Facebook, Inc. operates a social networking website. The Company website allows people to communicate with their family, friends, and coworkers. Facebook develops technologies that facilitate the sharing of information, photographs, website links, and videos. Facebook users have the ability to share and...

Facebook (Meta)

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There was a snowstorm in New York this week, triggering the shutdown of schools, the excitement of children and, in my case, a flurry of activity on what has become a small but central drama in my life, Facebook Marketplace. There are better forums for buying and selling, and worthier ways ...

A place of tension, lies and the dark side of the human soul. I can’t resist the theatre of Facebook Marketplace | Emma Brockes | The Guardian

Landing a position at tech giants like Google, Meta, and Amazon is not merely about prestige. These companies offer lucrative salaries, comprehensive benefits, and the chance to work on cutting-edge technologies alongside some of the brightest minds in the industry. Contrary to popular belief, a history of programming from a young age, Olympiad wins, or insider connections aren’t needed. The key lies in not just being seen, but in shining brightly. As someone who received offers from Amazon, Twitter, and Snapchat, I will share my insights on how to stand out without referrals and ace the notoriously difficult coding interviews. Strategies to Shine: Competitive Programming: Rank in the top 10% in ACM ICPC competitions or online coding platforms like CodeForces/CodeChef
Hackathons: Win collegiate hackathons or specific categories. My journey, for instance, was significantly boosted by a win at Princeton University's hackathon.
YouTube Channel: Establishing a tech-focused YouTube channel with a substantial following (50K+ subscribers) can set you apart.
Projects: Releasing apps on the Google/iOS store or GitHub that garner a lot of stars or downloads (10K+) can highlight your practical skills and innovation.
Community Impact: Initiatives that make a tangible difference in the tech community, such as founding a hackathon-focused student organization, can demonstrate your leadership and commitment to the tech ecosystem. You might be asking yourself are these activities resume fillers? If not why do they work? The reason why they work is because they are indicators of your technical acumen, domain expertise, and leadership potential. For example: success in competitive programming and hackathons signals your readiness for rigorous technical interviews. A successful tech-centric YouTube channel serves as a testament to your knowledge and ability to engage with a wide audience. Leading community initiatives showcases your potential as a thoughtful leader in the tech industry. Now that we know how to standout without referrals let’s understand the interview process at tech giants Behavioral Interview: This stage is about reflecting on your past experiences and articulating your achievements. It's crucial to talk about your contributions and quantify your accomplishments whenever possible.
Technical Interview: Beyond solving problems, it's important to identify patterns and verbalize your thought process. This demonstrates not just your technical proficiency but also your ability to communicate complex ideas.
System Design: Especially important for companies like Snapchat and Netflix, this stage tests your ability to design robust, scalable systems, reflecting a deep understanding of technical architectures. Getting Started for High School and University Students: If you're currently in high school or university, immerse yourself in competitive programming competitions like ACM ICPC and CodeForces. Participate in local or international hackathons, and if your university lacks such events, take the initiative to create a student organization dedicated to tech upskilling. Holding an officer position in such a group not only hones your skills but also prepares you for behavioral interviews by providing real-world scenarios to draw from. Lastly, securing a position in a major tech firm is a testament to your dedication, skill, and passion. While the journey is challenging, with each setback serving as a stepping stone to success, perseverance is key. Celebrate every milestone, learn from every setback, and keep striving towards your goal. Remember, rejection is a detour, not a dead end. It takes just one 'Yes' to eclipse the shadows of prior rejections. Landing a position at tech giants like Google, Meta, and Amazon is not merely about prestige. These companies offer lucrative salaries, comprehensive benefits, and the chance to work on cutting-edge technologies alongside some of the brightest minds in the industry. Contrary to popular belief, a history of programming from a young age, Olympiad wins, or insider connections aren’t needed. The key lies in not just being seen, but in shining brightly. As someone who received offers from Amazon, Twitter, and Snapchat, I will share my insights on how to stand out without referrals and ace the notoriously difficult coding interviews. Strategies to Shine: Strategies to Shine: Competitive Programming: Rank in the top 10% in ACM ICPC competitions or online coding platforms like CodeForces/CodeChef Hackathons: Win collegiate hackathons or specific categories. My journey, for instance, was significantly boosted by a win at Princeton University's hackathon. YouTube Channel: Establishing a tech-focused YouTube channel with a substantial following (50K+ subscribers) can set you apart. Projects: Releasing apps on the Google/iOS store or GitHub that garner a lot of stars or downloads (10K+) can highlight your practical skills and innovation. Community Impact: Initiatives that make a tangible difference in the tech community, such as founding a hackathon-focused student organization, can demonstrate your leadership and commitment to the tech ecosystem. Competitive Programming: Rank in the top 10% in ACM ICPC competitions or online coding platforms like CodeForces/CodeChef Hackathons: Win collegiate hackathons or specific categories. My journey, for instance, was significantly boosted by a win at Princeton University's hackathon. YouTube Channel: Establishing a tech-focused YouTube channel with a substantial following (50K+ subscribers) can set you apart. Projects: Releasing apps on the Google/iOS store or GitHub that garner a lot of stars or downloads (10K+) can highlight your practical skills and innovation. Community Impact: Initiatives that make a tangible difference in the tech community, such as founding a hackathon-focused student organization, can demonstrate your leadership and commitment to the tech ecosystem. You might be asking yourself are these activities resume fillers? If not why do they work? The reason why they work is because they are indicators of your technical acumen, domain expertise, and leadership potential. For example: success in competitive programming and hackathons signals your readiness for rigorous technical interviews. A successful tech-centric YouTube channel serves as a testament to your knowledge and ability to engage with a wide audience. Leading community initiatives showcases your potential as a thoughtful leader in the tech industry. Now that we know how to standout without referrals let’s understand the interview process at tech giants Behavioral Interview: This stage is about reflecting on your past experiences and articulating your achievements. It's crucial to talk about your contributions and quantify your accomplishments whenever possible. Technical Interview: Beyond solving problems, it's important to identify patterns and verbalize your thought process. This demonstrates not just your technical proficiency but also your ability to communicate complex ideas. System Design: Especially important for companies like Snapchat and Netflix, this stage tests your ability to design robust, scalable systems, reflecting a deep understanding of technical architectures. Behavioral Interview : This stage is about reflecting on your past experiences and articulating your achievements. It's crucial to talk about your contributions and quantify your accomplishments whenever possible. Behavioral Interview Technical Interview : Beyond solving problems, it's important to identify patterns and verbalize your thought process. This demonstrates not just your technical proficiency but also your ability to communicate complex ideas. Technical Interview System Design : Especially important for companies like Snapchat and Netflix, this stage tests your ability to design robust, scalable systems, reflecting a deep understanding of technical architectures. System Design Getting Started for High School and University Students: Getting Started for High School and University Students: If you're currently in high school or university, immerse yourself in competitive programming competitions like ACM ICPC and CodeForces. Participate in local or international hackathons, and if your university lacks such events, take the initiative to create a student organization dedicated to tech upskilling. Holding an officer position in such a group not only hones your skills but also prepares you for behavioral interviews by providing real-world scenarios to draw from. Lastly, securing a position in a major tech firm is a testament to your dedication, skill, and passion. While the journey is challenging, with each setback serving as a stepping stone to success, perseverance is key. Celebrate every milestone, learn from every setback, and keep striving towards your goal. Remember, rejection is a detour, not a dead end. It takes just one 'Yes' to eclipse the shadows of prior rejections.

Unlocking Doors to Google & Facebook!

298 Stories To Learn About Facebook

In the world of social media, we expect a certain level of safety and security. We trust platforms like Facebook to provide a space where we can connect with friends, share our lives, and engage with the online community. But what happens when the very platform that's meant to protect us ends up doing just the opposite? Just today, I found myself in a frustrating situation that left me baffled and infuriated. I encountered a on Facebook who was trying to pull off the typical SEO link-building scam, and I took it upon myself to report this individual for their deceptive behavior. scammer He was attempting to sell me a bunch of PBN links via a Facebook group. After checking them, I found they were all penalized domains on sites with no templates, no SSL certificates, full of spammy casino content & links, and not a single article indexed in the search engines. This parasite scammer, flogging these off as “Quality PBNs,” was well aware of what he was selling and that the PBN domains were dead. He was fully aware that he was attempting to pull off a link-building scam and knew the product was defective. Little did I know that this simple act of self-defense would result in Facebook suspending me for seven days while the scammer continued their illicit activities unhindered. Funny that this scummy parasite scam flogs called me dog and son of a bitch. Yet I got banned, and flea lives on. Let me be clear: reporting a scammer should be a no-brainer. It's something that should be encouraged and supported by all social media platforms, including Facebook. Users should feel empowered to speak out against those who are trying to deceive, manipulate, or harm them. So, imagine my shock when I found myself penalized for trying to protect myself and others from a scammer. Not only did I report the scam, but I also had some choice words for the scammer. I called him a "worthless scam beggar" and let them know that their attempts to deceive me were utterly futile. While I understand that maintaining a respectful tone in our online interactions is crucial, it's essential to recognize the intent behind my message. I was trying to protect myself and others from a potential threat. The larger issue here is . They need to invest in better moderation systems, clearer guidelines, and a more transparent reporting process to prevent innocent users from getting caught in the crossfire. Facebook's responsibility to ensure its users' safety It's not about promoting a culture of online negativity but rather about striking a balance between self-defense and community protection. Scammers and fraudsters are persistent, and it's up to social media platforms to keep up with their evolving tactics. The incident I experienced is just one example of the challenges these platforms face when handling scams and fraudulent activities effectively. Facebook, like all social media giants, should continually improve its reporting and enforcement systems to better protect its users and create a safer online environment for everyone. In the end, it's a reminder for all of us to stay vigilant and cautious in the digital world. Trust your instincts and report suspicious activity, but always be mindful of your tone when dealing with potential scammers. (Facebook will always Favour the scammer in this case - tired and proven countless times) Because of Facebook’s deplorable actions, I personally hope for a future where Facebook becomes a mere relic of the past, who can't afford their own internet connections, leeching off their neighbors' Wi-Fi. overrun by scammers It's a vision where a newer, fresher, and more socially acceptable platform takes over, one that genuinely cares about protecting its users from scams and fraudulent activities. Perhaps then, and I hope Facebook will become a digital wasteland, and they would more than deserve that fate, especially given their history with me. Let's hope that Facebook and other social media platforms learn from incidents like these so they can provide the safety and security their users deserve. In my own personal opinion. Facebook is a disgrace and a poor example of current-day social acceptance and online behavior. It protects scammers over potential victims. The platform makes me sick. Long live TikTok & LinkedIn (Where the real people go these days)

