has to be on guard for domestic manipulation of the same techniques that are being used to influence the debate abroad.
Plus misinformation can be spread by less organized individuals and groups who enjoy causing chaos, which are known as “trolls.” Or it might be innocent users who get duped into sharing a false story as they did not realize it was fake.
“Each country we operate in and election we are working to support will have a different range of actors with techniques are customized for that specific audience. We are looking ahead, by studying each upcoming election and working with external experts to understand the actors involved and the specific risks in each country. We are then using this process to guide how we build and train teams with the appropriate local language and cultural skills,” Stamos added. “At the end of the day, we’re trying to develop a systematic and comprehensive approach to tackle these challenges, and then to map that approach to the needs of each country or election.”
Chakrabarti emphasized on the details about how Facebook is going to fight fake accounts. He said that Facebook has gotten better at finding and disabling fake accounts. And by utilizing machine learning, Facebook can block millions of fake accounts at the point of creation every day before it can do any harm.
And Chakrabarti also highlighted a new investigative tool that can be deployed in the lead up to elections. Instead of waiting for reports from the community, Facebook can proactively find harmful types of election-related activity like Pages of foreign origin that are “distributing inauthentic civic content.”
When those accounts are flagged, it gets manually reviewed by the security team to see if the Community Standards or Terms of Service are violated. And accounts that are in violation are quickly removed.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg had pointed out this tool was first piloted during the time of the Alabama special Senate race between elected Democratic candidate Doug Jones and Republican candidate Roy Moore. As Facebook looked specifically for foreign interference, the social network company identified a previously unknown group of financially-motivated Macedonian political spammers. That group of people was quickly blocked.
“We are doubling the number of people who work on safety issues overall from 10,000 to 20,000, and that includes content reviewers, systems engineers and security experts,” Chakrabarti added.
Lyons is focused on preventing the spreading of false news. And she said that Facebook’s partnerships with third-party fact-checking organizations has led to progress in the ability to limit the spreading of articles rated false by fact-checkers. Facebook also uses signals, including feedback from users, to predict potentially false stories for fact-checkers to review. And when fact-checkers rate stories as false, Facebook’s algorithm reduces its distribution in News Feed thus causing future views on average to drop by over 80%.
Facebook notifies people who have shared the story in the past and warns people who try to share it going forward. Plus for users who still come across the story in the News Feed, Facebook shows more information from fact-checkers in a Related Articles area.
“We know that we will always be behind if we’re just going after individual stories — so we also take action against Pages and domains that repeatedly share false news. We reduce their distribution and remove their ability to advertise and monetize – stopping them from reaching, growing, or profiting from their audience,” explained Lyons.
Lyons also said that Facebook has partnerships with various organizations to fact-check stories domestically and internationally. This includes The Associated Press in all 50 states, the AFP in France and other fact-checking partners across six countries -- of which the most recent launches took place in Italy and Mexico. Facebook is going to double down on partnerships with academic and technology company partners to flag fake news and as of this past week, Facebook started "fact-checking photos and videos, in addition to links."
Leathern works on the ads team at Facebook and he said that the company believes people should be able to easily understand why they are seeing ads, who paid for them and other ads that the same advertiser is running. So Facebook released a new transparency feature for all ads last fall and Leathern said that additional transparency for US federal election-related ads will be provided.
“Already we’ve been testing transparency across all ads in Canada, something we call View Ads. With it, you can click on any Facebook Page, and select About, and scroll to View Ads. There you’ll see all ads that Page is running across Facebook — not just the ones meant for you. This summer we’ll make that feature globally available,” said Leathern. “Next we’ll build on our ads review process and begin authorizing US advertisers placing political ads. This spring, in the run up to the US midterm elections, advertisers will have to verify and confirm who they are and where they are located in the US.”
For example, Page admins will have to submit their government-issued IDs and provide a physical mailing address for verification. And then Facebook will confirm each address by mailing a letter with a unique access code that only their specific Facebook account will have access to. Plus advertisers will have to disclose what candidate, organization or business they represent. After authorization, Facebook said the advertiser’s election-related ads will be marked in people’s Facebook and Instagram feeds.
This would be similar to the disclosures you see on TV for political ads. The political label will list the person, company or organization that paid for the ad. “This summer, we’ll launch a public archive showing all ads that ran with a political label. Beyond the ad creative itself, we’ll also show how much money was spent on each ad, the number of impressions it received, and the demographic information about the audience reached," Leathern added. "And we will display those ads for four years after they ran. So researchers, journalists, watchdog organizations, or individuals who are just curious will be able to see all of these ads in one place. This will offer an unmatched view of paid political messages on the platform."
