Mark Zuckerberg said it was “extremely glib” to suggest that because the public did not pay to use Facebook that it did not care about them.

Last week, Apple’s Tim Cook said it was an “invasion of privacy” to traffic in users’ personal lives.

And when asked what he would do if he were Mr Zuckerberg, Mr Cook replied: “I wouldn’t be in that situation.”

Facebook has faced intense criticism after it emerged that it had known for years that Cambridge Analytica had harvested data from about 50 million of its users, but had relied on the political consultancy to self-certify that it had deleted the information.

Channel 4 News has since reported that at least some of the data in question is still in circulation despite Cambridge Analytica insisting it had destroyed the material.

Mr Zuckerberg was asked about Mr Cook’s comments during a lengthy interview given to news site Vox about the privacy scandal.

He also acknowledged that Facebook was still not transparent enough about some of the choices it had taken, and floated the idea of an independent panel being able to override some of its decisions.

‘Dire situation’

Mr Cook has spoken in public twice since Facebook’s data-mining controversy began.

On 23 March, he took part in the China Development Forum in Beijing.

“I think that this certain situation is so dire and has become so large that probably some well-crafted regulation is necessary,” news agency Bloomberg quoted him as saying in response to a question about the social network’s problems.

“The ability of anyone to know what you’ve been browsing about for years, who your contacts are, who their contacts are, things you like and dislike and every intimate detail of your life – from my own point of view it shouldn’t exist.”

Then in an interview with MSNBC and Recode on 28 March, Mr Cook said: “I think the best regulation is no regulation, is self-regulation. However, I think we’re beyond that here.”

During this second appearance – which has yet to be broadcast in full – he added: “We could make a tonne of money if we monetised our customer, if our customer was our product. We’ve elected not to do that… Privacy to us is a human right.”

Apple makes most of its profits from selling smartphones, tablets and other computers, as well as associated services such as online storage and its various media stores.

This contrasts with other tech firms whose profits are largely derived from advertising, including Google, Twitter and Facebook.

Mr Zuckerberg had previously told CNN that he was “open” to new regulations.

But he defended his business model when questioned about Mr Cook’s views, although he mentioned neither Apple nor its leader by name.

“I find that argument, that if you’re not paying that somehow we can’t care about you, to be extremely glib and not at all aligned with the truth,” he said.

“The reality here is that if you want to build a service that helps connect everyone in the world, then there are a lot of people who can’t afford to pay.”

He added: “I think it’s important that we don’t all get Stockholm syndrome and let the companies that work hard to charge you more convince you that they actually care more about you, because that sounds ridiculous to me.”

Mr Zuckerberg also defended his leadership by invoking Amazon’s chief executive.

“I make all of our decisions based on what’s going to matter to our community and focus much less on the advertising side of the business,” he said.

“I thought Jeff Bezos had an excellent saying: “There are companies that work hard to charge you more, and there are companies that work hard to charge you less.”

–

Source: BBC

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Cambridge Analytica is accused of improperly using the data on behalf of political clients.

In a statement, Mr Zuckerberg said a “breach of trust” had occurred.

In a later interview with CNN he said he was “really sorry”, and pledged to take action against “rogue apps”.

He added that he was “happy” to testify before Congress “if it’s the right thing to do”.

In his statement posted on Facebook, he promised to make it far harder for apps to “harvest” user information.

“We have a responsibility to protect your data, and if we can’t then we don’t deserve to serve you,” Mr Zuckerberg said.

What has Zuckerberg pledged to do?

To address current and past problems, Mr Zuckerberg said his company would:

• investigate all Facebook apps that had access to large amounts of information before the platform was changed “to dramatically reduce data access” in 2014
• conduct a “full forensic audit” of any app with suspicious activity
• ban any developer that did not agree to a thorough audit
• ban developers that had misused personally identifiable information, and “tell everyone affected by those apps”

In future, he said Facebook would:

• restrict developers’ data access “even further” to prevent other kinds of abuse
• remove developers’ access to a user’s data if the user hadn’t activated the developer’s app for three months
• reduce the data that users give an app when they sign in to just name, profile photo, and email address
• require developers to obtain approval and also sign a contract in order to ask anyone for access to their posts or other private data

Mr Zuckerberg added: “While this specific issue involving Cambridge Analytica should no longer happen with new apps today, that doesn’t change what happened in the past.