Facebook Fiasco: Banning the Victim, Not the Scammer"

In the labyrinth of the digital age, where fake profiles thrive and tarnish the online experience, we find ourselves in the confounding realm of . Facebook Here, we unveil a saga of deception, focusing on a character known as "Lucy Audrey" – a prime exemplar of the fake profile menace and the absurdity of Facebook's refusal to suspend such accounts. The Era of Fake Profiles & Scammers: Lucy Audrey Unveiled Meet "Lucy Audrey," a fictional persona operated by an individual from Faisalabad, Pakistan, who shamelessly touts digital marketing and search engine optimization services. The irony runs deep - an individual claiming expertise in an industry requiring skill and experience is, in reality, a glaring amateur. It's beyond pathetic; it's comical. In an era where advanced technology and AI rule the roost, Facebook's inability to detect an account that reeks of fake identity is nothing short of absurd. "Lucy Audrey" is a male scammer from Faisalabad, Pakistan. It's so ludicrous that it's laughable. Facebook's (Oh, I mean Fakebook’s) Disheartening Betrayal is a slap in the face to anyone who values online safety and security. The platform's unwillingness to remove an account that blatantly peddles services it knows nothing about is an outrageous betrayal of user trust. Facebook's refusal to suspend this egregiously fake profile In my humble opinion, Facebook's algorithms appear finely tuned for one purpose: keeping user retention rates high, even at the expense of tolerating absurdly . They prioritize user retention over eradicating profiles run by individuals who couldn't distinguish a blog post from a hole in the ground. fake profiles Testing the Waters: A Tale of Deception Curiosity led me to test the waters. I decided to engage one of these dubious "experts" to place a blog post on a website for one of my digital marketing clients. The outcome was nothing short of a farce. The faker took my money, placed the content with a website owner, didn't pay the site owner, and disappeared with the entire payment. I was left with a case of fraud and an empty wallet. This is a prime example of Facebook's failure to protect its community. It's shocking how they allow these charlatans to roam free, masquerading as "professionals" and "experts." My experiment only cost me $10, and I'm grateful that at least PayPal has robust protections. The Farcical "Meta Verified" Badge In recent times, Facebook's attempt to monetize authenticity has reached new heights of absurdity. Every time I log in, a message hijacks my screen, urging me to get a "Meta Verified" badge for a mere $19.99 per month, as if paying for a digital badge can prove my existence. While Facebook pushes me, a legitimate user since its inception, to pay for a badge of authenticity, it remains plagued by thousands of obvious fake profiles, including the infamous "Lucy Audrey." Facebook's desperation for user retention has reached ridiculous levels. They even allow users to create four additional profiles under one account, opening the floodgates for imposters and scammers. I mean, what a joke! I have now gone on to report countless profiles that Fakebook refuses to suspend, and then in response, they wave the annoying Meta Verified badge in my face every day, “urging me” to hand over my hard-earned cash once a month to “verify myself.” Pathetic! The Sisyphean Task of Reporting Fake Profiles Picture this: Day in and day out, I've scoured Facebook, diligently reporting one fake profile after another. Each one is more obvious than the last, yet my efforts seem to fall on deaf ears. The frustration that accompanies hitting that "report" button has become a daily ritual, and it's one that always ends in disappointment. The 100% Ignored Reports Yes, you read that correctly - 100%. Every single report I've submitted, without exception, has been met with the crushing silence of Facebook's inaction. It's as if my concerns, along with those of countless others, vanish into the digital abyss, never to be acknowledged or addressed. The accounts I've reported are the epitome of fakery. They sport stolen images, nonsensical information, and a clear disregard for the platform's rules and regulations. It's not rocket science; it's plain as day. But it seems that Facebook's moderation team is blind to the most blatant transgressions. Yes, you read that correctly - 100%. Every single report I've submitted, without exception, has been met with the crushing silence of Facebook's inaction. It's as if my concerns, along with those of countless others, vanish into the digital abyss, never to be acknowledged or addressed. The accounts I've reported are the epitome of fakery, including fake profiles and even parasites who have attempted to scam me. They sport stolen images, nonsensical information, and a clear disregard for the platform's rules and regulations. It's not rocket science; it's plain as day. But it seems that Facebook's moderation team is blind to the most blatant transgressions. The Endless Loop of Inaction What's particularly frustrating is the endless loop of inaction. You'd think that a platform as massive and influential as Facebook would have the resources and technology to tackle this issue effectively. However, the reality is that countless individuals, including myself, are trapped in a cycle of reporting fake profiles with no end in sight. A Mockery of "Community Standards" Facebook's adherence to "Community Standards" is nothing short of a farce when it fails to protect users from scam artists like this Pakistani man’s alias " ." Lucy Audrey This incident is not isolated but a glaring example of Facebook's disregard for user safety and integrity. It's high time for Facebook to stop paying lip service to its users' concerns and take concrete action against fake profiles on its platform. In my tireless crusade to report fake profiles, I'm not alone. There are countless others who have experienced the same frustration, the same disappointment, and the same betrayal of trust. It's time for Facebook to step up, take action, and fulfill its responsibility to its users. The evidence is clear: countless fake profiles roam free on Facebook, and the platform's disregard for these transgressions is nothing short of a slap in the face. It's a betrayal of user trust, and it’s high time for Facebook to rectify this glaring issue. It's also clear that Mr. Zuckerberg couldn't care less about the safety of Facebook’s users. As long as the cash keeps rolling in and stocks remain high, it appears that this social media platform will continue to fling the floodgates wide open for scammers and fake profile parasites.

Meet Lucy Audrey, The Dishonest Fake Profile Facebook Refuses to Suspend

লুসি অড্রের সাথে দেখা করুন, অসৎ জাল প্রোফাইল ফেসবুক সাসপেন্ড করতে অস্বীকার করেছে

Lernen Sie Lucy Audrey kennen, das unehrliche Fake-Profil, das Facebook nicht sperren lässt

Conoce a Lucy Audrey, el perfil falso deshonesto que Facebook se niega a suspender

Rencontrez Lucy Audrey, le faux profil malhonnête que Facebook refuse de suspendre

लूसी ऑड्रे से मिलें, बेईमान नकली प्रोफ़ाइल फेसबुक ने निलंबित करने से इनकार कर दिया

Facebookが停止を拒否した不誠実な偽プロフィール、ルーシー・オードリーを紹介する

부정직한 가짜 프로필인 Lucy Audrey를 만나보세요. Facebook은 정지를 거부합니다.

Conheça Lucy Audrey, o perfil falso desonesto que o Facebook se recusa a suspender

Знакомьтесь, Люси Одри, нечестный фейковый профиль, который Facebook отказывается приостанавливать

Facebook'un Askıya Almayı Reddettiği Sahtekar Sahte Profil Lucy Audrey ile tanışın

Gặp Lucy Audrey, Hồ sơ giả mạo không trung thực Facebook từ chối đình chỉ

认识露西·奥黛丽 (Lucy Audrey)，Facebook 拒绝暂停不诚实的虚假个人资料

I've had it up to here with Facebook's ongoing indifference when it comes to tackling the persistent issue of fake profiles and fraudulent operations in the digital marketing sphere. In an industry that's constantly evolving and demanding adaptability, Facebook's lackluster approach is a thorn in our collective sides. Fake profiles and fraudulent activities on social media platforms have been a pain in our necks for ages. Whether it's identity theft, spamming, or fake advertisements, these shenanigans wreak havoc on businesses and consumers alike. But Facebook, the Goliath of social networks seems content with giving only to address these problems. lip service We've seen this tired old script play out time and time again. Facebook acknowledges the problem, throws out some vague promises of change, and then, like a magician with no tricks up his sleeve, delivers next to nothing. It's infuriating, to say the least. So, what's the big deal? Why should we care about these fake profiles and scams? The consequences are much more profound than Facebook seems to realize. Trust, my friends, trust is the most valuable currency in the digital marketing world. When you undermine that trust with deceptive practices, you compromise the authenticity of the connections and interactions that are the lifeblood of the digital marketing landscape Users start becoming skeptics, second-guessing even legitimate content, and worst of all, deciding to leave digital spaces altogether. For businesses, the financial toll is real. They're forced into this endless cat-and-mouse game with . They invest countless resources combating these scams that could be better spent on growth and innovation. And let's not forget the damage to their reputation when their customers fall prey to these fraudulent operations. Facebook fraudsters But the most exasperating question of all: Why hasn't Facebook, with all its power and resources, been more effective in tackling these issues? They've dabbled in efforts here and there, but it feels like they're playing a perpetual game of catch-up instead of being proactive. It's time for Facebook to step up its game and take a more assertive stance. No more half-measures, no more empty promises. It's high time they send a clear message to those misusing their platform: fraud and deception will not be tolerated. Yet, the responsibility doesn't lie solely with Facebook. This issue demands a concerted effort from the entire digital marketing community and the public. It's not a problem just for users. It's a collective challenge that Facebook, as a major player in the digital landscape, must address proactively. Facebook, The Colossal Letdown! Oh, Facebook, you colossal letdown! It's infuriating how this social media giant continues to shield scammers, spammers, fake profiles, and allows fraudulent operations to persist. The fact that Facebook still hasn't managed to tackle the plague of fake profiles and fraudulent activities is mind-boggling. It's like watching a never-ending circus of deception and deceit, where the bad actors thrive, while the rest of us are left exasperated and defenseless. Fake Profiles Let's talk about fake profiles, shall we? These nefarious imposters invade the platform, stealing people's identities and spreading disinformation with reckless abandon. You'd think that with Facebook's resources and technology, they'd have a handle on this by now. But no, the fake profiles continue to multiply, clogging our feeds with spurious content, scammy links, and downright lies. Spammers And what about the spammers? Facebook, it's as if you're hosting a never-ending spamfest where users are inundated with unsolicited advertisements and scams. These spammers parade around, exploiting the platform for personal gain while the rest of us are left to wade through the digital garbage they leave behind. Fraudulent Operations The real kicker is how Facebook allows fraudulent operations to flourish, even when they're blatantly reported. It's as if they're turning a blind eye to the cries of their users, letting these scammers run wild. How many times have we reported these fraudulent accounts and activities, only to see them continue unimpeded, like cockroaches surviving a nuclear apocalypse? One would expect that a platform as influential and ubiquitous as Facebook would have a robust system in place to weed out these charlatans. Yet, instead of being proactive, they react sluggishly, offering empty promises of change that never materialize. It's a disservice to its users, both individuals and businesses, who depend on the platform to connect, communicate, and conduct business. It’s about time Facebook to take real, decisive action against these bad actors, to step up and do their part to protect the integrity of their platform. It’s also time the tech giant to take a hard look in the mirror and make the necessary changes to create a safer, more trustworthy digital space for all. The tolerance of deception must come to an end. The frustration is palpable. Facebook's unwillingness to address the issue of scammers, spammers, fake profiles, and fraudulent operations is not only disappointing but also a disservice to the online community. Users deserve better, and the digital world, in general, should not have to suffer under the weight of Facebook's indifference. So, here's my rallying cry: Let's stop waiting around for Facebook to do the right thing. They must prioritize transparency, honesty, and accountability. But we, the digital marketing community and the broader public, need to get off our duffs and take a stand. Let's actively engage with this issue, demand accountability, and support initiatives to eradicate fraudulent practices. In a nutshell, the digital marketing industry thrives when it's built on trust and transparency. Facebook's reluctance to decisively tackle fake profiles and fraudulent operations is a hindrance to progress. It's time to raise our collective voice, demand accountability, and work together to create a safer, more honest digital marketing landscape that benefits everyone. It's time for action; it's time for change.

