Social media messes

Elon Musk said late Friday he would reinstate the Twitter accounts of several journalists that were suspended after he accused them of endangering his family.

"The people have spoken. Accounts who doxxed my location will have their suspension lifted now," the Twitter owner tweeted.

Musk carried out a Twitter poll asking whether he should restore the suspended accounts now or in a week's time. Nearly 59 percent of the 3.69 million who took part said he should restore the accounts now.

Musk had drawn anger and warnings from the EU and UN after suspending the accounts of half a dozen prominent journalists from the New York Times, CNN and the Washington Post.

The latest controversy began when Musk on Wednesday suspended @elonjet, an account that tracked flights of his private jet. -- AFP

Australia's consumer watchdog launched legal action against Facebook on Wednesday, alleging the social media giant "misled" thousands of Australians by collecting user data from a free VPN service advertised as private.

The platform could face a fine if found guilty of deceiving users, as Australia takes an increasingly assertive stance towards powerful US tech titans.

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has accused Facebook and two of its subsidiaries — Facebook Israel and Onavo Inc — of misleading people who downloaded its virtual private network (VPN) app Onavo Protect, by collecting and using their "very detailed and valuable personal activity data".

Records of which apps they accessed and the amount of time they spent using them were among the data allegedly used to support Facebook's market research. — AFP

Google has been given two weeks to respond to a US labor board complaint accusing the internet giant of using surveillance, interrogation and other tactics to spy on activist employees.

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) complaint filed late Wednesday stemmed from the dismissal a year ago of a quartet of employees dubbed the "Thanksgiving Four."

The workers sought a federal investigation into their dismissal, alleging they were sacked in retaliation for their labor organizing efforts, while Google maintained that the employees had violated data security policies. — AFP

Following the lead of Twitter and YouTube, Facebook on Monday removed several pages linked to former Donald Trump adviser Steve Bannon, whose content pushed unsubstantiated claims of election fraud.

According to the human rights group Avaaz, the social media giant took down seven pages directly linked to Bannon that had 2.45 million followers and that the group flagged to Facebook content monitors on Friday.

"Our team had identified some of these pages earlier this year for repeatedly sharing misinformation on false 'voter fraud' claims potentially reaching 10 million views in the last week alone," an Avaaz spokesman said.

"We've removed several clusters of activity for using inauthentic behavior tactics to artificially boost how many people saw their content,” a Facebook spokesperson said. — AFP

Twitter says it had suspended several fake accounts purporting to be African Americans who support President Donald Trump and which had succeeded in garnering several thousand followers in just a few days.

"Our teams are working diligently to investigate this activity and will take action in line with the Twitter rules if Tweets are found to be in violation," says a spokesman for the San Francisco-based company.

Darren Linvill, a professor at Clemson University who specializes in disinformation on social media, published some examples of the fake accounts on Twitter, accusing them of using "digital black face." — AFP

Facebook is allowing climate misinformation ads to proliferate despite claiming it is committed to rooting out the problem, a new report by a think tank says Thursday.

InfluenceMap used the platform's own data to identify 51 ads denying the link between human activity and climate change that were viewed a total of eight million times over the first half of 2020.

This was despite the fact that Facebook bans false ads, and stated as recently as September that it is "committed to tackling climate change through our global operations."

Out of the 51 ads identified, only one was removed by the social media giant while the rest were allowed to run for the entirety of their scheduled campaign. — AFP

The Department of the Interior and Local Government expresses concern with Facebook's "sense of fairness" following the taking down of Philippine accounts supposedly linked to military and police establishments for "coordinated inauthentic behavior."

"While, it has taken down alleged pro-government pages, it has allowed unfettered access to hate speech spreaders and purveyors of fake news from Communist Terrorist Groups, for example, who are actively working to bring down our democratic way of life," DILG Secretary Eduardo Año says in a statement.

Año urges Facebook officials to hold talks with the Philippine government to address the issue, roll back changes and restore the Facebook pages in question.

Duterte calls out Facebook over the removal of pages for "coordinated inauthentic behavior", which included pages linked to the military and police and an advocacy page of parents whose children were recruited by communist rebels.

"You cannot lay down a policy for my government. I allow you to operate here. You cannot prevent me from espousing the objectives of government," he says.

The Philippine Army, which has been linked to pages that social media network Facebook removed for "coordinated authentic behevior", has a social media handbook for its official pages, its spokesperson, Col. Ramon Zagala says on Super Radyo dzBB.

"The use of social media is one of our tools in civil military operation. Lahat ng major units ng Philippine Army ay may sariling Facebook pages," he also says, adding it is safe to assume that most of the more than 100,000 soldiers in the Army have social media accounts.

Some of the pages that Facebook removed have been traced to an Army captain who is head of Army Social Media Monitoring Center.

Facebook India's chief failed to appear Tuesday before a panel probing allegations that the social media giant failed to take action against hate speech, the committee's head said.

India is the US-based company and its messaging service WhatsApp's biggest market in terms of users, and the firm is under pressure worldwide over the policing of hate speech.

Last week, a Delhi Assembly panel on peace and harmony had summoned Ajit Mohan, managing director of Facebook India, to determine if the social networking site deliberately ignored instances of hate speech on its social media platform. — AFP

Facebook says it has removed a post from the page of US President Donald Trump over what it calls "harmful COVID misinformation."

The post was a video clip from a Fox News interview in which Trump contended that children are "almost immune" from the deadly virus.

"This video includes false claims that a group of people is immune from COVID-19 which is a violation of our policies around harmful COVID misinformation," a Facebook spokesperson told AFP. — AFP

Facebook says Monday it has permanently banned French comedian Dieudonne, a convicted anti-Semite, from its platform and from Instagram for content it said mocked Holocaust victims.

It also said some of his posts used "dehumanizing terms against Jews".

"In line with our policy on dangerous individuals and organizations, we have permanently banned Dieudonne M'Bala M'Bala from Facebook and Instagram," the company says in a statement, using his full name.

"Banning a person permanently from our services is a decision that we always weigh carefully, but individuals and organizations that attack others on the basis of what they are do not have a place on Facebook or Instagram," it adds.

The comedian, who goes by his first name Dieudonne, had his YouTube channel cut off for similar reasons in June by mother company Google. — AFP

Organizers of a Facebook ad boycott vowed to press on with their campaign, saying the social network's top executives had failed to offer meaningful action on curbing hateful content.

At a virtual meeting that included Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, the #StopHateForProfit coalition leaders "didn't hear anything... to convince us that Zuckerberg and his colleagues are taking action," said Jessica Gonzalez of the activist group Free Press, a coalition member.

Rashad Robinson, president of the activist group Color of Change, told reporters on a conference call the meeting was "a disappointment." — AFP

Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra says actress Sharon Cuneta has approached over a Facebook user threatening to rape her daughter Frankie, a 19-year-old musician and student.

"I advised her that the identity of the person and his location should first be clearly established," Guevarra says, adding that it seems Cuneta has already done that.

"Should Ms. Cuneta proceed to file a criminal complaint with the [Department of Justice], we shall verify the respondent's identity and address for the purpose of giving him notice," he also says.

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