Earlier this month, in a hurried legislative process, North Carolina lawmakers passed HB2, a bill that overrides and prevents local governments from establishing anti-discrimination rules against gay and transgender people. This morning, advocacy groups delivered a letter to NC Gov. Pat McCrory signed by top executives from more than 100 companies, all calling for the state to repeal the law. [More]
Data & Privacy
Video Makers Unhappy With Facebook’s Slow Response To Allegedly Pirated Videos
By 3.31.16
Chances are you’ve seen a few of those popular, captivating videos on Facebook — you know, the ones of the cooking demonstrations or the science experiments. While those videos can be fun for you to watch, they’re often part of a longer video that was posted somewhere else first. And the creators behind them don’t enjoy seeing them repurposed by someone else. [More]
Facebook Accidentally Asks People On Other Side Of World From Incident To Confirm They’re Safe
By 3.28.16
Facebook is basically everywhere, connecting to almost 22% of the world’s population. So if you need to find out in a hurry — during a natural disaster or a large-scale attack — if people in the area are doing okay, Facebook is well-positioned to be the quickest, fastest tool for that. To that end, they created safety check a while back. Except for one small detail: a tool for seeing who is okay based on their location only works if you know that Pittsburgh and Pakistan aren’t the same place. [More]
Facebook Creating A Tool To Tell You When Someone Impersonates Your Profile
By 3.24.16
You may have been there: you see a Facebook friend posting a warning not to accept a “friend” request from a fake account bearing their name and photo – it’s a trick, that person isn’t really your friend. While you might still see that cautionary message in the future, Facebook is now taking steps to weed out accounts impersonating others. [More]
Facebook Dropping Support For BlackBerry’s Mobile Operating System
By 3.22.16
If you have a BlackBerry and want to hop onto Facebook, soon you’ll have to go through the social media company’s website instead of an app: like WhatsApp before it, Facebook is giving up on BlackBerry and will be dropping support for the devices. [More]
Driver Ticketed After Police See Facebook Video Of Him Ignoring A Stop Sign
By 3.17.16
A man in Colorado recently received a traffic ticket for blowing through a Stop sign — not because a police officer witnessed the violation in person, but because the driver posted video of the incident on Facebook. [More]
Instagram Revamps Timeline, Will Show Photos By Relevance
By 3.16.16
Instagram is taking a page straight out of its big brother Facebook’s playbook: reconfiguring its timeline to show posts that are most relevant to them first, not those that happened just moments ago. [More]
Facebook’s WhatsApp May Be Next In Law Enforcement’s Privacy Battle
By 3.14.16
The federal government’s courtroom war with Apple over iPhone encryption may be grabbing all the headlines, but a number of tech companies offer devices, apps, and messaging services with privacy settings that frustrate police investigations. And according to a new report, the Facebook-owned WhatsApp instant messaging app could be the next to face a legal challenge from the feds. [More]
Facebook Buys Photo Filter App To Compete With Snapchat’s Puking Rainbow
By 3.10.16
Your friends’ posts on Facebook are about to get a bit more cartoon-like now that the social media company has acquired selfie-altering startup Masquerade Technologies. [More]
NFL In Talks With Facebook, Other Tech Giants For Thursday Night Football Streaming Rights
By 3.9.16
Instead of having to divide your attention between side-eyeing your third cousin’s 30,000th essential oils post and watching the big game, you could pay attention to both simultaneously. [More]
Facebook Is Not The Great Predictor Of Creditworthiness It Was Hoped To Be
By 2.24.16
Not so long ago, a new batch of lenders got the idea that they could gauge a consumer’s credit risk from the data collected by Facebook. The social media company even patented a system for how to use data on an applicant’s Facebook friends to determine whether or not they were worth offering a loan to. And yet, so far, nothing seems to have come of these concepts. [More]
Facebook Reactions Go Live, Now A Post Can Make You Officially “Sad” Or “Angry”
By 2.24.16
Facebook has become the place where billions of us post all the news from our lives. And while a graduation, a new house, a promotion, a new baby, or a wedding are perfectly “like”-able occasions, that option has never felt right for the sad news, the losses, or the disagreeable political posts we all encounter in our feeds. And so, voila: Facebook is giving all users alternate reactions. [More]
Facebook Partners With Telecom Industry To Build Out Wireless Networks
By 2.22.16
After years of being accused by the telecom industry of getting a “free ride” on the data networks they spent billions to construct, Facebook has announced a new initiative that works with both wireless providers and technology firms to improve high-speed wireless deployment around the world. [More]
Don’t Be Shocked When Cheap Clothes Advertised On Facebook Aren’t What You Ordered
By 2.11.16
If you see an ad on Facebook pitching clothing for significantly less than what you’d pay in the store, you might be tempted to give it a shot. But be prepared to end up with a shirt, jacket, dress, or shoes that resemble the online photo as much as I resemble a young Carey Grant. [More]
VTech’s Latest User Agreement Lets Company Skirt Liability For Future Hacks
By 2.9.16
Last year, a data breach of VTech’s Learning Lodge app store exposed personal information for millions of parents and children. While the company claims to have improved its security to prevent future hacks, it also looks like VTech has given itself a way out of liability for anything bad that might happen. [More]
Facebook’s New “Like” Button Options Rolling Out Globally “In The Next Few Weeks”
By 1.27.16
It’s been a long time coming, but Facebook users will soon finally be able to express feelings other than “like” with the push of a button. [More]
Report: Wendy’s May Be Latest Victim Of Credit Card Data Breach
By 1.27.16
A burger and some chili or a baked potato seems like a great meal idea in this miserably snowy winter weather so many of us are having. Unfortunately, reports are saying that if you bought that tasty treat from Wendy’s with a credit or debit card recently, it may come with an unwanted side of fraud. [More]
Facebook Gets Rid Of Silly Subscription Fee For WhatsApp
By 1.18.16
Most popular messaging services are free to use. Even Facebook-owned WhatsApp is free for the first year you use it, with the hope that you’ll stick around and pay a $1/year subscription fee from then on. But today the company realized that this is a silly idea and it’s time to figure out another way to make money. [More]