Facebook's Inexcusable Tolerance for Fake Profiles and Fraudulent Operations

ফেইক প্রোফাইল এবং প্রতারণামূলক অপারেশনের জন্য ফেসবুকের অমার্জনীয় সহনশীলতা

Facebooks unentschuldbare Toleranz gegenüber gefälschten Profilen und betrügerischen Operationen

La imperdonable tolerancia de Facebook hacia los perfiles falsos y las operaciones fraudulentas

La tolérance inexcusable de Facebook à l'égard des faux profils et des opérations frauduleuses

फर्जी प्रोफाइल और धोखाधड़ीपूर्ण संचालन के लिए फेसबुक की अक्षम्य सहनशीलता

Facebookの偽プロフィールと不正行為に対する許しがたい寛容さ

가짜 프로필 및 사기 행위에 대한 Facebook의 변명할 수 없는 관용

A tolerância indesculpável do Facebook para perfis falsos e operações fraudulentas

Непростительная терпимость Facebook к фейковым профилям и мошенническим операциям

Facebook'un Sahte Profillere ve Hileli Operasyonlara Karşı Bağışlanamaz Toleransı

Sự khoan dung không thể tha thứ của Facebook đối với hồ sơ giả mạo và hoạt động lừa đảo

Facebook 对虚假个人资料和欺诈操作的不可原谅的容忍

USA v. Google LLC Court Filing, retrieved on January 24, 2023 is part of . You can jump to any part in this filing . This is part 25 of 44. HackerNoon’s Legal PDF Series here IV. GOOGLE’S SCHEME TO DOMINATE THE AD TECH STACK D. Google Responds to the Threat of Header Bidding by Further Excluding Rivals and Reinforcing Its Dominance 2. Google Blunts Header Bidding By “Drying Out” the Competition b) Google Further Stunts Header Bidding by Working to Bring Facebook and Amazon into Its Open Bidding Fold 187. Even before the rise of header bidding, Google had identified Facebook as a potential competitive threat. Facebook had at one point shown ambitions to challenge Google as a full-stack ad tech competitor, acquiring a publisher ad server in 2013 and a video advertising SSP in 2014, though both products were later shuttered. Years later, Facebook recognized that any full-stack ad tech strategy “is subject to one bottleneck and intermediary—Google. They ‘own’ the Ad Server, and hence the last mile relationship with publishers.” Facebook further observed that “[o]ther players in the market, such as Amazon, recognize that unseating Google, and its relationships with publishers is hard, and are also choosing to build on top of Google’s rails.” 188. Though it had abandoned its efforts to be a full-stack competitor, Facebook still aimed to grow its advertising business beyond its owned and operated (“O&O”) digital properties (e.g., Facebook Blue and Instagram apps), which were increasingly supplyconstrained. As the number of advertisers on these properties grew, demand threatened to outpace available inventory; Facebook sought publisher inventory outside Facebook to satisfy this unmet advertising demand. In 2014, it launched Facebook Audience Network (“FAN”), which Facebook described as the “power of Facebook ads, off-Facebook.” FAN allowed Facebook advertisers to extend their campaigns outside of Facebook O&O properties with a oneclick, opt-in button. 189. At launch, FAN primarily worked with mobile app advertisers to place ads in other mobile apps in order to drive app installs and engagement. It later expanded to open web on mobile devices. By 2016, FAN was participating in the growing header bidding movement, partnering with header bidding wrappers to submit real-time, simultaneous bids, and eventually launching full-scale header bidding in 2017. 190. As a large ad network connected to millions of Facebook advertisers, FAN also competed with Google to lock up available publisher inventory for its advertisers. Prior to joining Open Bidding, Facebook executives foresaw a status quo of “hand-to-hand combat” between the companies to secure access to sufficient inventory from publishers. Google feared such competition with Facebook would end up “eat[ing] margin,” and that Google might “respond identically” through deals with top publishers, thus “driving a price war.” Facebook was equally leery of such a future, with one executive fretting that the “significant investment required to lock up inventory through direct deals” with publishers would “[l]ikely start a race to the bottom on margin.” 191. Google took note of FAN’s launch and kept a wary eye on FAN as it grew, describing Facebook as “a unique competitive challenge for us, both short- and long-term” because of its “strength in ad formats and targeting.” Google understood Facebook’s reach with over a billion users, and it understood that just as Google had valuable targeting and demographic data from its O&O properties—including Search, Gmail, YouTube, Android, and Play Store—Facebook, too, had a massive amount of valuable data from its O&O properties. Even though Facebook had largely given up on building a direct competitor to Google’s publisher ad tech stack, Google saw looming “[d]isintermediation [t]hreats” to DFP from “[l]arge [n]etworks with unique data and advertiser scale seek[ing] direct inventory access[,] [g]oing direct to pubs or using existing [third-party] channels like Header Bidding.” By contrast, Google characterized full-stack competitors as “historical competition” of little concern: “This is a short-term threat and we are well positioned here.” 192. As FAN began to test and use header bidding, Google grew increasingly alarmed at “the existential threat posed by Header Bidding and FAN.” Google strategized over how to respond to FAN’s entry into header bidding, and in September 2016, Google laid out a plan to bring FAN into Google’s Open Bidding program. Significantly, Google concluded that bringing FAN demand into Open Bidding was a better alternative to slow publisher adoption of header bidding than “[a]ggressively mak[ing] [Open Bidding] much better than [header bidding].” 3. Rather than making a better product and competing on the merits, Google sought a deal with Facebook to bring FAN into Google’s Open Bidding—away from rival exchanges’ header bidding auctions—to “dry out” the nascent threat posed by header bidding. If competition with Facebook was inevitable, it would be better for Google to compete on a field it still controlled, with the many advantages it had constructed for itself, thus protecting DFP’s market dominance. Indeed, Google concluded that while it “[c]annot avoid competing with FAN,” it could, through a deal with Facebook, “build a moat around our demand.” And as Google’s product leadership would ultimately recommend to CEO Sundar Pichai, with a Google-Facebook deal, “[f]or web inventory, we will move [FAN’s] demand off of header bidding set up and further weaken the header bidding narrative in the marketplace.” Facebook, meanwhile, was frank in its assessment of Google’s motivation for the deal: “What Google wants: To kill header bidding (us baptizing [Open Bidding] will help significantly).” 194. Ultimately, in September 2018, after a long negotiation and approvals by each company’s top brass—including Pichai, Mark Zuckerberg, and Sheryl Sandberg—Google and Facebook entered into a “Network Bidding Agreement” (“NBA”). The deal provided Facebook with unique terms, including a contractual promise of no last look and direct remittance to publishers, ensuring that Facebook would continue to maintain its publisher-facing relationships. In exchange, Facebook committed to a minimum annual spend on Open Bidding and was incentivized, through an all-units, tiered volume discount, to shift spend to Open Bidding and away from possible alternative header bidding avenues. 195. Having tried and failed to challenge Google as full-stack competitor—in part because of Google’s anticompetitive conduct described above—Facebook ultimately resigned itself to operating on top of Google’s rails. While the NBA satisfied Facebook’s need for increased access to publisher inventory, Facebook recognized that it would also “reduce our future optionality to build our own ad tech and the likelihood of a newbie like Amazon[, which had introduced a header bidding wrapper,] succeeding.” Facebook believed that, while perhaps “inevitable,” the deal would nevertheless “accelerate Google’s stranglehold on ad tech.” Facebook’s then-VP of Partnerships opined that “by doing this deal, we will cement [Google’s] position of power.” 196. Amazon’s TAM posed a different competitive threat to Google’s dominance. It allowed publishers to solicit bids from multiple ad exchanges via a single call from a webpage to Amazon’s extensive network of servers. And Amazon took only a small one cent CPM fee— much lower than Open Bidding’s 5% fee—for every transaction that flowed through TAM. Google initially feared TAM could aggregate advertising demand in a way that challenged Google’s ad exchange and publisher ad server, leading Google to ask Amazon what it would take for Amazon to stop investing in its header bidding product. However, Amazon rebuffed such requests and continued to develop and deploy TAM. But as with other header bidding solutions, TAM could not fully circumvent all of the restrictions and preferences baked into Google’s ad tech products, which website publishers still relied upon. For example, TAM remained subject to a “last look” by Google’s ad exchange, allowing Google’s ad exchange to win any impression that would otherwise flow through TAM by matching the competing price from TAM. 197. Google’s Open Bidding—and Google’s efforts to shift the focus of other major ad tech companies like Facebook from header bidding toward Open Bidding—stunted header bidding’s adoption, leaving header bidding unable to pose a true threat to Google’s monopoly power. In doing so, Open Bidding achieved its goal of blunting the growth of header bidding and protecting Google’s publisher ad server. Today, Google still has its publisher ad server monopoly. Header bidding persisted, but its adoption stagnated. And Google turned to other, more surreptitious methods to restrain competition and “dry out” ad exchanges using header bidding. Continue Reading . Here About HackerNoon Legal PDF Series: We bring you the most important technical and insightful public domain court case filings. This court case 1:23-cv-00108 retrieved on September 8, 2023, from is part of the public domain. The court-created documents are works of the federal government, and under copyright law, are automatically placed in the public domain and may be shared without legal restriction. justice.gov

