Facebook News: News portal also starts in Germany
Facebook News
It feels like the world is turning faster and faster and it is important to find out more, especially in difficult times such as the global coronavirus pandemic. Many people now also use social media to read the news. Now Facebook has reacted to this and is now bringing the Facebook News service to the official Facebook app and website in Germany as well. Together with the service provider Upday, which is being developed by Axel Springer SE and Samsung, the news reports from the participating publishing companies are curated and then played out to Facebook users.Users receive curated news on Facebook News
According to Facebook, they work with 35 publishers in Germany. These include the media group Axel Springer with the Bild-Zeitung, the Süddeutsche Zeitung and the Marquard Media Group, which includes Golem.de, Buffed.de, PC Games and PCGH. All participating publishers receive remuneration from Facebook if they link to content that was not previously listed on the platform. In addition to curated headlines, there will also be an algorithm that offers personalized content and analyzes which news a registered Facebook user has read, shared or subscribed to so far. Facebook News also has categories such as business, entertainment, health, science & technology and sports.It may take some time before you see the new Facebook News section on the web and in the smartphone app, as the activation will take place as a staggered rollout starting today in the next few weeks. Facebook News has been available in the USA since October 2019 and in Great Britain since the beginning of this year. In addition to Facebook, for example, Google also operates its own news portal and pays participating publishers. With the so-called showcase reports on Google News, publishers can post a kind of short summary of their articles online for free in the Google News app and link it to their own website. More and more so-called news aggregators, who offer news from several sources on one page, may already be building in advance so that they do not have to pay money to the publisher for each individual report, as the newly formulated copyright law in the EU actually provides.
Recommended editorial content Here you will find external content from [PLATTFORM]. To protect your personal data, external integrations are only displayed if you confirm this by clicking on "Load all external content": Load all external content I agree that external content can be displayed to me. This means that personal data is transmitted to third-party platforms. Read more about our privacy policy . External content More on this in our data protection declaration. Also worth reading: Google News Showcase: New news offer now online
Collection of Facebook News:
The free Facebook News service is now also available in Germany in the official Facebook app as well on the website of the social network. Headlines curated by the service provider Upday are displayed in a separate area of the app. All participating publishers receive remuneration for news reports that cannot otherwise be seen on the platform. Facebook users can read messages in different categories and share them with other users, thereby training an algorithm that then makes suggestions for interesting articles. For Facebook News, Facebook works with publishers and their magazines such as PCGH, PC Games and the Süddeutsche Zeitung. Sources: Facebook, Golem, Upday, Tagesschau, Google
The Technology 202: Sen. Hirono accuses Facebook executive of making 'false' claims about ad targeting
But now Hirono is demanding answers from Bickert in a new letter after the publication the Markup published a report that appears to contradict Bickert's testimony. The Markup reported in April it found 91 ads selling credit and home equity products to restricted age groups. The practice violates Facebook’s anti-discrimination policies and, in some instances, may violate federal or state civil rights laws.
The senator wants to know how Facebook is ensuring it doesn't violate such laws, and she asked detailed questions about the criteria Facebook allows advertisers to use when targeting ads for housing, employment and financial services.
Hirono's letter underscores how Democrats are zeroing in on the way social media's design can promote discrimination.
For years, civil rights leaders have raised concerns about how social media algorithms and ad targeting tools can be abused in ways that harm people of color, or exclude women and certain age groups from financial or housing opportunities. There's a growing push among Democrats to pass legislation ensuring that algorithms and ad-targeting products aren't being abused to discriminate against certain protected classes.
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Hirono says the issue is bigger than just the Markup's findings. As part of a 2019 settlement, Facebook agreed to block advertisers from targeting housing, employment and credit ads based on age, gender and Zip code, which can be used as a proxy for race. But Hirono worries the company hasn't stopped a broader range of financial services product ads from being targeted based on these characteristics.
Facebook says it doesn't allow credit card advertisers to use restricted targeting options, but it didn't respond to the questions Hirono raised about financial services products broadly.
“We've reviewed and removed ads from these businesses that ran in violation of this policy,” Facebook spokesman Andy Stone said in a statement. “Our enforcement is never perfect since machines and human reviewers make mistakes, but we're always working to improve.”
