Connect with us

FACEBOOK

Meta Mounts Counterattack on FTC’s Power to Police Kids’ Data

Published

on

Bloomberg Law

Meta Platforms Inc. has vowed to oppose a Federal Trade Commission plan to ban the social media giant from profiting off of children’s data, testing the boundaries of the agency’s ability to shape privacy policy through enforcement.

The agency on May 3 accused Meta of breaching an earlier FTC order and subsequent settlement that forced the tech giant to pay a $5 billion fine over mishandling consumer data and to implement a series of privacy oversight mechanisms. Now the commission is seeking added restrictions on Meta’s data practices, including a prohibition on selling information collected about young users for targeted ads or otherwise using such data for commercial gain. It would apply to Meta’s Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Oculus platforms.

The FTC could be challenged for potentially exceeding its authority, former agency officials said, though the commission has found flexibility in its broad consumer protection responsibilities in the past.

“What the commission is proposing is a pretty strict regimen” for protecting minors’ data, said David Vladeck, a professor at Georgetown University’s law school who previously directed the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection during the Obama administration. Vladeck added that the potential expansion of the FTC’s existing order against Meta “may not be adequately targeted to the wrongs suggested here.”

The commission claims that, due to coding errors, Meta misled parents about their ability to control who their children communicated with on its Messenger Kids app. Meta pushed back in a blog post, saying the company quickly fixed errors and informed the FTC and users about them.

Meta’s post called the FTC’s action “a political stunt.” The company pledged to fight the agency and said it expects to prevail. A Meta spokesperson declined to comment beyond the blog post.

Advertisement

One of the five-member commission’s three Democrats, Alvaro Bedoya, questioned whether the agency had legal grounds to apply limits on the use of minors’ data based on the privacy violations it alleged.

If Meta brings an appeal over the proposed FTC action, a court would be likely to agree with concerns about overstepping agency authority, according to Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Matthew Schettenhelm.

The administrative proceeding opened this week marks the third time the FTC has taken action against Meta for allegedly failing to protect users’ privacy. The agency’s latest action also accused the company of continuing to give app developers access to users’ private information after promising to cut off access if users had not used those apps recently.

Facebook’s repeated failures to follow FTC orders put its users at risk, and this proposed relief is appropriate and necessary given the breadth of the alleged violations,” a spokesperson for FTC staff said in a statement.

Expanding ‘COPPA’

Messenger Kids is designed to offer a safe space for kids to connect with family and friends approved by their parents. Coding errors, however, sometimes resulted in users of the app being able to communicate with their contacts’ friends who were not themselves parent-approved contacts.

“We found that these were all friends-of-friends, and when we notified the parents of the impacted users, we shared details of who was chatting with whom and additional resources on parental controls and online safety,” Meta’s blog post said.

Advertisement

The agency is suggesting that the messaging mishap violated the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA, a federal law that shields information about kids who are younger than 13. The commission’s proposed new curbs for Meta’s handling of minors’ data would apply to users of its platform who are under age 18.

The agency is “essentially expanding COPPA” only for Meta, said James Cooper, a professor at George Mason University’s law school who formerly served as a FTC official and adviser to a Republican commissioner.

Lawmakers in Congress have floated legislation that would broaden COPPA to cover teenagers. The bill faltered in the most recent legislative session and was just reintroduced in the Senate this session.

The regulatory order with Meta is being used as “a vehicle to enact a policy preference,” Cooper said.

In another recent enforcement action against Epic Games Inc. over the video game Fortnite’s use of children’s data, the FTC claimed COPPA violations and alleged that in-game purchases were designed in a way that was unfair to consumers. The second set of allegations relied on the FTC Act’s broad protections against unfair and deceptive business practices.

“We’re seeing an FTC that is thinking outside the box in ways that previous ones have not,” said Dona Fraser, senior vice president for privacy initiatives at BBB National Programs. The organization runs a program that helps companies ensure their compliance with children’s privacy law through data questionnaires and product testing.

Advertisement

Fraser urged Meta to join such a compliance program to show its commitment to protecting kids’ data. Meta didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on whether it’s part of one.

Ad Limits

Under the FTC’s proposed new privacy regime for Meta, the company could collect and use minors’ information only to provide a service or for security purposes, but not for targeted advertising or other purposes.

Meta has already limited what kind of information is used to inform ads for teens on its apps. The company withdrew the ability for advertisers to target teens based on their interests and activities. Advertisers will only be able to use age and location data to reach teens, after Meta also removed gender as a targeting option.

Children’s advocates have repeatedly raised concerns that Meta shouldn’t be trusted with kids’ information given the company’s past history of privacy transgressions, including the Cambridge Analytica data-harvesting scandal.