Google Brings Facebook and Amazon into Its Open Bidding Fold

Google incorpora a Facebook y Amazon a su proceso de licitación abierta

Google intègre Facebook et Amazon dans son programme d'enchères ouvertes

Google Facebook और Amazon को अपने ओपन बिडिंग फोल्ड में लाता है

Google、FacebookとAmazonを自社の公開入札に参加させる

Google traz Facebook e Amazon para seu grupo de licitações abertas

Google đưa Facebook và Amazon vào cuộc đấu thầu mở

谷歌将 Facebook 和亚马逊纳入公开竞价范围

Today, around 25% of Facebook accounts , with 70% of the victims being locked out of their accounts. And in many cases, the victim has no idea they've been hacked until it's too late. have been compromised 6 Signs Your Facebook Account Has Been Hacked Here are some signs that someone is poking around your Facebook account: You find strange posts in your timeline. Some of your personal details have been altered(user name, birthday, email) You find friend requests sent to people you don’t know. Your password has been changed. An increased amount of spam or suspicious links. Complaints from friends about strange messages or posts coming from your account. How to Confirm That Your Facebook Account Has Been Hacked Once you suspect that your account has been compromised, you can easily confirm by clicking on your profile picture in the top right corner and then clicking . \ Settings & Privacy After that, click . Settings In the top left corner, select , then click . Password and Security Password and Security Finally, under the section, ensure all active portals are associated with you. \ Device Logins How to Avoid Your Facebook Account Being Hacked To stop your Facebook account from being hacked, you’ll have to be very proactive in three different ways: Password Protection Privacy Settings Human Error 1. Password Protection It’s easy to make mistakes when it comes to picking out a password. For example, use the same password for more than one account online. These types of common mistakes lead to accounts getting hacked every day. two-thirds of Americans Here are some ways to make sure your password is as secure as humanly possible: Create A Strong and Secure Password Once a hacker learns your Facebook password, it’s all over. Your password needs to be easy enough for you to remember (or store somewhere) and long enough to be impossible to guess. One of the best ways to make sure that your password is strong is by including numbers, symbols, and a mix of upper and lower case letters. Safely Store Your Password If your password is one that’s not easy to remember, make sure to write the phrase down and store it somewhere only you know how to access. You can also use a password manager to store your computer's password safely. There may already be a password manager on your device, but it’s often best to find a password encrypting app that’s not built in. Create a Password Just For Facebook As a general rule, you should create a different password for every social media service you use. If a hacker gets your Facebook password, you don’t want them getting into your TikTok, Instagram, and other accounts as well. Make sure the strong password you create is just for Facebook. Change Your Password Every Six Months You can’t be too safe when it comes to password protection. Changing your password at least every six months makes it extremely difficult for hackers to crack it. This advice goes for any password you have. 2. Privacy Settings Facebook is aware of the problems that many of its users have when it comes to their accounts getting hacked. As a countermeasure, Facebook has provided a few privacy settings you can use to help protect yourself: Enable Two-factor Authentication You can think of two-factor authentication as an extra layer of protection that keeps unethical hackers from poking around your account. This is done by forcing you to authenticate your account by sending you a text message to confirm it’s actually you signing in. To enable two-faster authentication: Click on your profile picture, then open up the settings. In the top right corner, click . Password and Security Under , click again, then select . Account Settings Password and Security Two-factor Authentication From here, follow the on-screen prompts to turn this option on. Use Login Alerts If you really want to feel safe about your account security, you can receive an alert every time someone logs into your account. Once you know someone has logged in that’s not you, you can try to quickly solve the problem before it’s too late. To turn on login alerts, click on your profile image and navigate to your settings. Then click on in both the and . Password and Security Accounts Center Account Settings In the settings, select . Security Checks Login Alerts Make Your Account Private One of the ways that hackers figure out your password is by piecing together clues from your personal information. You can limit the personal information these bad actors get from you by making your account private. You can do this by opening up the Privacy page in your settings, then, in the Your Activity section, click Edit at the end of the “Who can see your future posts” line. From there, follow the on-screen prompts to make your account private. 3. Human Error At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how much protection you’ve surrounded yourself with if you let a scammer use social engineering against you. Here are some of the best ways to ensure that you don’t get tricked into giving your Facebook password: Don’t Accept Random Friend Requests One of the sneaky ways that scammers get your information is by creating fake accounts and befriending you. If you have your account set to tell your friends when your birthday is, for example, a scammer account in your friends list will be notified about your birthday and then use that information against you. To be safe, only accept friend requests from people you know. Only Use Trusted Computers Avoid using public computers to log in to Facebook as much as you can. You never know who the next person who uses the computer will be and if they are a good or bad actor. If you absolutely have to use a public computer, just make sure to log out of your account the second you leave. Block Suspicious People If someone you’re interacting with seems fishy and you don’t know who they are personally, block them. There are plenty of good people on the internet and you don’t need to deal with suspicious people. Going on a blocking spree is better than getting your account stolen. Final Thoughts Although hundreds of Facebook accounts get hacked daily, it’s easy to protect yourself once you know what to do. Make sure to follow the tips above to keep unethical hackers out of your account, and share this article with anyone you know who’s worried about their account getting stolen.

How to Protect Your Facebook Account From Being Hacked 

allows anyone to generate original music with just a text prompt. In this guide, I'll walk you through how to use this creative AI model to enhance your musical workflow. MusicGen Have you ever struggled with writer's block when composing a new song? Or do you want an AI assistant to help you brainstorm new melodies and harmonies? Facebook's MusicGen model makes musical ideation and experimentation quick and easy. We'll look at: MusicGen's capabilities for generating music from text Step-by-step instructions for using MusicGen via Replicate's API Let's see how MusicGen can unlock new creative possibilities for musicians, composers, and anyone looking to generate unique, production-ready music. Generate Original Music with Text Prompts MusicGen allows you to generate musical ideas just by describing the mood, genre, instruments, etc. in a text prompt. Here are some of the creative ways you can use text-to-music generation: - Get new melodic or harmonic ideas based on a text description when you're stuck. Overcome writer's block - Easily try variations by tweaking the text prompt. Experiment and iterate - Generate music in styles you're less familiar with. Explore new genres - Create custom background music for videos, podcasts, games, and more. Produce background music - Prime the model with an existing melody to generate variations. Remix melodies MusicGen delivers production-ready clips, in your choice of .mp3 or .wav format up to 8 seconds long. The samples can be used as inspirational sketches or incorporated directly into a composition. About the MusicGen Model MusicGen was created by 's AI Research team in 2023. It's an auto-regressive transformer model trained on licensed music data. Facebook The model generates 4 parallel melodic streams representing different musical elements like bass, drums, harmony, etc. This structure allows it to produce musically coherent compositions in a variety of genres and styles. MusicGen offers a few different model sizes. The base model used on Replicate is "Melody" which is optimized for text-to-audio generation. There is also a larger model optimized for melody continuation. You can learn more details about the model architecture in the and on the project GitHub page. Facebook Research paper Model Limitations Like all AI models, MusicGen has a few limitations: MusicGen's output is influenced by the provided prompts and melodies. Creative inputs can greatly impact the quality and uniqueness of generated compositions. The model's training data affects its musical style and output. It may not perfectly replicate every musical genre or style. MusicGen's generated music might require post-processing to achieve the desired level of polish and refinement. Understanding these limitations will help you make the most of MusicGen while also managing your expectations (or those of your customers). Understanding the Inputs and Outputs of MusicGen Inputs : Choose the model version for generation (e.g., "melody," "large," "encode-decode"). model_version : Provide a description of the music you want to generate. prompt : Influence the generated music by providing an audio file. input_audio : Specify the duration of the generated audio. duration : Choose whether the generated music should continue the melody of the input audio. continuation Other parameters like , , , and more allow you to fine-tune the output. top_k top_p temperature Outputs The output schema is a string representing a URI that points to the generated audio file. Step-by-Step Guide to Using the MusicGen Model In this section, we'll walk through a detailed step-by-step process to effectively use the MusicGen model for generating music compositions. Each step is accompanied by specific code snippets and explanations of what is happening. Step 1: Install the Node.js Client To begin, you'll need to install the Node.js client for Replicate. This client will enable you to interact with the Replicate API and run the MusicGen model. npm install replicate This command installs the necessary Node.js package named "replicate." Step 2: Set Up API Token Before you can access the Replicate API, you need to set up your API token as an environment variable. This token will authenticate your requests to the API. export REPLICATE_API_TOKEN=your_api_token Replace with your actual Replicate API token. your_api_token Step 3: Run the Model and Generate Music Now, let's run the MusicGen model to generate music compositions based on specified inputs. We'll use the Node.js client to make API requests. import Replicate from "replicate";

// Create a Replicate client instance
const replicate = new Replicate({
  auth: process.env.REPLICATE_API_TOKEN,
});

// Define input parameters for the model
const modelVersion = "melody";
const prompt = "Expressive piano melody";
const duration = 10; // Duration of the generated audio in seconds

