Authors of Facebook apologize for their experiment. This week, during negotiations with Indian advertisers, Sheryl Sandberg, deputy to chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, made the statement in which she apologized for carrying out psychological tests on users without their knowledge.
In the course of research which led to large scandal, the social network manipulated the information on emotions by nearly 700,000 users of Facebook to prove that their emotional state can influence on all members of Internet community. Facebook‘s governance apologized for secret experiences on users in public. Sheryl Sandberg reported that this experiment is part of long-term research to test new products, and the company didn't want to upset users.
Read moreAbout 600,000 Facebook users have taken part in a psychological experiment, without their knowledge.
During the experimental period Facebook users were shown either more positive, or more negative content on their news feed. The social network claims that users agreed to take part in experiment. In psychological experiment, without their knowledge, almost 700,000 selected English-speaking Facebook users took part. The results of research, which was 2 years ago, were published at the beginning of June. Facebook altered the tone of the users' news feed to highlight either positive or negative posts from their friends, which were seen on their news feed.
Read moreFacebook is launching an aggressive technique to track people across the Web.
For years people have noticed a funny thing about Facebook's ubiquitous Like button. It has been sending data to Facebook tracking the sites you visit. Each time details of the tracking were revealed, Facebook promised that it wasn't using the data for any commercial purposes. No longer. Last week, Facebook announced it will start using its Like button and similar tools to track people across the Internet for advertising purposes. Here is the long history of the revelations and Facebook's denials:
Read moreEarlier this week, Facebook announced that it was going to start using all of that ever-so-illuminating app and website data it collects to serve us with more targeted ads. In other words, Facebook is getting ready to use your browsing history to benefit advertisers. Here's how to stop them.
Of course, just because you're getting some new (and highly necessary) controls over how Facebook shares your data doesn't mean it's going to stop collecting the data in the first place. So while we can at least somewhat limit how all of our salacious internet habits are being used, it doesn't mean the cache of data itself is going away.
Read moreThrough its ubiquitous "like" buttons on publisher sites across the web and ability to use Facebook Login, the social network has long been able to watch the web surfing behavior. Soon it will begin to use that information for ad targeting on Facebook.
According to Brian Boland, Facebook's VP-ads product marketing, the new targeting is intended to help direct-response advertisers, in particular, to make their Facebook ads more relevant to their selected audience. Historically, interest-based targeting on the social network hinged on users' own declarations of their likes and interests in their profiles, as well as Facebook pages they had "liked".
Read moreHackers apparently based in Iran have mounted a three-year campaign of cyberespionage against high-ranking U.S. and international officials, including a four-star admiral, to gather intelligence on economic sanctions, antinuclear proliferation efforts and other issues, according to cybersecurity investigators.
Using an elaborate ruse involving more than a dozen personas working for a fake U.S. news organization, the hackers developed connections to their targets through websites like Facebook and LinkedIn to trick them into giving up personal data and logon information, the investigators say. The alleged campaign, which dates back at least to 2011 and is still under way, principally has focused on U.S. and Israeli targets in public and private sectors.
Read moreFacebok has recently launched a new feature that tries to identify television or music content while using the device's microphone to listen to the environment when posting a status update.
To utilize this option, the user has to click the “mood” icon when starting to create a status update and the app will start listening to identify a song, a movie or a TV show. It is possible to turn off the feature by tapping the microphone icon at the top right of the screen. Facebook assures that none of the sound data is saved and the user is given the choice whether to add it to the post or not, but adding will only be possible if the program identifies the content.
Read moreFacebook’s mobile app just grew a keen sense of hearing. Starting Wednesday, the app has the ability to recognize music and television shows playing in the vicinity of users.
The feature is designed to make it easier for users to share. When users begin to write a post, the Facebook app will offer to include information about music or shows playing in the background. “We want to help people tell better stories,” said Aryeh Selekman, the product manager who led the development of the feature. “I hope there are people who love the feature and post more.” If Facebook users share more about themselves, that can boost the value of ads targeted at some of its 1.28 billion users.
Read moreThe British government claims that the purpose of surveillance is to display the online trends in cities around the world.
According to Edward Snowden British authorities spy on what people are doing on some of the world’s most popular social media sites, such as YouTube, Facebook, Twitter etc. Nevertheless, he denies spying on specific users. The latest information from the National Security Agency was obtained by NBC News with journalist Glenn Greenwald, who was the first to report on Snowden’s documents about NSA and United Kingdom espionage while on the staff of the Guardian. NBC doesn’t mention when the information was received.
Read moreGoogle Inc. and more than 100 other software, social-media and technology companies said they oppose a U.S. proposal to let Internet-service providers charge them extra for faster routes to Web users.
The rules may let telephone-service and cable providers “discriminate both technically and financially” and would be “a grave threat to the Internet,” the companies said yesterday in a letter to the Federal Communications Commission. Other signers included Facebook Inc. (FB), Netflix Inc. and Microsoft Corp. (MSFT). FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has asked the agency to vote May 15 on whether to begin writing rules to let Internet-service providers such as AT&T Inc. and Comcast Corp. negotiate deals with content makers like Google for quicker and more reliable delivery of video and other fare.
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