Log in to Instagram in a browser. Click on your profile icon at upper right. Click on the round, slightly gear shaped icon next to your channel name and “Edit Profile” button. Click on Privacy and Security option on the pop up menu. Page down and click on View Account Data. Here you can see that they record – forever – any current and former phone numbers and email addresses you have provided. They also record – forever – any…
Google’s Android OS is specifically designed as a surveillance tool, to collect invasive and detailed personal information about all Android users, globally. Researchers show that an idle Android phone, left on, reports location data to Google 14 times per hour. If you use the phone, Google acquires even more data. Google also correlates your Android data with your web surfing using its advertising networks – even “anonymous” data is correlated with actual individuals.
Facebook’s ad system was intentionally designed for advertisers to discriminate based on age, gender, sexual orientation, national origin, ethnicity, language spoken and so on. They defended it because, you know, everyone does it.
But lawsuits and a Federal investigation have changed their thinking and they will disable their networks age, sex, gender, sex orientation, ethnic, national origin, and so on, discrimination features.
Software developers scan hundreds of millions of emails of users who sign up for email-based services. Disclosures are often buried in user agreements. Source: Tech’s ‘Dirty Secret’: The App Developers Sifting Through Your Gmail – WSJ They also let employees of those companies personally read your email: this is “common practice”. As already suggested on this blog, they data mine the hell of our emails, logging your purchases, financial records, travel records and more. For companies that want data for…
Facebook said Wednesday that most of its 2 billion users likely have had their public profiles scraped by outsiders without the users’ explicit permission, dramatically raising the stakes in a privacy controversy that has dogged the company for weeks, spurred investigations in the United States and Europe, and sent the company’s stock price tumbling. It seems likely that more than just “public” data was taken. Facebook is not telling anyone what was taken (why the secrecy?) It seems highly likely…
Facebook Inc. scans the chats and images that people send each other on Facebook Messenger, making sure it all abides by the company’s rules governing content. If it doesn’t, it gets blocked. Source: Facebook Scans What You Send Other People on Messenger App – Bloomberg I used the word “reads” because these are not simple keyword scans but machine-learning systems that are the machine equivalent of reading your emails and taking notes. This further confirms that Facebook is a global…
How they will do that is not clear. A great way to avoid social media-based fake news is to avoid social media 🙂 Brussels is preparing to crack down on social media companies who have been accused of spreading “fake news”, issuing a stark warning that scandals such as the Facebook data leak threaten to “subvert our democratic systems”. Source: EU plans to crack down on ‘fake news’ in social media Fake news is some times intended as satire but…
“Everything is done through Facebook in Myanmar,” UN Myanmar investigator Yanghee Lee said, adding that “the ultra-nationalist Buddhists have their own Facebooks and are really inciting a lot of violence and a lot of hatred against the Rohingya or other ethnic minorities … I’m afraid that Facebook has now turned into a beast, and not what it originally intended.” Source: Zuckerberg lays out Facebook’s role in ethnic cleansing in Myanmar – Business Insider A combination of the Facebook propaganda platform…
When you install the Instagram app, it wants access to your Phone and SMS functions on your phone. Today we know that Facebook’s Messenger app harvested ALL of your call and text records and stored them in the Facebook spy database. Instagram is a product of Facebook and absolutely cannot be trusted regarding personal privacy. Facebook’s policy is to collect all information, everywhere. Therefore do not permit Instagram access to features it does not need. And remember NEVER EVER upload…
An internal post reacting to the memo found employees angry and heartbroken that their teammates were sharing internal company discussions with the media. Many called on the company to step up its war on leakers and hire employees with more “integrity.” The reference to “hire employees with more ‘integrity’” sounds like a headline in The Onion! Facebook has no understanding of business ethics! Source: Here are the internal Facebook posts of employees discussing today’s leaked memo – The Verge
For instance, app developers and advertisers aren’t supposed to obtain the unique digital code that’s programmed into every phone. This code could be used to track everything done on a phone for its entire lifetime. And since some apps also ask for a user’s name, those actions could be associated with specific person. …. Under federal law, this kind of sensitive data is never to be downloaded from a device used by a child under age 13 without parental consent….
Facebook works with third party data spies as part of their program to “Collect it all” from everyone on earth, on or offline. Today, Facebook announced it is terminating its use of third party offline data spies and will no longer integrate offline spying with Facebook’s own online spying. But this process will take up to six months. Facebook has posted online a list of the third party data providers, and many of them have a way to opt out…
Former Federal Trade Commission officials say that Facebook Inc. appears to have breached a 2011 consent agreement to safeguard users’ personal information and may be facing hundreds of millions of dollars in fines. Source: Facebook Could Be Fined Millions for Violating Consent Deal – Bloomberg
This statement from Facebook is misleading, at best: Last week showed how much more work we need to do to enforce our policies and help people understand how Facebook works and the choices they have over their 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. So in addition to Mark Zuckerberg’s announcements last week – cracking down on abuse of…