// Run the MusicGen model
const output = await replicate.run(
  "facebookresearch/musicgen:7a76a8258b23fae65c5a22debb8841d1d7e816b75c2f24218cd2bd8573787906",
  {
    input: {
      model_version: modelVersion,
      prompt: prompt,
      duration: duration,
      // Other input parameters here
    },
  }
);

console.log("Generated audio URI:", output); In this code snippet: We import the class from the installed Node.js package. Replicate We create an instance of the client using your API token. Replicate We define the , , and for the music generation. modelVersion prompt duration We use the method to run the MusicGen model with the specified inputs. replicate.run() The generated audio URI is logged to the console. Step 4: Exploring Generated Audio After running the model, you'll receive an audio URI pointing to the generated music composition. You can use this URI to access and explore the generated audio. That's it! At this point, you have successfully utilized the MusicGen model to create a music composition based on your inputs. Conclusion Congratulations! You've successfully completed the step-by-step guide to using the MusicGen model for music composition. By following these instructions, you've harnessed the power of AI to generate unique and creative musical compositions. As you continue your journey into the world of AI-driven music, don't hesitate to experiment with different inputs and parameters to explore a wide range of musical possibilities. If you have any questions or need further assistance, feel free to reach out or refer to the resources mentioned in this guide. Happy music composition with AI! Further Reading If you're interested in exploring audio-related topics, here are some relevant articles that delve into AI applications for audio generation, manipulation, and analysis: Audioldm: Text-to-Audio Generation with Latent Diffusion Models Converting Speech into Text with OpenAI's Whisper Model Learn How to Harness the Power of AI for Lip-Syncing Videos with This Comprehensive Guide Also published here.

Make Music With Text Prompts Using Facebook’s MusicGen

Facebook struck launch gold with Threads, passing 100 million users in its first week by creating a frictionless sign-up via Instagram and keeping the product simple. In doing so, Threads has - despite the predicted drop-off that has it averaging around 20 million daily active users - cemented itself as Meta’s first successful product launch since Facebook. The surprise launch and stronger-than-expected user numbers of the “Twitter-killer” to be has invited pundits to take a trip down memory lane and recall all of the times Meta botched similar roll-outs: “Snapchat killer” Poke, “Gmail killer” Facebook E-Mail, “bitcoin killer” Libra, “FaceTime killer” Portal, “iPhone killer” Facebook phone, and so on and so forth. But there’s one lesser-known failure that is rarely given a proper look despite being a natural product extension and clear multi-billion dollar opportunity: Facebook Gifts. The Tale of Facebook Gifts Facebook Gifts was announced at the end of 2012 in a : the social network allowed users to send gifts to friends, with special emphasis on the previously-almighty Facebook birthday, engagements, or other life achievements. company blog post The gift-giver would select a gift, attach a digital card, and hit send. The recipient would see a “wrapped” gift on their wall, open it to reveal the gift and a personal message, enter their physical address, and receive the gift a few days later. Facebook even offered the recipient the opportunity to modify colors, sizes, and flavors, or exchange the gift for something of equal value. This may read like feature creep and a cheap attempt to jumpstart Meta’s struggling social e-commerce efforts in 2023, but it’s important to remember the context of 2012: when Facebook was a birthday juggernaut. The Facebook birthday became so prevalent and part of the zeitgeist, multiple articles were penned by people who described being . At its peak, an estimated 20% of one’s Facebook friends could be expected to post on your wall, resulting in an average of more than 100 notifications on one’s birthday. overwhelmed by the volume of birthday wishes Birthdays were such a high-traffic part of the Facebook experience that company product manager the question, “How would you improve Facebook Birthdays?” interviews once included The improvement of choice became deeper engagement: Facebook Gifts was born. Analysts and reporters were bullish on the concept, sure Gifts would turn into a profit center worth hundreds of millions in revenue. The Facebook Gifts marketplace launched with typical gift fare: chocolates, stuffed animals, and gift cards. If that doesn’t excite you, you’re not alone. So few people purchased physical gifts that Facebook pivoted the product to focus on digital gift cards. The pivot kept the feature afloat, but Facebook made a few errors that kept it from ever truly taking off. Facebook, which has never been shy about leveraging its interest graph and user data to drive advertising outcomes, prevented Facebook Gifts from doing the same. It seems like there are so many simple opportunities: Facebook knows who my dad is, when it’s his birthday, that he likes golf, and (probably, at the time) a bunch of location data that would have enabled a meaningful offer from any major golf brand. Targeted commerce transactions with clear attribution, like the one I just described, would be an easy sell for a direct-to-consumer brand or online re-seller, but Facebook’s sales org never got a crack at it as they instead chose to focus on mass appeal. Even those who enjoyed the Facebook Gifts experience likely never got to use it for a second full cycle: if your mom enjoyed the Facebook Gift she received in 2013, you had to go find it elsewhere in 2014. Facebook’s convictions were so weak here, they shut it down after about a year. The biggest miss isn’t the millions (or billions) of incremental revenue they should have earned in the past decade; it’s they didn’t take advantage of this window of opportunity to build a strong commerce arm that they so sorely need today. Their current efforts to deliver commerce on social (primarily via Instagram) are still clunky, and they’re still struggling to onboard great partners. Their failure to activate the next layer of birthdays on Facebook accelerated the drift into irrelevance for Facebook's Birthday. By my own experience ( ), Facebook birthdays are down 90% from their peak a decade ago. and confirmed by others While a person might expect to receive more than 100 birthday messages on the platform in 2013, that number has shrunk to 6-12. This is despite adding 1.6 billion new users since then - all of whom have birthdays. To their credit, Facebook to keep birthday engagement alive. In 2013, they started notifying you when your friends had birthdays. In 2014, they started doing cards, and in 2015, prompted people to leave video birthday wishes. tried The platform started creating celebratory videos from previously-uploaded content in 2016 and rolled out birthday charity fundraisers in 2017. But this doesn’t seem like innovation or anything that leads to the kind of opportunity they fumbled with Gifts. It reads like desperation to re-capture that Facebook birthday magic, and trying a little too hard. Coupling this trend with the rapid fragmentation of social media, with people retreating into their niche social networks and private group corners where they find more signal and less noise, it should be no surprise that Facebook features have also splintered off. Startups like use some special magic sauce to create a single-use app that brings birthdays back to the basics: ensuring that you don’t become that bad friend who misses your friend’s birthday. Birthday App Birthday App doesn’t push you to post publicly or over-complicate things, they just encourage simple engagement with your friend on their special day. It’s not surprising the app is gaining traction, but it is interesting to see Gen Z talk about it on Tik Tok, especially given their general distaste for Facebook and lack of history with the Facebook birthday experience. If recent history is any indication, it won’t be long before Facebook attempts to capture that Gen Z attention with a standalone Birthday app of their own - likely with a sign-on via Instagram.