Boz’s Leaked Memo
Recently, BuzzFeed published a controversial internal memo that was written by Facebook VP Andrew "Boz" Bosworth. The memo was titled “The Ugly” and it highlighted the negative aspects of Facebook user interactions as the company experienced rapid growth. This includes bullying and terrorism.
When Bosworth published the memo, he intended to provoke discussions about flaws in Facebook’s technology. Forbes contributor Janet Burns pointed out that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg “quickly denounced the memo's views, saying the document was meant to provoke meaningful discourse at the company.”
Bosworth’s memo did point out that there are some positive aspects to Facebook’s platform as well. “Maybe someone finds love. Maybe it even saves the life of someone on the brink of suicide," said Boz. However it can be bad if users makes connecting people negative like costing a life by exposing someone to bullies or “someone dies in a terrorist attack coordinated” on the social network’s tools.
One of the most controversial portions of the memo says:
The ugly truth is that we believe in connecting people so deeply that anything that allows us to connect more people more often is *de facto* good. It is perhaps the only area where the metrics do tell the true story as far as we are concerned.
That isn’t something we are doing for ourselves. Or for our stock price (ha!). It is literally just what we do. We connect people. Period.
That’s why all the work we do in growth is justified. All the questionable contact importing practices. All the subtle language that helps people stay searchable by friends. All of the work we do to bring more communication in. The work we will likely have to do in China some day. All of it.
The natural state of the world is not connected. It is not unified. It is fragmented by borders, languages, and increasingly by different products. The best products don’t win. The ones everyone use win.
BuzzFeed was told by a senior employee that the memo is “classic Boz” because it spoke for the viewpoint of many Facebook employees, but “it’s also polarizing.” Essentially, the post was “meant to rally the troops.”
FTC Confirms Investigations Into Privacy Practices
Forbes reporter Kathleen Chaykowski published an article this past week about how the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) confirmed its investigation into Facebook's privacy practices. The investigation was opened to determine whether Facebook violated a 2011 consent decree in the way it handled the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
“The FTC takes very seriously recent press reports raising substantial concerns about the privacy practices of Facebook,” said the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection director Tom Pahl in a statement. “Today, the FTC is confirming that it has an open non-public investigation into these practices.”
The 2011 consent decree had required Facebook to notify its users and receive permission before sharing data beyond the privacy settings. Before rolling out the 2011 consent decree, the FTC conducted an investigation over two years.
Automatic Removal Of Pending Friend Requests
Facebook is now testing a feature that automatically eliminates pending friend requests after a certain period of time. TechCrunch reader Christine Hudler sent screenshots of the feature being tested where it shows a 14-day countdown. A Facebook spokesperson also told TechCrunch that this feature is being tested to surface the most recent requests.
New #facebook feature? Friend requests now EXPIRE. @TechCrunch pic.twitter.com/4lQ3gmAeVn
— Christina Hudler (@hudlersocial) March 23, 2018
Partner Categories Feature To Be Shut Down
Facebook has decided it is going to give up a feature that it uses to help advertisers target users on the platform called Partner Categories. Partner Categories launched in 2013 as part of a partnership between the social network and data brokers. Some of the data providers that Facebook partnered with at launch included Acxiom, BlueKai, Datalogix and Epsilon.
This is a permanent change, but Facebook will still work with companies like Experian and Acxiom to measure ad performance and metrics. "We want to let advertisers know that we will be shutting down Partner Categories. This product enables third party data providers to offer their targeting directly on Facebook. While this is common industry practice, we believe this step, winding down over the next six months, will help improve people’s privacy on Facebook," said Facebook Product Marketing Director Graham Mudd in a statement to TechCrunch.
Washington Lobbyist Hiring Ramping Up
In the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Facebook is planning to hire a number Washington lobbyists. According to Bloomberg, Facebook will bring on at least 11 people in policy-related positions in Washington. This was based on the open positions listed on Facebook's job page.
Bloomberg said that Facebook is ranked third out of the top technology companies in Washington lobbying spending after Alphabet (Google) and Amazon. Facebook employs around 40 internal and external lobbyists. And Facebook disclosed spending $11.5 million on lobbying in 2017 and $8.7 million in 2016. Some of the lobbyists that Facebook works with include David Wade, Sudafi Henry and Luke Albee.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg Reportedly Plans To Testify In Front Of Congress
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is planning to testify before Congress, according to CNN’s sources. And so Facebook is currently mapping out a strategy for handling it. This may add some pressure for Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey to do so also. Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley invited the three CEOs to a hearing on April 10th in Washington.