“We will learn from this experience to secure our platform further and make our community safer for everyone going forward.”

–

Source: BBC

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“Local news helps us understand the issues that matter in our communities,” explained chief executive Mark Zuckerberg on his page on Monday.

The update will initially apply to the US before it is rolled out more widely.

It comes after Facebook announced that it was making posts from businesses, brands and media less prominent.

“Starting today, we’re going to show more stories from news sources in your local town or city,” Mr Zuckerberg said in his post.

“If you follow a local publisher or if someone shares a local story, it may show up higher in News Feed,” he added.

Mr Zuckerberg said that Facebook users who are made aware of what is happening in their communities will be more likely to get involved and “make a difference”.

“Research suggests that reading local news is directly correlated with civic engagement,” he said.

He added that the changes were part of the company’s drive to show more “high quality, trusted news”.

In a company statement, Facebook said that the “See First” feature will allow users to choose which news sources, including local or national publications, they want to see at the top of their feeds.

The social media company is making a series of changes to its website and app following criticism over the appearance of misleading news and misinformation in users’ feeds.

The company has acknowledged that media organisations posting on its site may see the popularity of their posts decrease as a result.

Earlier this month, Mr Zuckerberg said that he and his team felt a responsibility to make sure that Facebook was good for people’s wellbeing.

If public content is to be promoted, he said at the time, it will now have to be seen to encourage community interaction.

–

Souce: BBC

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The firm said the social network community will determine which outlets are reliable via the use of user surveys.

Founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said news content will soon make up around 4% of what appeared in people’s News Feeds – down from 5% before.

The move is the latest attempt by the company to quell the spread of so-called fake news and propaganda on the network.

Mark Zuckerberg vows to ‘fix’ Facebook

As part of that continuing battle, Twitter also announced on Friday that it had notified 677,775 US-based users who had retweeted, liked or followed Russian bot accounts on the network in the run up to the 2016 US presidential election.

The change is an attempt to shift the key judgements over bias and accuracy away from Facebook’s employees, and onto its user base.

“We could try to make that decision ourselves, but that’s not something we’re comfortable with,” Mr Zuckerberg said.

“We considered asking outside experts, which would take the decision out of our hands but would likely not solve the objectivity problem. Or we could ask you – the community – and have your feedback determine the ranking.”

Users will be asked, as they sometimes are about advertising, whether they recognise a news brand and if they trust it.

Facebook’s theory – yet to be tested on a large scale – is that while there are many partisan outlets that have readers that trust them, there is a smaller subset of media companies that a majority people find “broadly trustworthy”, whatever their particular leanings.

“There’s too much sensationalism, misinformation and polarisation in the world today,” wrote Mr Zuckerberg, who recently announced that his challenge this year was to essentially “fix” Facebook.

“Social media enables people to spread information faster than ever before, and if we don’t specifically tackle these problems, then we end up amplifying them.”

Winners and losers

The news ranking system will first be tested on US-based users only, and the results of the survey will not be made public.

“This is one of many signals that go into News Feed ranking,” a Facebook spokesman told the BBC.

“We do not plan to release individual publishers’ trust scores because they represent an incomplete picture of how each story’s position in each person’s feed is determined.”

As with any algorithm change, be it Facebook or any other major web service, there will be some that benefit and others that will struggle.

Facebook – the secret election weapon

Among the winners will likely be traditional media organisations with long histories or a strong broadcast presence, such as the New York Times or BBC.

However, emerging brands will suffer if recognition is not as strong, regardless of whether the content is trustworthy or not.