Facebook’s Not-So-Happy Birthdays Offer New App Opportunity 

This article is copublished with The Verge. Read on our collaborator's site Major tax filing services such as H&R Block, TaxAct, and TaxSlayer have been quietly transmitting sensitive financial information to Facebook when Americans file their taxes online, The Markup has learned. The , sent through widely used code called the Meta Pixel, includes not only information like names and email addresses but often even more detailed information, including data on users’ income, filing status, refund amounts, and dependents’ college scholarship amounts. data The information sent to Facebook can be used by the company to power its advertising algorithms and is gathered regardless of whether the person using the tax filing service has an account on Facebook or other platforms operated by its owner, Meta. See our data here. GitHub Each year, the Internal Revenue Service processes individual returns filed electronically, and some of the most widely used e-filing services employ the pixel, The Markup found. about 150 million When users sign up to file their taxes with the popular service TaxAct, for example, they’re asked to provide personal information to calculate their returns, including how much money they make and their investments. A pixel on TaxAct’s website then sent some of that data to Facebook, including users’ filing status, their adjusted gross income, and the amount of their refund, according to a review by The Markup. Income was rounded to the nearest thousand and refund to the nearest hundred. The pixel also sent the names of dependents in an obfuscated, , format. but generally reversible TaxAct, which about three million “consumer and professional users,” also uses Google’s analytics tool on its website, and The Markup found similar financial data, but not names, being sent to Google through its tool. says it has TaxAct wasn’t the only tax filing service using the Meta Pixel. Tax preparation giant H&R Block, which also offers an online filing option that , embedded a pixel on its site that gathered information on filers’ health savings account usage and dependents’ college tuition grants and expenses. attracts millions of customers per year Impact Citing this investigation, three congressional Democrats for sharing sensitive taxpayer data with Facebook. Feb. 2, 2023: demanded that the Internal Revenue Service investigate tax preparation companies Following this investigation, , Meta, and Google about how users’ sensitive financial information was shared with the tech companies. Dec. 14, 2022: Sen. Elizabeth Warren and colleagues questioned tax filing companies TaxSlayer, another widely used filing service, sent personal information to Facebook as part of the social media company’s “advanced matching” system, which gathers information on web visitors in an attempt to link them to Facebook accounts. The information gathered through the pixel on TaxSlayer’s site included phone numbers, the name of the user filling out the form, and the names of any dependents added to the return. As with TaxAct, specific demographic information about a user was obfuscated but still usable for Facebook to link a user to an existing profile. TaxSlayer it completed 10 million federal and state tax returns last year. has said The Markup also found the pixel code on a tax preparation site operated by a financial advice and software company called Ramsey Solutions, which uses a version of TaxSlayer’s service. That pixel gathered even more personal data from a tax return summary page, including information on income and refund amounts. This information was not sent immediately upon visiting the page but only when visitors clicked dropdown headings to see more details of their report. Even Intuit, the company that runs America’s dominant online filing software, employed the pixel. Intuit’s TurboTax, however, did not send financial information to Meta but rather usernames and the last time a device signed in. In some circumstances, the pixel also gathered information like an order ID number and user’s email address after they signed in. “We take the privacy of our customers’ data very seriously,” Nicole Coburn, a spokesperson for TaxAct, said in an email. “TaxAct, at all times, endeavors to comply with all IRS regulations.” Angela Davied, a spokesperson for H&R Block, said the company “regularly evaluate[s] our practices as part of our ongoing commitment to privacy, and will review the information.” Megan McConnell, a spokesperson for Ramsey Solutions, said in an email that the company “implemented the Meta Pixel to deliver a more personalized customer experience.” “We did NOT know and were never notified that personal tax information was being collected by Facebook from the Pixel,” the statement said. “As soon as we found out, we immediately informed TaxSlayer to deactivate the Pixel from Ramsey SmartTax.” After The Markup contacted TaxSlayer, spokesperson Molly Richardson said in an email that the company had removed the pixel to evaluate its use. “Our customers’ privacy is of utmost importance, and we take concerns about our customers’ information very seriously,” she said, adding that Ramsey Solutions “decided to remove the pixel” as well. Rick Heineman, a spokesperson for Intuit, said the company’s pixel “does not track, gather, or share information that users enter in TurboTax while filing their taxes,” although Intuit “may share some non-tax-return information, such as username, with marketing partners to deliver a better customer experience,” like not showing Intuit ads on Facebook to people who have accounts already. The company said it’s in compliance with regulations but has modified the pixel to no longer send usernames. Mandi Matlock, a Harvard Law School lecturer focused on tax law, said The Markup’s findings showed taxpayers “providing some of the most sensitive information that they own, and it’s being exploited.” “This is appalling,” she said. “It truly is.” On Monday, after TaxAct was contacted by The Markup for comment, the company’s site no longer sent financial details like income and refund amount to Meta but continued to send the names of dependents. The site also continued to send financial information to Google Analytics. Also as of Monday, TaxSlayer and Ramsey Solutions had removed the pixel from their tax filing sites and TurboTax had stopped sending usernames through the pixel at sign in. H&R Block’s site was continuing to send information on health savings accounts and college tuition grants. As of Wednesday, after this story was published, TaxAct had removed the pixel from its tax filing web application but was still sending financial information to Google Analytics, and H&R Block told The Markup it removed the pixel from its tax filing website “to stop any client tax information from being collected.” The Markup verified that it had been removed. How the Meta Pixel Tracks Users Meta makes the pixel code freely available to anyone who wants it, allowing businesses to embed the code on their sites as they wish. Using the code helps both Facebook and the businesses. When a customer comes to a business’s website, the pixel might record what items the customer browsed, say, a T-shirt, for example. The business can then target its ads on Facebook to people who looked at that shirt, allowing the business to find an audience that may already be interested in its products. Meta wins financially too. it can use the data it gleans from tools like the pixel to power its algorithms, providing it insight into the habits of users across the internet. The company says The strategy has been successful for Facebook. In 2018, that there were more than two million pixels across the web—a massive data-harvesting operation most internet users never see. the company told Congress “The practice is ubiquitous,” said Jon Callas, director of public interest technology at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, who said he was left in “shock but not surprise” at The Markup’s findings. Some of the sensitive data collection analyzed by The Markup appears linked to default behaviors of the Meta Pixel, while some appears to arise from customizations made by the tax filing services, someone acting on their behalf, or other software installed on the site. For example, Meta Pixel collected health savings account and college expense information from H&R Block’s site because the information appeared in webpage titles and the standard configuration of the Meta Pixel automatically collects the title of a page the user is viewing, along with the web address of the page and other data. It was able to collect income information from Ramsey Solutions because the information appeared in a summary that expanded when clicked. The summary was detected by the pixel as a button, and in its default configuration the pixel collects text from inside a clicked button. The pixels embedded by TaxSlayer and TaxAct used a feature called “ .” automatic advanced matching That feature scans forms looking for fields it thinks contain like a phone number, first name, last name, or email address, then sends detected information to Meta. personally identifiable information On TaxSlayer’s site this feature collected phone numbers and the names of filers and their dependents. On TaxAct it collected the names of dependents. The data collected by the matching feature is sent in an obfuscated form known as a hash, which Meta states is used in order to “ .” help protect user privacy But the company can generally determine the pre-obfuscated version of the data—in fact Meta the hashed information to link other pixel data to Facebook and Instagram profiles. explicitly uses This pixel feature was turned off by default when The Markup set up a test pixel attached to a business account but could be turned on by clicking a toggle during setup. When TaxAct sent dollar amounts like adjusted gross income to Meta, they were transmitted as to a “ ,” which are sent only if the pixel is configured beyond the default by a website operator or another application the website operator adds to their site. parameters custom event TaxAct did not respond to questions about whether and why it configured the pixel in this manner. Once a tax return was filled out on taxact.com, information including an individual’s adjusted gross income, federal refund amount, and number of dependents was sent to Meta via the Meta Pixel. Data in the screenshots is not real user data. Source: taxact.com and The Markup There are limits to the types of data Meta says it will collect through the pixel. The company says it doesn’t want sensitive information sent to it, including financial data, and that it uses automated filtering to block potentially sensitive data. states that it prohibits sending information including bank account or credit card numbers or “information about an individual’s financial account or status.” Its help center Still, one specific type of prohibited data, income, was exactly what two tax sites sent to Facebook, The Markup found. Data sent to Facebook by TaxAct suggests it was also previously sending a parameter labeled “student_loan_interest,” which is now being filtered by the pixel before being sent. From January to July of this year, The Markup tracked websites’ use of the pixel as part of , a partnership with . For the project, participating users installed a browser extension that provided The Markup with a copy of all data shared with Meta via the pixel. the Pixel Hunt Mozilla Rally The Markup initially discovered sensitive information was shared by the tax preparers through data shared by Pixel Hunt participants. The Markup then signed up for accounts on the companies’ web applications and used the “Network” section of , a tool built into Google’s Chrome browser, to replicate and confirm the data. Chrome DevTools Earlier this year, with the help of Pixel Hunt participants, The Markup found sensitive data sent to Facebook on , , and the . the Education Department’s federal student aid application website crisis pregnancy websites websites of prominent hospitals Meta collects so much data even the company itself sometimes may be unaware of where it ends up. Earlier this year on a leaked Facebook document written by Facebook privacy engineers who said the company did not “have an adequate level of control and explainability over how our systems use data,” making it difficult to promise it wouldn’t use certain data for certain purposes. Vice reported At the time, a company spokesperson told Vice that Facebook has “extensive processes and controls to manage data and comply with privacy regulations.” In response to The Markup’s questions about the tax websites’ use of the pixel, Dale Hogan, a spokesperson for Meta, pointed to the company’s rules on sensitive financial information. “Advertisers should not send sensitive information about people through our Business Tools,” Hogan wrote in an emailed statement. “Doing so is against our policies and we educate advertisers on properly setting up Business tools to prevent this from occurring. Our system is designed to filter out potentially sensitive data it is able to detect.” Google spokesperson Jackie Berté said in an email that the company “has strict policies against advertising to people based on sensitive information” and that Google Analytics data “is obfuscated, meaning it is not tied back to an individual and our policies prohibit customers from sending us data that could be used to identify a user.” The IRS Closely Regulates Tax Data Nina Olson, the executive director of the nonprofit Center for Taxpayer Rights, was the national taxpayer advocate at the Internal Revenue Service between 2001 and 2019, a position in the agency meant to represent the interests of taxpayers. As part of her role at the IRS, she said, she contributed to the development of that govern disclosures of tax information. Olson said the IRS regulations controlling the way private tax filing services can use data are intentionally “very strong.” regulations Under the regulations she helped develop, tax preparers—including e-filing companies—can use the information they receive from taxpayers only for limited purposes; for anything beyond immediately facilitating filing, the preparer has to get signed consent from the user that explains the recipient and the precise information being disclosed. The government goes so far as to prescribe of requests for disclosure, saying it must be “the same size as, or larger than, the normal or standard body text used by the website or software package.” even the font size The penalties for disclosing data without consent are potentially steep: Fines and even jail time are possible, although Olson said she wasn’t aware of any criminal cases that have been pursued. The Markup reviewed the tax preparation websites for disclosures that specifically mentioned Meta or Facebook but did not find them. Instead, some companies included relatively broad disclosure agreements. Do they have a list saying they’re going to disclose the refund amounts, and your children, and your whatever ? to Facebook Nina Olson, Center for taxpayer rights TaxAct, for example, requested users approve sending their tax information to its sister company, TaxSmart Research LLC, so it could “develop, offer, and provide products and services” for users. It also stated “TaxSmart Research LLC may use service providers and business partners to accomplish these tasks.” H&R Block, meanwhile, included nearly the same disclosure request so “H&R Block Personalized Services, LLC” could provide products of its own. Those sites provided the user with the option to decline to share tax information, although data was shared with Facebook regardless of what option users chose, according to The Markup’s tests. Any disclosure from a tax preparer must provide the exact purpose and recipient to be in compliance, Olson said. “Do they have a list saying they’re going to disclose the refund amounts, and your children, and your whatever ?” she said. If not, she said, they may be in violation of regulations. to Facebook The IRS declined to comment or answer questions about whether any of the sites sharing tax information were in violation of tax law. No Way Out for Taxpayers American taxpayers have few options but to turn to private companies to file their returns. Unlike other countries, the United States has a for filing taxes, one that often requires the use of third-party tax preparers. heavily privatized system While in those other countries the government , after from private companies, tax preparers in the U.S. effectively act as middlemen between taxpayers and the government. handles the calculations, and taxpayers simply approve the numbers a successful lobbying push Tax preparation is now big business: that it’s a more than $11 billion industry in the United States. Market researchers have estimated A free preparation and filing option exists, but it’s limited to people making $73,000 or less and can be difficult to use. Companies offer their tax software at no charge through an agreement with the IRS but for not making the option easily available. have been criticized The IRS even effectively directs taxpayers attempting to file for free to some of the companies The Markup found using the pixel. A are part of the agreement, known as the Free File Alliance—including TaxAct and TaxSlayer. have been part of the program in the past. handful of tax preparation services TurboTax and H&R Block Harvard’s Matlock said The Markup’s findings showed the almost inevitable consequences of relying on for-profit companies to handle a government requirement. It’s a process that provides users little choice but to hand over their data to Facebook if they want to comply with the law, she said. “It’s frustrating because taxpayers have been pushed into the arms of these private, for-profit companies simply to comply with their tax filing obligations,” she said. “We have no choice, really, in the matter.” Update Nov. 23, 2022: This story has been updated to note when individual filing services stopped sharing customer tax data through the Meta Pixel. Correction Nov. 28, 2022: An earlier version of this story said no information was gathered by TurboTax past the sign-in page. In some circumstances, email addresses and order ID numbers were gathered. By , , and Simon Fondrie-Teitler Angie Waller Colin Lecher Also published here Photo by on Alex Haney Unsplash