However, Zuckerberg turned down a request from British lawmakers to appear in front of a panel. Two deputies will attend on behalf of Facebook instead.
Cook County Lawsuit
The Chicago Tribune reported this past week that Cook County has filed a lawsuit against Facebook for allegedly violating the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act over the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Cook County State Attorney Kimberly Foxx filed on behalf of Illinois residents.
The lawsuit brings one count against Facebook and Cambridge Analytica and is asking that both companies to be fined $50,000 for each Illinois user whose data was accessed and that Cambridge Analytica is fined an additional $10,000 per day a violation affecting an Illinois resident age 65 or older existed. Chicago law firm Edelson is representing Cook County in the lawsuit.
Three Messenger Users Sue Facebook
Recently, three Messenger users sued Facebook and are seeking class-action status on behalf of all users according to a Reuters report. The lawsuit probes the way that Messenger collected call history and text message content via its Android app. The lawsuit was filed in the Northern District of California and alleges that Facebook violated user privacy by collecting this type of data.
Common Cause Files Legal Complaints Against Cambridge Analytica
The government watchdog organization Common Cause has filed legal complaints with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and the Justice Department accusing Cambridge Analytica and its parent company SCL Group Limited of violating federal election laws. Cambridge Analytica CEO Alexander Nix, SCL co-founder Nigel Oakes, data scientist Alexander Tayler and former employee/whistleblower Christopher Wylie were also named in the legal complaint.
As you may recall Cambridge Analytica had misused the Facebook data of up to 50 million profiles. And the Trump campaign reportedly paid Cambridge Analytica almost $6 million for services in 2016.
According to ABC, there were seventeen other Republican political organizations including Ted Cruz’s presidential campaign and a super PAC that was led by National Security Adviser John Bolton that paid Cambridge Analytica $16 million for its services as well.
Common Cause is requesting the FEC and the Justice Department to investigate potential election law violations and impose sanctions.
Local News In The U.S. To Be Prioritized
This past week, Facebook announced it is expanding an update from earlier this year in the U.S. to prioritize local news "so people can see topics that have a direct impact on their community and discover what’s happening in their local area." This will help local publishers who cover multiple nearby cities reach audiences in those cities.
Facebook said it would consider a publisher as local to multiple cities if the people in those cities are more likely than people outside of those cities to read articles from that source. And Facebook pointed out it is now including other cities that people may care about and connecting people to local publishers from those cities.
Lawsuit Over Alleged Discriminatory Housing Ads
The National Fair Housing Alliance (NFHA) has filed a lawsuit against Facebook as spotted by Engadget. According to the lawsuit, Facebook allowed landlords and real estate brokers to hide ads from families with women and children.
“The lawsuit alleges that Facebook has created pre-populated lists that make it possible for its housing advertisers to ‘exclude’ (in Facebook terminology) home seekers from viewing or receiving rental or sales ads because of protected characteristics, including family status and sex. Plaintiffs conducted investigations in each of their respective housing markets that confirmed Facebook’s discriminatory practices,” wrote the NFHA in its press release.
Facebook told Engadget that “There is absolutely no place for discrimination” on its platform. And Facebook believes the lawsuit “is without merit” and is planning to defend themselves “vigorously.”
Smart Speaker Gets Delayed
According to a Bloomberg report, Facebook is planning to delay a home speaker device this year. Facebook was reportedly going to introduce a smart speaker device at the F8 event this May. It is believed that Facebook’s smart speaker device would be akin to the Amazon Echo Show and was going to be called “Portal.”
One of the reasons why the device is delayed is because the public is “currently so outraged” about Facebook’s data privacy practices. The “Portal” hardware was not expected to be fully ready until the fall, but Facebook was hoping to preview it in May according Bloomberg’s sources.
Privacy Tools Are Now Easier To Use
This past week, Facebook announced that it made improvements to its privacy tools. The changes include redesigned mobile controls, a privacy shortcuts menu and tools to find and delete your Facebook data.
“We’ve heard loud and clear that privacy settings and other important tools are too hard to find and that we must do more to keep people informed,” said Facebook’s VP and Chief Privacy Officer Erin Egan and VP and Deputy General Counsel Ashlie Beringer in the announcement.
