400 Facebook applications suspended

MANILA, Philippines — Facebook has suspended more than 400 of thousands of applications it has investigated to determine whether people’s personal information was being improperly shared.

Applications were suspended “due to concerns around the developers who built them or how the information people chose to share with the app may have been used,” vice president of product partnerships Ime Archibong said in a blog post on Wednesday.

Apps put on hold at the social network were being scrutinized more closely, according to Archibong.

The app unit launched in March by Facebook stemmed from the Cambridge Analytica data privacy scandal.

Facebook admitted that up to 87 million users may have had their data hijacked by Cambridge Analytica, which was working for Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

Archibong said an app called myPersonality was banned by the social network for not agreeing to an audit and “because it’s clear that they shared information with researchers as well as companies with only limited protections in place.”

Facebook planned to notify around four million members of the social network who shared information with myPersonality, which was active mostly before 2012, according to Archibong.

Facebook has modified app data sharing policies since the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

“We will continue to investigate apps and make the changes needed to our platform to ensure that we are doing all we can to protect people’s information,” Archibong said.

Facebook said it has removed 652 pages, groups and accounts engaged in misleading political behavior.

Britain’s data regulator said last month that it would fine Facebook half a million pounds for failing to protect user data as part of its investigation into whether personal information was misused ahead of the Brexit referendum.

The Information Commissioner’s Office began investigating the social media giant earlier this year due to the Cambridge Analytica data mishandling.

Cambridge Analytica has denied accusations and has filed for bankruptcy in the United States and Britain.

Silicon Valley-based Facebook last month acknowledged it faces inquiries from regulators about the Cambridge Analytica user data scandal.

Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg apologized to the European Parliament in May and said the social media giant has been taking steps to prevent such a breach from happening again.

Zuckerberg was grilled about the breach in US Congress in April.

Research on ‘fake news’

Facing criticisms for its supposed role on the spread of misinformation online, Facebook has expressed willingness to work with academics conducting research on fake news and disinformation strategies on the social media platform.

Tessa Lyons, Facebook manager for news feed product, said they recently announced a request for proposals from academics interested in doing research on misinformation shared by Facebook users.

“We think that there is a place for us to share more data in a privacy-protected way with the academics,” Lyons said during a video conference with journalists from the Asia-Pacific region last week.

“One of the challenges we have in this misinformation space is that there is no consensus… about what constitutes fake news and misinformation. And because there were so many  definitions,  it’s  difficult to measure misinformation, and therefore to evaluate how effective we are in reducing its distribution,” she added.

Successful proposals will get access to links shared on Facebook globally since 2017.

“We need to share more data with academics so that they can come up with more research to help others understand the distribution and spread of misinformation on our platform and our progress in fighting it over time,” said Lyons.

“We’re starting with this dataset, and over time we hope that we’ll expand to other content areas. But this should be a rich set of data for academics to students and contribute to the broader conversation,” she added.

Facebook has strengthened its efforts to counter the spread of misinformation and unauthorized use of user data. – With AFP