For instance, Buzzfeed’s initial beginnings as a viral site would have almost certainly hindered its growth into a serious news organisation had it been subject to the ideas about to be put in place by Mr Zuckerberg’s team.

Also, it is unclear how trustworthy, specialist news organisations with smaller readerships – such as science publications – will be treated under these rules, though Facebook’s head of News Feed Adam Mosseri said local news would at least be protected.

“We’re making it easier for people to see local news and information in a dedicated section.

“We’ll continue to work on ways to show more local news that is relevant to where people live.”

–
By: BBC

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After Facebook went public with the news feed change on Thursday, the website’s share value dropped by nearly four per cent before US markets opened on Friday.

By close of business on Friday Facebook shares were trading at $179.37, down more than 4.4 per cent on Thursday’s price of $187.77.

And Forbes has calculated that for Mr Zuckerberg, the co-founder, chairman and chief executive of Facebook, this translated into a personal hit of 3.3bn – a 4.4 per cent fall in his personal fortune.

Mr Zuckerberg, 33, who started Facebook in 2004 aged 19, still owns a 17 per stake in the company, which went public in 2012.

He explained his reasons for changing the news feed algorithm in a Facebook post on Thursday, saying he wanted the website to prioritise posts from friends and family over businesses and brands.

“We built Facebook to help people stay connected and bring us closer together with the people that matter to us,” he said.  “But recently we’ve gotten feedback that public content – posts from businesses, brands and media – is crowding out the personal moments that lead us to connect more with each other.”

“Based on this,” he added, “I’m changing the goal I give our product teams from focusing on helping you find relevant content to helping you have more meaningful social interactions.”

Some, however, have suggested that the change might also have been influenced by Facebook’s alleged desire to counteract what the company is believed to refer to as “context collapse”.

This is the phenomenon where people stop sharing as much information about their personal lives on Facebook, yielding less useful data for the advertisers on whom Facebook relies to make its money.

Tweaking the news feed to encourage people to talk about their personal lives might, therefore, be seen as a means of increasing Facebook’s commercial value.

The markets, though, appear to have reacted badly to the news feed change, at least in the short term.

Some analysts, however, think the tweak will work well for the company in the long term.

Mark Mahaney, an analyst at RBC, told Bloomberg: “Making the feed more relevant should boost user and engagement growth over time.

“We believe these changes will be beneficial to Facebook in the medium and long term.”

Just how much Mr Zuckerberg will worry about the short term drop in his wealth is also unclear.

Given that Facebook shares were trading at around $127 (£92) a this time last year, the company’s value is still up by more than 40 per cent year-on-year, even after this week’s fall.

Despite losing $3.3bn, Mr Zuckerberg is still worth $72.4bn (£52.7bn).

In December 2015 Mr Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan said they were planning to give away 99 per cent of their Facebook shares down the line.

–

Source: Independent

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Instead, content that sparks conversations among family and friends who use the site will be emphasised, explained chief executive Mark Zuckerberg on his page.

Organisations on Facebook may see the popularity of their posts decrease as a result, the firm acknowledged.

The changes will take effect over the coming weeks.

“We’ve gotten feedback from our community that public content – posts from businesses, brands and media – is crowding out the personal moments that lead us to connect more with each other,” wrote Mr Zuckerberg.

He said that he and his team felt a responsibility to make sure Facebook was good for people’s wellbeing.

If public content is to be promoted, it will now have to be seen to encourage community interaction – as happens within the tight-knit groups that discuss TV programmes and sports, he said.

Another example given by Facebook in a separate post was live video feeds, which tend to generate much discussion.

“By making these changes, I expect the time people spend on Facebook and some measures of engagement will go down,” added Mr Zuckerberg.

“But I also expect the time you do spend on Facebook will be more valuable.”

In a previous post, Mr Zuckerberg had vowed to “fix” Facebook in 2018, saying he wanted to ensure that users were protected from abuse and that time spent on the site would be time well spent.