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Recent lawsuits against Facebook claim the company allowed ads for insurance, bank accounts, debit cards, and investment opportunities to target ads in a way that they weren't shown to women and older people. Hirono says Facebook's responses to those lawsuits indicate it allows such a practice, as long as the ads aren't for credit.
“Your testimony made no such distinction,” Hirono wrote in her letter to Bickert.
Her letter also highlights Facebook's growing credibility problems in Washington.
Facebook has a major trust problem in Washington, and statements such as this don't help. Bickert appeared in front of Congress with other tech executives, after Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified before Congress several times in the past year amid concerns about disinformation and the company's power.
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Hirono suggested in her letter that this wasn't the first time that a Facebook executive had made false statements to Congress. She pointed to a CNN column from 2018, which raised questions about the accuracy of Zuckerberg's statements to Congress about the company's privacy practices in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
“Unfortunately, this is not the first time a Facebook witness appears to have been less than truthful to a congressional committee,” Hirono wrote in the letter.
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Victims have sent more than $2 million in cryptocurrency to scammers posing as Elon Musk in the past six months.
The incidents are a part of an alarming growth in cryptocurrency scams, which resulted in losses of more than $80 million since October, the Federal Trade Commission reported. That's a nearly 1,000 percent increase in financial losses from the same time period last year and 12 times as many victims, my colleague Tonya Riley reports.
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In one popular form of the scam, cybercriminals hack verified social media accounts and then use them to pose as prominent celebrities like Musk. Such scams have been around for years, but social media platforms have struggled to crack down on them.
Spikes in the scams have coincided with an increase in interest from amateur investors in the incredibly volatile market.
“These types of scams persist through bear markets, but thrive in bull markets because of first time investors hoping not to miss the opportunity to make significant profits,” Satnam Narang, a researcher at cybersecurity firm Tenable, said in an email. “Because cryptocurrency is not a traditional investment, the allure of giveaways, especially those with celebrity impersonations of figures like Elon Musk, are likely to be more successful.”
An online network connected to a Chinese businessman amplified disinformation, researchers found.
The network amplified the views of Chinese businessman Guo Wengui, who had ties to former White House adviser Stephen K. Bannon, by attacking the safety of coronavirus vaccines and promoting false claims such as the idea the 2020 election was stolen, the research firm Graphika said in a new report. The researchers' findings underscore how wealthy and politically connected people can influence social media, Jeanne Whalen, Craig Timberg and Eva Dou report.
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The researchers uncovered thousands of accounts that “appear to be run by real people but solely amplify Guo-related content” across social networks. The network includes media websites such as GTV, for which Guo last year publicly said he was raising funds, and GNews, a media website Guo has publicly suggested he helped establish.
Daniel Podhaskie, a Guo spokesman, told my colleagues he does not control the content on GTV or GNews. He compared GTV to social networks such as Facebook and said “implying that Mr. Guo is responsible for everything that is posted on this platform is ludicrous.”
Apple made concessions to the Chinese government and proactively banned some apps in the country.
The company has stored Chinese user data on servers managed by Chinese state employees and has stored the keys for accessing data in those same facilities, the New York Times’s Jack Nicas, Raymond Zhong and Daisuke Wakabayashi report. The report injects fresh scrutiny into Apple’s practices in China, where it has rapidly expanded and Apple CEO Tim Cook has met with the country’s top leaders.
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The company has also blacklisted apps with ties to the Dalai Lama and Guo. An Apple employee who was fired after allowing an app linked to Guo on the Chinese App Store filed a lawsuit against the company, claiming that he was ousted to appease China.
The company says it removed the app in China because it found that it was illegal there, and that it fired the Apple employee because of poor performance.
In a statement, Apple said it followed Chinese laws and has “never compromised the security of our users or their data in China or anywhere we operate.” A spokesman also said that the company controls the keys protecting Chinese user data.
Rant and rave
The Times story has already gotten attention on Capitol Hill. Rep. Ken Buck (Colo.), the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee’s antitrust panel:
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.):
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