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Tag: Meta

Meta Fined €91 Million for Storing Millions of Facebook and Instagram Passwords in Plaintext

The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) has fined Meta €91 million ($101.56 million) as part of a probe into a security lapse in March 2019, when the company disclosed that it had mistakenly stored users’ passwords in plaintext in its systems. The investigation, launched by the DPC the next month, found that the social media giant violated four different…
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September 30, 2024
Mark Zuckerberg is given the green light to train new Meta AI technology using billions of British Facebook and Instagram posts

Mark Zuckerberg has been given the go ahead to train his new Meta AI technology using billions of British Facebook and Instagram posts. Following talks with UK data protection regulator, the Information Commissioner’s Office, the US firm will begin within weeks. Meta had not launched its AI tools in the UK or EU due to regulator concerns. Discussions with the EU remain…
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September 14, 2024
Meta Exposes Iranian Hacker Group Targeting Global Political Figures on WhatsApp

Meta Platforms on Friday became the latest company after Microsoft, Google, and OpenAI to expose the activities of an Iranian state-sponsored threat actor, who it said used a set of WhatsApp accounts that attempted to target individuals in Israel, Palestine, Iran, the U.K., and the U.S. The activity cluster, which originated from Iran, “appeared to have focused…
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August 25, 2024
Nigeria: Meta removes 63,000 accounts linked to sextortion

Meta said Wednesday it had removed about 63,000 Instagram accounts in Nigeria that were engaging in sexual extortion and had taken down thousands of Facebook groups and pages that were trying to organize, recruit and train new scammers. Sexual extortion, or sextortion , involves persuading someone to send explicit photos online and then threatening to…
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July 27, 2024
Nigeria fines Meta $220 million for violating consumer, data laws

Nigeria fined Meta Platforms $220 million after investigations showed data-sharing on its Facebook and WhatsApp platforms violated local consumer, data protection and privacy laws, the head of the country’s competition watchdog, Adama Abdullahi, said on Friday. Nigeria’s Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) said Meta appropriated the data of Nigerian users on its platforms…
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July 19, 2024
Meta puts a halt to training its generative AI tools in Brazil

Meta has suspended the use of its AI assistant after Brazil’s National Data Protection Authority (ANPD) banned the company from training its AI models on personal data from Brazilians. The move puts a dent in Facebook’s attempt to build out its AI products in Brazil, a market with more than 200 million people. The Brazilian…
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July 19, 2024
Facebook tried to spy on Snapchat through users’ devices, court documents allege

Filings unsealed last week claim that Meta created an internal effort to spy on Snapchat in a secret initiative called “Project Ghostbusters.” Meta has lots of data through Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook, but that’s not enough for them. Court filings unsealed last week allege Meta created an internal effort to spy on Snapchat in a…
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March 29, 2024