He also pledged to defend Facebook from nation states.

Analysis has recently suggested that some actors, including Russia, have tried to manipulate content on the social network.

“It’s definitely a significant change,” said Laura Hazard Owen at Harvard University’s Nieman Journalism Lab.

“It’s going to affect publishers a lot, we’re going to be seeing a lot less news organically pop up in our news feeds.”

Ms Owen added, however, that Facebook had not been very clear about what sort of discussions the site’s revamped algorithms would prioritise.

It might end up being “the most controversial stuff” that generates heated conversations, she suggested, or simply content pulled in from group pages where users engage with others on specific topics.

Powerful ‘admission’

Given recent public scrutiny, the social network was currently “in the hot seat”, said Gabriel Kahn from the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.

“Facebook is in the midst of all of these fires it’s trying to put out, it’s trying to reassert its warm and fuzzy brand value that it has always tried to put forth,” he told the BBC.

Mr Kahn added the update from Mr Zuckerberg was a “clear admission” that Facebook wielded significant power over the health of society.

However, he argued that the new priorities could further distort views and the nature of conversations.

“There should be public debate about the values they’re applying to that algorithm,” he said.

–

Source: BBC

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The US president accused the social network of “collusion” on Twitter, branding it “anti-Trump”.

He made the same claim against the New York Times and the Washington Post.

Facebook will shortly hand over 3,000 political adverts to congressional investigators probing alleged Russian meddling in the US election.

The site believes the ads were probably purchased by Russian entities during and after the 2016 presidential contest.

Facebook, Twitter and Google have been asked to testify before the US Senate Intelligence Committee on 1 November about the allegations of Russian interference.

Facebook and Google have confirmed they have received invitations to attend the committee hearing, but none of the social media giants have yet said they will be present.

–

Source: BBC

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His decision to tour the United States to seek investment was preceded by a similar one he undertook in Ghana where he had major responses from corporate Ghana and business institutions.

The main reason for the US tour is to engage business institutions, individuals and strategic institutions that could mobilise resources for the development of the Tamale Metropolis.

The MCE is scheduled to meet US Former President Bill Clinton, Founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg and some diplomats in Virginia.

He is also scheduled to meet officials of Louisville to revive a broken 35 year-long Sister–City relationship with the Tamale Metropolitan Assembly.

In a telephone interview with journalists, Mr. Musah Superior indicated that, he planned to have broader and wider discussions with the individuals and institutions on how to mobilize resources to harness the development of Tamale and the nation at large.

“Another reason for our tour is to attend the 61st Anniversary of the Sister-City National Conference in Virginia from July 13-15.”

He said: “the agenda to revive the relationship with Louisville requires discussions with the city authorities.”

The MCE said the support for development from the Central government was inadequate, hence there was the need to move around the world to mobilize investors into the Metropolis.

He said this would be done by bringing to the fore an innovative type of leadership in marketing the Tamale Metropolis to the outside world.

–

Source: GNA

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The billionaire CEO returned to Harvard on Thursday to receive an honorary degree – 13 years after he famously dropped out of the Ivy League school to focus on Facebook.

‘Change starts local. Even global changes start small – with people like us,’ the 33-year-old told the crowd of graduates.

‘Every generation expands the circle of people we consider ‘one of us.’ And in our generation, that now includes the whole world. …But we live in an unstable time.

‘There are people left behind by globalization across the whole world. And it’s tough to care about people in other places when we don’t first feel good about our lives here at home. There’s pressure to turn inwards.’

Zuckerberg, now the youngest commencement speaker in Harvard’s history, started off reliving some of his college memories.

He told the graduates that he was scheduled to speak to the school board after building the website Facemash, an early precursor of Facebook that allowed students to compare the attractiveness of their fellow classmates.

His parents showed up to the school to help him pack up his belongings, and his friends threw him a goodbye party, where he met his future wife Priscilla Chan in line for the bathroom.

