Frances Haugen

Photo: STRF/STAR MAX/IPx (AP)An anonymous whistleblower tip sent to Facebook last year contains a slew of accusations mirroring many of those found in an ongoing federal lawsuit facing Meta and OnlyFans. The anonymous tip, according to a copy provided to Gizmodo, was submitted more than six months before the lawsuit began.The report, which makes allegations of bribery and deferential treatment toward OnlyFans content, was sent to Meta’s investigations team in Washington D.C. in August 2021 by a person claiming to work…

This piece is part of Gizmodo’s ongoing effort to make the Facebook Papers available to the public. See the full directory of documents here.Meta didn’t choose to become a global distributor of medicinal snake oil and dangerous health advice. But it did decide it could tolerate it.From the onset of the covid-19 pandemic, Facebook understood the outsized role its platform would plays in shaping public opinion about the virus and the safeguards that governments would inevitably institute in hopes of containing it. Ten…

Whistleblower Frances Haugen - a former Facebook engineer who leaked documents suggesting the firm put profits before safety - on Thursday launched an organisation devoted to fighting harm caused by social media.The new Beyond the Screen nonprofit said that its first project will be to document ways big tech is failing in its "legal and ethical obligations to society" and help come up with ways to solve those problems."We can have social media that brings out the best in us, and that's what Beyond the Screen is working…

The FBI informed Twitter Inc of at least one Chinese agent working at the company, US Senator Chuck Grassley said during a Senate hearing where a whistleblower testified, raising new concerns about foreign meddling at the influential social media platform. Peiter "Mudge" Zatko, a famed hacker who served as Twitter's head of security until his firing in January, said some Twitter employees were concerned the Chinese government would be able to collect data on the company's users.Read Also Twitter has come under fire…

Remember when Elon Musk was actually excited to buy Twitter? Seems like ages ago.Image: FellowNeko (Shutterstock)There’s a new twist in As Elon’s World Turns, which is what I imagine the tech billionaire’s soap opera would be called. After months of Musk claiming bots were the reason he wanted to terminate his deal to buy the social media company, a Twitter whistleblower may have handed the billionaire fresh ammunition in his battle. Former Twitter head of security Peiter Zatko, who was fired from the blue bird app in…

Photo: First Glimpse Photography (Shutterstock)California’s contentious and highly anticipated legislation banning addictive social media sites is dead in the water…for now at least. The bill, dubbed the Social Media Platform Duty to Children Act, failed to pass out of a Senate committee last week.The setback comes amid parallel attempts by dozens of other states to pass legislation regulating social media companies.If passed, the bill would have let prosecutors sue social media companies for up to $250,000 in damages…

Kenyan voters within Mombasa County in the Coastal town of Mombasa, Kenya, chant and wave as they support Kenya Kwanza Alliance Presidential candidate William Ruto campaigning out the Fort Jesus National Museum, Friday, July 22, 2022. Photo: Gideon Maundu (AP)Two Kenyan cabinet bosses have issued strong statements opposing an ultimatum handed down to Meta last week by the nation’s cohesion watchdog. The interior minister and minister for information, communication,and technology said separately that Kenya will take no…

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks at Georgetown University in Washington, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2019. Photo: Nick Wass (AP)Kenya’s national cohesion watchdog threatened to suspend Facebook from the country Friday if it doesn’t mitigate hate speech ahead of the country’s general elections next month. The regulator has given the company one week to remediate the problem, which included Facebook’s approval of ads advocating for ethnic cleansing. Human rights organizations and the Facebook whistleblower are calling on Facebook to…

Instagram revealed Thursday it was testing two new age verification methods that aim to ensure adolescents experience an age appropriate version of the app.The photo-sharing app announced that current teen usersin the U.S. who want to edit their birth date to indicate that they’re over 18 years old on the app will have prove that this indeed the case. Besides providing Instagram with an ID, young people will have the novel option to upload a video selfie and have it vetted by an AI specialized in facial age estimation…

The head of the Federal the Federal Trade Commission says the agency is pushing a robust agenda of actions and policies to help safeguard children's privacy online. The ongoing work will include toughened enforcement of a long-standing law governing kids' online privacy and eyeing the algorithms used by social media platforms targeting young people. "Children's privacy is enormously important and we want to make sure we're doing everything we can ... to vigorously protect children's privacy and protect them from data…