Facebook Has Been Receiving Your Financial Information From Tax Filing Websites

This article is copublished with STAT. Read on our collaborator's site Meta is facing mounting questions about its access to sensitive medical data that found the company’s pixel tracking tool collecting details about patients’ doctor’s appointments, prescriptions, and health conditions on hospital websites. following a Markup investigation During a Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee , Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) requested that Meta—the parent company of Facebook and Instagram—provide a “comprehensive and precise” accounting of the medical information it keeps on users. hearing on Wednesday “There’s been substantial public reporting, controversy, and concern about the Meta Pixel product and the possibility that its deployment on various hospital systems’ websites, for example, has enabled Meta to collect private health care data,” Ossoff said. “We need to understand, as the U.S. Congress, whether or not Meta is collecting, has collected, has access to, or is storing, medical or health data for U.S. persons,” he added. In response to Ossoff’s question about whether Meta has medical or health care data about its users, Meta chief product officer Chris Cox responded, “Not to my knowledge.” Cox also promised to follow up with a written response to the committee. In June, The Markup that Meta Pixels on the websites of 33 of Newsweek’s top 100 hospitals in America were transmitting the details of patients’ doctor’s appointments to Meta when patients booked on the websites. reported We also found Meta Pixels inside the password-protected patient portals of seven health systems collecting data about patients’ prescriptions, sexual orientation, and health conditions. Former regulators told The Markup that the hospitals’ use of the pixel may have violated the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) prohibitions against sharing protected health information. “Advertisers should not send sensitive information about people through our Business Tools,” Meta spokesperson Dale Hogan wrote to The Markup in an emailed statement. “Doing so is against our policies and we educate advertisers on properly setting up Business tools to prevent this from occurring. Our system is designed to filter out potentially sensitive data it is able to detect.” Since The Markup’s Investigation: As of Sept. 15, 28 of the 33 hospitals have removed the Meta Pixel from their doctor booking pages or blocked it from sending patient information to Facebook. At least six of the seven health systems had also removed the pixels from their patient portals. The Markup reached out to the institutions who removed the pixel from their websites after our investigation published in June. As of press time, three institutions—Sanford Health, El Camino Health, and Henry Ford Health—had responded. Read their statements . here One health system, North Carolina–based Novant Health, mailed data breach notifications to following The Markup’s report. In the breach notification, Novant Health stated the pixel was added as part of a promotional campaign to encourage use of Novant’s MyChart patient portal, but “the pixel was configured incorrectly and may have allowed certain private information to be transmitted to Meta.” On Sept. 16, Novant amended its data breach notification post to state that Meta informed the provider that it “generally” filtered out patients’ sensitive medical information and that it did “not have information to return or destroy.” 1.3 million customers The North Carolina attorney general’s office the hospitals’ data sharing after calls from state lawmakers for a probe. stated it was “actively investigating” At least five class action lawsuits have been filed against Meta contending that the pixel’s data collection on hospital websites broke various state and federal laws. One, on behalf of a Baltimore-based MedStar Health System patient, claims that Meta Pixels collected patient information from at least 664 different hospitals’ websites. The other lawsuits were brought on behalf of patients of and hospitals in , , and . filed against the company Novant Health San Francisco Los Angeles Chicago “We Do Not Have an Adequate Level of Control” Meanwhile, developments in another legal case suggest Meta may have a hard time providing the Senate committee with a complete account of the sensitive health data it holds on users. In March, two Meta employees testifying in a case about the Cambridge Analytica scandal told the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California that it would be very difficult for the company to track down all the data associated with a single user account. “It would take multiple teams on the ad side to track down exactly the—where the data flows,” one Facebook engineer said, according to the , which was first reported by . “I would be surprised if there’s even a single person that can answer that narrow question conclusively.” transcript The Intercept The engineers’ comments echo the same worries expressed in a 2021 privacy memo written by Facebook engineers that was . leaked to Vice “We do not have an adequate level of control and explainability over how our systems use data, and thus we can’t confidently make controlled policy changes or external commitments such as ‘we will not use X data for Y purpose,’ ” the memo’s authors wrote. . This article was copublished with STAT, a national publication that delivers trusted and authoritative journalism about health, medicine, and the life sciences. Sign up for its health tech newsletter, delivered Tuesday and Thursday mornings, here: https://www.statnews.com/signup/health-tech/ Credits: and Todd Feathers Simon Fondrie-Teitler First published here Photo by on Colin Lloyd Unsplash

Hospitals Remove Facebook Tracker but Questions Still Remain

We once quipped that all anyone ever wanted to do over the internet was to . Didn't matter whether that was something you actually wanted or needed or even if it was something useful — as long as you were on the internet, you were a potential customer. sell you stuff And nothing proves that point more than an by this past week to begin charging users for a so-called subscription bundle. Yes, Papa Zuck wants to ride the by asking users to pay at least $11.99 per month to receive the coveted (?) verified badge on and that indicates you are who you say you are and not somebody . announcement Meta subscription-as-a-service train Facebook Instagram pretending to be George W. Bush $11.99 also gets you a slew of other benefits, including "help when you need it" with "access to a real person for common account issues," which presumably means that non-paying users will be relegated to a merry-go-round of automated messages that leaves them more confused than ever. So why now? Well, 2022 really wasn't kind to Meta or its founder Mark Zuckerberg, with both in their worth because of an insistence on a technology (aka the "metaverse") that is yet to gain widespread appeal. Despite laying off (with more expected in the ), Meta — which owns , , and (among others) — is on the hook for improving profitability and sales after it burned through billions in getting people to give a damn about VR (and by extension the metaverse) with nothing to show for it. losing billions 11,000 employees near future Facebook Whatsapp Instagram Whether this experiment — which will initially be rolled out in Australia and New Zealand later this week — will bear fruit is yet to be seen. Though the last time a billionaire offered users the ability to purchase the verified check mark on their social media website, it turned out . 🙄 as well as you'd expect Instagram ranked #1 in this week's while Facebook was trending on the #2 spot. Tech Company Rankings 👋 You’re reading HackerNoon's Tech Company News Brief, a weekly collection of tech goodness that combines HackerNoon's proprietary data with internet trends to determine which companies are rising and falling in the public consciousness. Subscribe to receive the newsletter in your inbox every Tuesday! here Microsoft Seeks Dominance in AI, But Also Gaming.. 🏌️ 's latest plan to monetize the internet has less to do with selling subscriptions and more with monopolizing its in artificial intelligence (though we wouldn't just yet.) Microsoft new-found relevance rule out subscriptions Ever since ChatGPT was released to the public at large, users have been with what the chatbot can do — prompting Microsoft to bake that technology within its search engine Bing. Well, sadly for the more freaky ones out there, Microsoft has now decided to the number of times users can interact with the Bing chatbot because it simply wasn't capable of and spewed nonsense like wanting to steal nuclear secrets. going nuts limit prolonged conversations In the background, however, Microsoft is already selling the idea of AI-powered Bing to advertisers so that when users ask something like "what are the best hotels in Mexico?", the chatbot could display hotel ads, Reuters . reports Meanwhile, the company is , trying to convince antitrust regulators in the EU to please, please, please let them acquire Activision-Blizzard — the producer of hits such as Call of Duty and World of Warcraft — so that the video game industry becomes more "competitive." (lol) hard at work is having none of it and wants regulators to block the deal. Sony Microsoft was trending on the #46 spot this week. Amazon Asks Employees to Return to the Office 🏃 , one of the largest employers in the U.S., an advisory to employees asking that they commute to the office at least three times a week. In a note explaining the decision, the e-commerce giant's CEO, Andy Jassy, said that learning and collaborating were a lot easier when employees worked in person, and teams bonded a lot better when they were face-to-face with each other. Amazon issued More power to Amazon, I guess.. The company was trending on the #38 spot this week. In Other News.. 📰 China's has taken heed of Meta's and decided it wants with VR and the metaverse. Tencent Holdings failures nothing to do Investors are of due to regulatory scrutiny. pulling out Binance in droves Elon Musk's fired some employees that happened to be unionizing at its Buffalo, New York facility. It said its decision by the unionizing efforts. Tesla was not prompted An Indian firm is taking work-life balance seriously, to ensure that employees leave the office after their shifts are over. taking steps And that's a wrap! Don't forget to share this newsletter with your family and friends! See y'all next week. PEACE! ☮️ — Sheharyar Khan, Editor, Business Tech @ HackerNoon

Facebook: Now Available at an Introductory Price of $11.99

Facebook: এখন $11.99 এর প্রারম্ভিক মূল্যে উপলব্ধ

Facebook: Jetzt zum Einführungspreis von 11,99 $ erhältlich

Facebook: ahora disponible a un precio de lanzamiento de $ 11.99

Facebook : maintenant disponible au prix de lancement de 11,99 $

फेसबुक: अब $11.99 की शुरुआती कीमत पर उपलब्ध है

Facebook: 11.99 ドルのお試し価格で利用できるようになりました

Facebook: 이제 $11.99의 초기 가격으로 이용 가능

Facebook: agora disponível a um preço inicial de US$ 11,99

Facebook: Artık 11,99 $ Tanıtım Fiyatıyla Kullanılabilir

Facebook: Hiện có sẵn với giá giới thiệu là $11,99

Facebook：现已推出，促销价 11.99 美元

This is by (source: ). Lichfield is the Editor-in-Chief of Wired. Twitter thread Gideon Lichfield @glichfield 03-21-2021 https://twitter.com/glichfield/status/1370735851882299393?embedable=true&thread=true Feature image generated via prompt of ‘A Deeper Look at Facebook's PR Strategy’ HackerNoon Stable Diffusion