The settings have been redesigned on mobile devices to make the privacy controls easier to find. For example, Facebook cleaned up the outdated settings and made the privacy controls accessible from a single place rather than spreading out the settings across 20 screens.
There is also a new privacy shortcuts menu that makes it easier to control your data in a few taps. And there are more clear explanations of how the controls work. The menu allows users to control privacy and security functions. From this section, you can set up two-factor authentication, control your personal information, control the ads that you see and manage who sees your posts and profile details.
Facebook also introduced a new feature called Access Your Information so that you can delete things that you have shared in the past. This includes posts, reactions, comments and things you have searched for. “We’re also making it easier to download the data you’ve shared with Facebook – it’s your data, after all. You can download a secure copy and even move it to another service. This includes photos you’ve uploaded, contacts you’ve added to your account, posts on your timeline and more,” Facebook added.
And Facebook said that they will be proposing updates to its terms of service to include “our commitments to people.” This way people would better understand how Facebook collects and uses data in terms that is detailed and easier to understand.
Security Bug Bounty Program For Apps That Misses Data
Facebook has updated its security bug bounty program to reward people who misuse data in third-party apps. In the past, Facebook rewarded people who discovered just software bugs and security vulnerabilities.
"Facebook's bug bounty program will expand so that people can also report to us if they find misuses of data by app developers. We are beginning work on this and will have more details as we finalize the program updates in the coming weeks," said Facebook's vice president of product partnerships Ime Archibong in a statement via ZDNet. Developers who are caught misusing data will be banned from the platform.
Mozilla Releases ‘Facebook Container’ Extension
Mozilla, the company that has built the Firefox browser software, has launched an extension called Facebook Container.
“The pages you visit on the web can say a lot about you. They can infer where you live, the hobbies you have, and your political persuasion. There’s enormous value in tying this data to your social profile, and Facebook has a network of trackers on various websites. This code tracks you invisibly and it is often impossible to determine when this data is being shared,” said Mozilla in a blog post. “Facebook Container isolates your Facebook identity from the rest of your web activity. When you install it, you will continue to be able to use Facebook normally. Facebook can continue to deliver their service to you and send you advertising. The difference is that it will be much harder for Facebook to use your activity collected off Facebook to send you ads and other targeted messages.”
#DeleteFacebook Continues
Survey From The Blind App:
Blind, an app where users can anonymously talk about work to get insight from peers, recently surveyed its users to find out if they plan to delete Facebook. The survey took place between March 20, 2018 through March 24, 2018 and over 2,600 users responded. About 31% of users answered yes 69% answered no.
Blind also broke down the numbers from the responses of the top 5 tech companies. Blind found that 50% of the surveyed Microsoft employees said they will delete Facebook compared to 46% for Snapchat, 40% for Uber, 38% for Google, 34% for Amazon and 2% for Facebook.
Will Ferrell Leaves Facebook:
Actor Will Ferrell decided to delete his Facebook Page due to the Cambridge Analytica scandal. He cited Cambridge Analytica's infringement of citizen privacy on Facebook to undermine democracy as the reason for deleting his Facebook Page. And Ferrell said that he was “further appalled” to learn that Facebook’s reaction to the violation was to suspend the account of the Cambridge Analytica whistleblower Christopher Wylie.
Elon Musk Deletes Personal, SpaceX And Tesla Pages:
Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla Motors, decided to delete his personal Facebook Page. And he also deleted the the Pages for SpaceX and Tesla Motors. Here are the tweets that Musk sent out about it:
I didn’t realize there was one. Will do.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 23, 2018
Definitely. Looks lame anyway.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 23, 2018
GIPHY Reinstated Following Racism Controversy
Instagram has reinstated the GIPHY sticker library after reviewing GIPHY’s GIF library four times. Plus Instagram said it will preemptively review new GIFs that are added going forward.
“We’ve been in close contact with GIPHY throughout this process and we’re confident that they have put measures in place to ensure that Instagram users have a good experience,” said an Instagram spokesperson to TechCrunch. “To anyone who was affected: we’re sorry. We take full responsibility for this recent event and under no circumstances does GIPHY condone or support this kind of content.”
GIPHY apologized for the “deeply offensive sticker” that was discovered by a user on March 8, 2018. The content was immediately removed and after an investigation, it turns out there was a bug found in GIPHY’s moderation filter affecting stickers.