Zuckerberg recounted: ‘In what must be one of the all time romantic lines, I said: “I’m going to get kicked out in three days, so we need to go on a date quickly.”

He joked: ‘Actually, any of you graduating can use that line.’

‘I didn’t end up getting kicked out — I did that to myself. Priscilla and I started dating.

‘And, you know, that movie made it seem like Facemash was so important to creating Facebook. It wasn’t. But without Facemash I wouldn’t have met Priscilla, and she’s the most important person in my life, so you could say it was the most important thing I built in my time here.’

Zuckerberg went on to emphasize the importance of changing the world for the better, saying: ‘I’m here to tell you finding your purpose isn’t enough.

‘The challenge for our generation is creating a world where everyone has a sense of purpose.’

He went on to say: ‘Today I want to talk about three ways to create a world where everyone has a sense of purpose: by taking on big meaningful projects together, by redefining equality so everyone has the freedom to pursue purpose, and by building community across the world.’

Zuckerberg implored the graduates to tackle ‘generation-defining public works’ like stopping climate change, finding cures for diseases, and ‘modernizing democracy’ so everyone could vote online.

He also emphasized the importance of having ample opportunities to fail, to which he proposed ideas like a universal basic income, affordable childcare, and universal healthcare.

Zuckerberg also spoke about building communities, and relayed his experiences teaching at the local Boys and Girls club at the urging of his wife.

But it wasn’t until the end of his speech that he choked back tears recounting his relationship with one of his students.

Zuckerberg said: ‘One day after class I was talking to them about college, and one of my top students raised his hand and said he wasn’t sure he could go because he’s undocumented. He didn’t know if they’d let him in.

‘Last year I took him out to breakfast for his birthday. I wanted to get him a present, so I asked him what he wanted and he started talking about students he saw struggling and said “You know, I’d really just like a book on social justice.”

‘I was blown away. Here’s a young guy who has every reason to be cynical. He didn’t know if the country he calls home – the only one he’s known – would deny him his dream of going to college.

‘But he wasn’t feeling sorry for himself. He wasn’t even thinking of himself. He has a greater sense of purpose, and he’s going to bring people along with him.

‘It says something about our current situation that I can’t even say his name because I don’t want to put him at risk.

‘But if a high school senior who doesn’t know what the future holds can do his part to move the world forward, then we owe it to the world to do our part too.’

He finished by sharing a prayer he often says for his daughter Maxima Chan Zuckerberg, who was born in 2015.

He said: ‘Before you walk out those gates one last time, as we sit in front of Memorial Church, I am reminded of a prayer, Mi Shebeirach, that I say whenever I face a challenge, that I sing to my daughter thinking about her future when I tuck her into bed.

‘It goes: “May the source of strength, who blessed the ones before us, help us find the courage to make our lives a blessing.”

‘I hope you find the courage to make your life a blessing.’

He posted a photo on Facebook of himself holding his honorary degree and standing next to his proud parents on Thursday, writing: ‘Mom, I always told you I’d come back and get my degree.’

In giving the commencement speech, Zuckerberg is following in the footsteps of another famous Harvard dropout, Bill Gates, who spoke before its graduates a decade ago.

He began teasing his return to Harvard earlier in the week when he and Chan live-streamed a video from Zuckerberg’s old dorm room on his Facebook page.

‘It’s pretty personally meaningful to me to finally get my degree from here,’ Zuckerberg said in the live video this week.

‘And I promise it means even more to my parents, who really wanted me to graduate, this might be the thing they are going to be most proud of me for,’ he joked.

Zuckerberg and his wife filmed themselves touring the old rooms and reminiscing about their time at Harvard in the 23-minute video.

‘This is literally where I sat. And I had my little laptop here and this is where I programed Facebook. It took me about two weeks,’ Zuckerberg said in the video. ‘This is where it happened.’

‘It’s my first time being back here since I left 13 years ago. This has been a place where a lot of really special things happened in my life,’ he said referring to his dorm room, ‘I’m really grateful.’