Groups such as Fairplay and the Center for Digital Democracy have urged Meta to scrap its messaging platform for kids, as well as a kids-focused version of the photo-sharing app Instagram. The company paused work on Instagram Kids after media reports showed Facebook downplayed its own research finding the social media platform can harm the mental well-being of its youngest users.

More recently, advocacy organizations and children’s safety experts called on Meta to terminate its plans to allow minors into its new virtual reality world.

Advertisement

“This is a company that has continually put its own profits ahead of well-being and safety,” said Josh Golin, executive director of the nonprofit Fairplay.



Source link

Keep an eye on what we are doing
Be the first to get latest updates and exclusive content straight to your email inbox.
We promise not to spam you. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Invalid email address

FACEBOOK

Facebook Faces Yet Another Outage: Platform Encounters Technical Issues Again

Published

on

By

Facebook Problem Again

Uppdated: It seems that today’s issues with Facebook haven’t affected as many users as the last time. A smaller group of people appears to be impacted this time around, which is a relief compared to the larger incident before. Nevertheless, it’s still frustrating for those affected, and hopefully, the issues will be resolved soon by the Facebook team.

Facebook had another problem today (March 20, 2024). According to Downdetector, a website that shows when other websites are not working, many people had trouble using Facebook.

This isn’t the first time Facebook has had issues. Just a little while ago, there was another problem that stopped people from using the site. Today, when people tried to use Facebook, it didn’t work like it should. People couldn’t see their friends’ posts, and sometimes the website wouldn’t even load.

Downdetector, which watches out for problems on websites, showed that lots of people were having trouble with Facebook. People from all over the world said they couldn’t use the site, and they were not happy about it.

When websites like Facebook have problems, it affects a lot of people. It’s not just about not being able to see posts or chat with friends. It can also impact businesses that use Facebook to reach customers.

Since Facebook owns Messenger and Instagram, the problems with Facebook also meant that people had trouble using these apps. It made the situation even more frustrating for many users, who rely on these apps to stay connected with others.

Advertisement

During this recent problem, one thing is obvious: the internet is always changing, and even big websites like Facebook can have problems. While people wait for Facebook to fix the issue, it shows us how easily things online can go wrong. It’s a good reminder that we should have backup plans for staying connected online, just in case something like this happens again.

Keep an eye on what we are doing
Be the first to get latest updates and exclusive content straight to your email inbox.
We promise not to spam you. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Invalid email address
Continue Reading

FACEBOOK

Christian family goes in hiding after being cleared of blasphemy

Published

on

Christian family goes in hiding after being cleared of blasphemy

LAHORE, Pakistan — A court in Pakistan granted bail to a Christian falsely charged with blasphemy, but he and his family have separated and gone into hiding amid threats to their lives, sources said.

Haroon Shahzad (right) with attorney Aneeqa Maria. | The Voice Society/Morning Star News

Haroon Shahzad, 45, was released from Sargodha District Jail on Nov. 15, said his attorney, Aneeqa Maria. Shahzad was charged with blasphemy on June 30 after posting Bible verses on Facebook that infuriated Muslims, causing dozens of Christian families in Chak 49 Shumaali, near Sargodha in Punjab Province, to flee their homes.

Lahore High Court Judge Ali Baqir Najfi granted bail on Nov. 6, but the decision and his release on Nov. 15 were not made public until now due to security fears for his life, Maria said.

Shahzad told Morning Star News by telephone from an undisclosed location that the false accusation has changed his family’s lives forever.

“My family has been on the run from the time I was implicated in this false charge and arrested by the police under mob pressure,” Shahzad told Morning Star News. “My eldest daughter had just started her second year in college, but it’s been more than four months now that she hasn’t been able to return to her institution. My other children are also unable to resume their education as my family is compelled to change their location after 15-20 days as a security precaution.”

Though he was not tortured during incarceration, he said, the pain of being away from his family and thinking about their well-being and safety gave him countless sleepless nights.

Advertisement



“All of this is due to the fact that the complainant, Imran Ladhar, has widely shared my photo on social media and declared me liable for death for alleged blasphemy,” he said in a choked voice. “As soon as Ladhar heard about my bail, he and his accomplices started gathering people in the village and incited them against me and my family. He’s trying his best to ensure that we are never able to go back to the village.”

Shahzad has met with his family only once since his release on bail, and they are unable to return to their village in the foreseeable future, he said.

“We are not together,” he told Morning Star News. “They are living at a relative’s house while I’m taking refuge elsewhere. I don’t know when this agonizing situation will come to an end.”

