Technology
Everything you need to know about Facebook’s terrible 24 hours
It hasn’t been Facebook’s year. Or, years, really. But it really, really hasn’t been the company’s day.
Over 24 hours starting Tuesday night, news organizations have dropped multiple reporting bombs on the social media company. The investigations at the very least call into question many of the statements CEO Mark Zuckerberg has made about privacy, user data, advertising, and more.
We’ve emailed Facebook to ask if they’re ok. No word yet.
🙁
Image: Rachel Kraus/mashable
Here’s what we have all learned about Facebook in one no good, very bad day.
Is it 2019 yet?
1. Facebook gave its fellow tech companies way more access to private data than we all thought.
Late on Tuesday, the New York Times reported that Facebook entered into data-sharing agreements with fellow tech companies that looked a lot like selling our data in exchange for, not money, but access to more of our data. That even included letting other companies read DMs sent in Messenger. This gets the No. 1 spot because it looks a helluvalot like selling our data — which is Facebook’s ~ whole thing ~ it says it doesn’t do.
2. A white nationalist candidate successfully paid Facebook to advertise a Nazi website.
A Sludge report found that white nationalist congressional candidate Paul Nehlan spent over $12,000 advertising his bigoted views and campaign on Facebook. That even included one ad pointing to the website of neo-Nazi Christopher Cantwell.
3. An attorney general is suing Facebook over Cambridge Analytica.
The D.C. attorney general is pursuing a case against Facebook for letting Cambridge Analytica gain access to user data without permission. The Cambridge Analytica scandal has already caused Facebook a lot of problems. Now, it’s facing legal trouble from U.S. regulators over the incident for the first time ever.
Not the best day for Zuck.
4. Facebook skims sensitive data from third-party apps.
A report from the German mobile security initiative Mobilsicher, reviewed by Buzzfeed, dives into how developers unknowingly grant Facebook access to their users’ sensitive data when they use the Software Developer Kit. This capability isn’t hidden, but the report found that app users, and even developers, were unaware that Facebook was engaging in this sort of data collection.
5. By the way, Facebook stock is plummeting.
According to Bloomberg, it’s on track to be the worst fall since Facebook’s stock dropped off a cliff in July.
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