The billionaire mentioned how he created the disastrous FaceMash website on his laptop from the dorm room – where he had taken photos from university members’ pages and asked students to rank them by attractiveness.

The stunt sparked a huge backlash of complaints from students about the premise and that their photos were taken without permission. Harvard was furious and ordered Zuckerberg to shut it down.

Zuckerberg began working on the new website, then known as thefacebook in January 2004 – during the reading month given to students to study. He says he had been inspired by the success of his other website, FaceSmash, but had wanted to create a website to connect people.

On February 4, 2004, Zuckerberg launched ‘Thefacebook’ from the laptop on his dorm room desk.

After Zuckerberg dropped out of Harvard, he vowed never to return in 2005.

–

Source: Dailymail UK

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How do you reply to a specific message in a rapid-fire chat thread? Facebook wants you to attach emojis to your friends’ messages the same way you do with News Feed posts.

TechCrunch reader Hoan Do sent a tip that Facebook Messenger is showing some users a Reactions option. When you hover over messages friends have sent in a chat thread, you can tap the emoji button to pick from attaching a little thumbs-up Like, thumbs-down Dislike, or a heart-eyes, lol, wow, sad, or angry emoji. Everyone in the thread will then see that Reaction counted below the specific message you attached it to, and you can tap to see a full list of who left which Reaction.

Facebook confirmed this new feature to TechCrunch, saying “We’re always testing ways to make Messenger more fun and engaging. This is a small test where we enable people to share an emoji that best represents their feelings on a message.” That means not everyone has access now, but if people enjoy it, Messenger Reactions could roll out to all users.

Notably, the Messenger reaction list differs from the News Feed one because of the addition of much-requested and always-denied Dislike button. Though it’s known as Facebook’s most asked for feature, the company didn’t want to inject too much negativity into the feed so it never built one. Instead, it built Reactions so people could share more nuanced emotions quickly, but left disliking for the comments.

Facebook sees it as more a “no” button, the company tells me. It says people often use Messenger for planning and coordination, and it’s experimenting to see if a reactions are helpful for quick logistics and voting. Thats why it’s offering a Yes/No option, even though people will naturally see it as a Dislike button too.

Messenger Reactions are similar to iMessage’s recently-added Tapback emoji, a format pioneered in the west by Slack’s Emoji Reactions. There they’ve proven especially useful in fast-flying group chats, where more messages may have come in before you can respond to one you’re interested in.

Imagine this thread:

Boss – Everyone OK with ordering pizza for lunch?

Coworker 1 – Does anyone want to go to the food trucks instead?

Coworker 2 – I’m going to go for sushi if anyone would rather do that.

You – Yes.

It’s totally ambiguous which message you’re responding to, and it’s annoying to have to say “Yes I want to go to the food trucks instead”. Before Slack finally added threaded conversations, it addressed this problem with Emoji Reactions. A lightweight social chat app like Messenger might not need threaded conversations, though it’s certainly a possibility, but porting over the News Feed Reactions makes perfect sense.

Facebook launched Reactions almost exactly a year ago, and they proven popular, with over 300 billion sent so far. “Love” is the most frequently used, making up more than half of all Reactions. Mexico, Chile, and Suriname see the most Reactions per user. And now, Facebook is weighting Reactions a little more heavily than standard Likes when it’s determining how interesting a post is and how prominently to show it in the News Feed.

Given the success of Emoji Reactions in Slack, the feature could make a strong addition to Work Chat, Facebook’s messaging system for its enterprise collaboration suite Workplace. It could also prove useful for interacting with chatbots, which Facebook also enhanced this week with persistent menus for when you don’t know what command to type.

The more convenient Facebook can make Messenger, the better it can compete with Snapchat, Line, and Google’s fragmented mess of messaging apps. Offering the easiest way to reply could keep users locked into the Facebook ecosystem, even if their social media sharing strays to other apps.

–

Source: TechCrunch

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