The Christian said the complainant, said to be a member of Islamist extremist party Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan and also allegedly connected with banned terrorist group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, filed the charge because of a grudge. Shahzad said he and his family had obtained valuable government land and allotted it for construction of a church building, and Ladhar and others had filed multiple cases against the allotment and lost all of them after a four-year legal battle.

“Another probable reason for Ladhar’s jealousy could be that we were financially better off than most Christian families of the village,” he said. “I was running a successful paint business in Sargodha city, but that too has shut down due to this case.”

Regarding the social media post, Shahzad said he had no intention of hurting Muslim sentiments by sharing the biblical verse on his Facebook page.

Advertisement



“I posted the verse a week before Eid Al Adha [Feast of the Sacrifice] but I had no idea that it would be used to target me and my family,” he said. “In fact, when I came to know that Ladhar was provoking the villagers against me, I deleted the post and decided to meet the village elders to explain my position.”

The village elders were already influenced by Ladhar and refused to listen to him, Shahzad said.

“I was left with no option but to flee the village when I heard that Ladhar was amassing a mob to attack me,” he said.

Shahzad pleaded with government authorities for justice, saying he should not be punished for sharing a verse from the Bible that in no way constituted blasphemy.

Similar to other cases

Shahzad’s attorney, Maria, told Morning Star News that events in Shahzad’s case were similar to other blasphemy cases filed against Christians.

Advertisement



“Defective investigation, mala fide on the part of the police and complainant, violent protests against the accused persons and threats to them and their families, forcing their displacement from their ancestral areas, have become hallmarks of all blasphemy allegations in Pakistan,” said Maria, head of The Voice Society, a Christian paralegal organization.

She said that the case filed against Shahzad was gross violation of Section 196 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), which states that police cannot register a case under the Section 295-A blasphemy statute against a private citizen without the approval of the provincial government or federal agencies.

Maria added that Shahzad and his family have continued to suffer even though there was no evidence of blasphemy.

“The social stigma attached with a blasphemy accusation will likely have a long-lasting impact on their lives, whereas his accuser, Imran Ladhar, would not have to face any consequence of his false accusation,” she said.

The judge who granted bail noted that Shahzad was charged with blasphemy under Section 295-A, which is a non-cognizable offense, and Section 298, which is bailable. The judge also noted that police had not submitted the forensic report of Shahzad’s cell phone and said evidence was required to prove that the social media was blasphemous, according to Maria.

Bail was set at 100,000 Pakistani rupees (US $350) and two personal sureties, and the judge ordered police to further investigate, she said.

Advertisement



Shahzad, a paint contractor, on June 29 posted on his Facebook page 1 Cor. 10:18-21 regarding food sacrificed to idols, as Muslims were beginning the four-day festival of Eid al-Adha, which involves slaughtering an animal and sharing the meat.

A Muslim villager took a screenshot of the post, sent it to local social media groups and accused Shahzad of likening Muslims to pagans and disrespecting the Abrahamic tradition of animal sacrifice.

Though Shahzad made no comment in the post, inflammatory or otherwise, the situation became tense after Friday prayers when announcements were made from mosque loudspeakers telling people to gather for a protest, family sources previously told Morning Star News.

Fearing violence as mobs grew in the village, most Christian families fled their homes, leaving everything behind.

In a bid to restore order, the police registered a case against Shahzad under Sections 295-A and 298. Section 295-A relates to “deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs” and is punishable with imprisonment of up to 10 years and fine, or both. Section 298 prescribes up to one year in prison and a fine, or both, for hurting religious sentiments.

Pakistan ranked seventh on Open Doors’ 2023 World Watch List of the most difficult places to be a Christian, up from eighth the previous year.

Advertisement



Morning Star News is the only independent news service focusing exclusively on the persecution of Christians. The nonprofit’s mission is to provide complete, reliable, even-handed news in order to empower those in the free world to help persecuted Christians, and to encourage persecuted Christians by informing them that they are not alone in their suffering.

Free Religious Freedom Updates

Join thousands of others to get the FREEDOM POST newsletter for free, sent twice a week from The Christian Post.

Source link

Keep an eye on what we are doing
Be the first to get latest updates and exclusive content straight to your email inbox.
We promise not to spam you. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Invalid email address
Continue Reading

FACEBOOK

Individual + Team Stats: Hornets vs. Timberwolves

Published

on

CHARLOTTE HORNETS MINNESOTA TIMBERWOLVES You can follow us for future coverage by liking us on Facebook & following us on X: Facebook – All Hornets X – …

Source link

Keep an eye on what we are doing
Be the first to get latest updates and exclusive content straight to your email inbox.
We promise not to spam you. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Invalid email address
Continue Reading

Trending

Follow by Email
RSS