Full Screen Support For Instagram Stories Ads
This past week, Instagram announced that the creation of native and immersive Instagram Stories ads is now simpler. Now when advertisers upload Instagram Feed creative within Ads Manager, it will be turned into full screen format of Stories. This allows advertisers to run their ad sets easily across Instagram.
More specifically, when a business uploads a single photo or a video (under 15 seconds) within Instagram Feed aspect ratios, the photo social network will automatically provide full-screen support for the content on Instagram Stories.
“Our pixel matching technology will automatically select a background gradient to turn the ad into a full screen format,” said Instagram in the announcement. “If the ad creative is square or landscape, the text from the Instagram Feed or Facebook Feed unit will be added in stories text font below the photo or video. If the ad creative is taller than square, caption text will not show at this time.” And you can add swipe up capabilities to add a destination link to their Stories ad.
Auto-Playing Video Ads
LinkedIn is now offering a native ad format where standalone video ads will appear in the news feed. The video ads can be purchased as part of the Sponsored Content format. And the video ads will play automatically on mute until a user taps on it, which turns the sound on. The videos can be linked to the brand’s website and is able to track leads.
"Since launching our private beta in October, over 700 advertisers, including GE, Philips and Audi Canada have tested video for Sponsored Content to highlight not only their products and services, but also their company mission, customer success stories, and thought leadership content," said LinkedIn a blog post. "These videos are helping marketers deepen engagement with their brands: on average, LinkedIn members spend almost 3x more time watching video ads compared to time spent with static Sponsored Content."
New Following Tab Feature
This past week, Pinterest introduced a new following tab -- which is an area that focuses on the people and boards you follow. You will see this option by tapping the “+” button at the top of the following tab. This allows you to discover more people to follow based on your interests and makes it easier to unfollow users. This feature is rolling out over several weeks on Pinterest.com and in the apps for iOS (version 6.46) and Android (version 6.56).
“In talking with Pinners, we found that some people only wanted recommendations, while others liked to curate their feed—and most people wanted both options,” said Pinterest in a blog post. “Now you have the choice to get inspired through personalized recommendations in your home feed, or switch over to a tab dedicated to the latest Pins from people you follow.”
Snap
PlayCanvas Acquisition
Snap recently acquired a UK-based 3D gaming company called PlayCanvas, according to Business Insider. Founded in 2011, PlayCanvas has created an open-source game engine that is used for games in Facebook and web browsers. And PlayCanvas’ technology makes it easier for developers to create virtual reality experiences from the browser.
Second Round Of Layoffs
Snap is now going through a second round of layoffs, according to Bloomberg. This affects about 100 employees within the ad and sales department. Last month, Snap also laid off 100 people in engineering.
Testing Of ‘Connected Apps’ Section
Mashable has reported that Snapchat is currently testing a feature called “Connected Apps.” The “Connected Apps” section appears in the settings page of the latest beta of the Snapchat app.
“The page doesn't show anything except text that reads, ‘These apps are connected to your Snapchat account. Choose an app to control what it has access to,’” says the Mashable report.
This feature will most likely show which third-party apps users have connected to their Snapchat account. And this would give Snapchat users better control of how their data is being used.
New Timestamps Feature
This past week, Twitter announced a new feature called “Timestamps.” The Timestamps feature is available for Twitter for Android and iOS, Twitter.com and Periscope.
Skip ahead to 3:50 to see the moment Snow Geese take flight w/ Mount Baker in background. https://t.co/bL6EQekHYn #Periscope #pnw #birds #Snohomish #WA #nature
— Mark Horner (@beyond90seconds) December 26, 2017
The Timestamps feature makes it easier to draw attention to a specific moment in a live video. In the past, Twitter users could only tweet an entire live video. But this made it difficult to discuss a specific moment.
“So, we built Timestamps which lets anyone Tweet a live or replay video starting from the exact moment they want to discuss,” said Twitter in a blog post. “Sharing Timestamps is easy. When you tap to share a live video, you can easily slide back to the exact time you want your audience to watch. From there, add your thoughts, and Tweet it to the world.”
YouTube
Dynamic Video Player Rolls Out For Android
YouTube first added a dynamic video player to its mobile apps last year, which adjusted to content in different aspect ratios. The iOS version of this feature arrived in December and now YouTube is bringing this feature to Android. This means that the YouTube Android app will fill up the screen with video and get rid of the black bars.
“Calling all Androids,” said YouTube in a tweet. “Now the YouTube player will automatically adapt to the shape of the video you're viewing, so you can see more of your favorite videos!”
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