A Deeper Look at Facebook's PR Strategy

As an online entrepreneur, chatGPT can help identify your target audience for Facebook and Google ads campaigns. Here is a step-by-step guide on how to use chatGPT to identify your target audience online. 1. Sign Up and Configure your ChatGPT Settings To use to identify your target audience for Facebook and Google ads campaigns, you must first sign up on the website and configure your ChatGPT settings. This configuration includes things like real-time response, tone, language, and a lot more. ChatGPT 2. Integrate ChatGPT into your Website and Social Media Channels No one can overstate the importance of integrating chatGPT into a website, as business owners have asserted being able to using chatbots. The ability to respond quickly to customers' queries is invaluable, and when you incorporate bots like chatGPT into your website, you do not just allow the bot to learn about your business, but you also give customers a quick response to queries. expand their business deals by 65% By integrating chatGPT into your website, you can help the bot learn more about your business and the interests of your customers. This information is crucial in developing an effective marketing strategy for Google and Facebook. 3. Input Specific Prompts and Queries on how to Identify your Target Audience for your Business Once you've configured chatGPT with your website and Facebook channels, you can ask the bot what is the most efficient way to identify your target audience for Facebook and Google ads campaigns. You'll get a range of answers to your questions, depending on the type of prompts you ask. Once you've gathered these answers, you can create additional prompts in order to narrow and focus them. 4. Edit the Response as much as possible and Repeat the Process Once you have received the responses from chatGPT, you should edit them as much as possible and narrow them down. You can edit the responses by adding details that are more specific to your business, such as your location, the uses of the products you're selling, and more. When you do this, the chatbot generates tailored responses based on the information you provide. For example, if you run a clothing store, you can use chatGPT to research and identify your target audience on Facebook. To do this, ask the bot to identify a specific target audience in a certain location (like "women in Austin who like to go out dancing"). You can narrow down your results by providing additional details about the type of clothing you sell (like "sexy dresses") or the age group of people expected to buy your clothing ("women between 18 and 25"). When you provide relevant information such as these, chatGPT will give you a more detailed result on the target audience for your Facebook and Google ads campaign. You can then use these results to direct your Facebook and Google ads campaign. 5. Generate Content related to your Target Audience's Needs The last thing you need to do if you want to use chatGPT for your Facebook and Google ads campaigns is generate content and ads that focus on your target audience. Creating relevant content through Google and Facebook ads is a marketing no-brainer. After all, report that content marketing generates the necessary leads and demands for their business. Creating relevant content, such as blog posts, social media posts, newsletters, and so on, helps you to convert your target audience into potential customers. over 67% of marketers Benefits of Using ChatGPT for Online Marketing/Campaigns ChatGPT offers a number of benefits for your online business. They include: 1. Fast Real-Time Response One of the biggest benefits of using chatGPT for your social media channels and websites is that you can get fast responses to customer queries. With the bot handling customer queries, you can focus your energy on solving more complicated issues for your customers. 2. Content Curation and Research for your Targeted Audience chatGPT allows you to easily create content that is properly researched and curated for your customer needs. For example, if you run a footwear store, you can easily create blog posts and social media content on why a particular piece of footwear is ideal for a certain activity or season. This content will help to arouse your target audience's interest in what you have to offer and draw them to your website or social media channel. 3. Customer Engagement You can use chatGPT to engage with potential customers on social media. When you post content on Twitter or Facebook, and people respond to your post, you can use chatGPT to reply to those responses under your original post. With enough engagement, you can get your brand name out there and attract potential customers to your website. Conclusion Using chatGPT as a marketing tool requires you to provide the bot with enough relevant information for it to get the specific results you want. The bot can then target audiences on Google and Facebook to generate leads and conversions for your business using different methods. Read through the article to understand how chatGPT helps identify your target audience for Google and Facebook ads campaigns.

How ChatGPT Can Help Identify the Target Audience for Google and Facebook Ad Campaigns

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4erAm-cJbg&embedable=true&transcript=true Image credit, Youtube ValorTV

Mark Zuckerberg Wears "My Mom Thinks I'm Cool" Tshirt & Mesh Shorts in 2005 The Facebook Interview 

This article is copublished with STAT. Read on our collaborator's site The Markup has found that Facebook is serving up ads and posts for the so-called “abortion pill reversal” procedure, a medically unapproved and potentially dangerous process that the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists says is “not based on science.” Facebook has been circulating this content for years, a practice that both lawmakers and anti-disinformation advocates have publicly criticized. But it’s especially controversial now as interest in medication abortion has spiked with the recent Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade and resulting physical clinic closures. We found 17 ads from two anti-abortion activist groups circulated on Facebook from October through March. We collected that data through our project, which gathers posts and group recommendations served to a national of Facebook users. Citizen Browser panel Meta’s own ad library showed another group’s abortion reversal ad was live on the platform in . And regular unpaid Facebook posts pushing the procedure also appeared in our Citizen Browser data as recently as . May June The ads appear to be addressed to people experiencing unwanted pregnancies who have just begun the two-step process of a medication abortion: one dose of mifepristone, which ends the pregnancy by blocking production of the natural hormone progesterone, and one of misoprostol, which induces contractions similar to a miscarriage. They encourage people who have taken the first pill to skip the second half and instead flood their bodies with progesterone, a hormone that promotes fetal growth, in an attempt to halt the process. Many of the posts list a toll-free number and website for that can connect callers with a physician to prescribe the progesterone. a 24/7 help line One website linked from an ad states that this “reversal” can be effective up to 72 hours after someone has taken the first pill and that the treatment has a “64-68% success rate.” It lists mild side effects, including sleepiness and lightheadedness. Medical experts say that there’s no evidence that the procedure works and that its potential side effects can be life-threatening. An by the University of California San Francisco Medical Center noted that the touted success rates come from three reports that were very limited, had no control groups, and lacked oversight by an ethics committee. issue brief “A systematic review of literature on the topic concluded in 2015 that there is no credible evidence that abortion ‘reversal’ improves the chances of continuing pregnancy,” it reads. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists that the procedure is “unproven and unethical.” states Aside from efficacy, a of the procedure’s safety at the University of California, Davis, had to be stopped before it was complete because three of the test subjects were hospitalized for severe hemorrhaging, although the reasons are unclear. study All three of the women took only the first half of the two-drug abortion pill regimen and skipped the second; then two took a placebo and one took progesterone. “All we could say was that there’s something from a safety standpoint going on—we don’t know exactly what it is—but it wasn’t safe to continue the study in otherwise healthy subjects,” said Dr. Mitchell Creinin, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at UC Davis, who led the study and is an on contraception and medication abortion. expert He added that perhaps a future study may provide more clarity. In the meantime, however, he says that “this treatment is unproven for both efficacy and safety” and that “every leading medical organization has said this is bogus.” In 2019, the American Medical Association in U.S. District Court in North Dakota to block a new state law that would require doctors to tell patients that a medication abortion may be reversed and where to get it done. filed a lawsuit The AMA called it an “experimental and unethical treatment” and “a patently false and unproven claim unsupported by scientific evidence.” The case is ongoing. At the time, North Dakota was one of eight states that had passed similar “compelled speech” laws. In its , the AMA argued that the legislative trend is “unmoored from medical science.” court complaint Meta says in that it prohibits ads that make misleading health claims, as well as ads containing content that’s been debunked by experts on that topic. its advertising policies At the same time, recent suggest that Facebook and Instagram have been removing users’ posts about the distribution and availability of abortion pills themselves—and even banning accounts that create those posts—since the Supreme Court’s ruling last month overturning Roe v. Wade. media reports A Meta spokesperson’s explained that Facebook wasn’t allowing posts involving the sale or gifting of pharmaceuticals; but critics said the company’s policy toward abortion-related content is confusing and unevenly enforced. statement Meta did not reply to multiple emails and direct messages to a spokesperson on Twitter requesting comment. Meta’s policy decisions are particularly relevant now. Because medication abortions only require a prescription and a mailing address, they currently exist in a rapidly changing . legal gray area Reproductive health advocates say this will make it an even more confusing environment for people trying to educate themselves and access health services in a timely way. Medication abortions now account for more than half of all abortions in the U.S., according to . a report this year Citizen Browser panelists saw multiple abortion pill reversal advertisements paid for by two anti-abortion activist organizations: Heartbeat International and Live Action. Andrea Trudden, Heartbeat International’s vice president of communications, told The Markup that abortion pill reversal is indeed safe and effective, and that the organization fields questions about this debate so often that it has a page on its devoted to it. website She claimed in an email that “[t]housands of women have been able to save their pregnancies and give birth to healthy children thanks to abortion pill reversal.” Trudden and others claim that UC Davis’s safety study showed the procedure was effective because in four of the five cases where progesterone was administered after taking the first abortion pill, a fetal heartbeat was detected two weeks later. However, Creinin said that because the study was halted early, there were not enough subjects for a statistical analysis on efficacy. Live Action and the advertiser appearing in Meta’s ad library, RETA Pregnancy Clinic & Family Resources, did not respond to requests for comment from The Markup. The text of one Live Action ad tells the story of “Shashana”: “Pregnant and abandoned by her baby’s father, Shashana took the abortion pill. She immediately regretted it and called Planned Parenthood—but they denied her help. Thankfully, she didn’t give up trying to save her baby and discovered the Abortion Pill Reversal Hotline. With the help of trained doctors, she was able to save her baby boy.” Credit:facebook.com Another Live Action ad has a close-up picture of a fetus and text that reads, “On day one, a baby’s DNA, gender, ethnicity, hair color, and eye color are determined. This is human development in the first 10 weeks of life. Did you know it is possible to reverse the abortion pill?” This ad was targeted toward women Meta had marked as interested in “pregnancy” and “motherhood.” When a Citizen Browser panelist saw it in early March, this ad had already been shared 36,000 times. Facebook has allowed ads on this topic for years. Google used to serve them up as well, but an advocacy group called the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) said Google removed the ads after the center published last September criticizing both Facebook and Google for targeting the ads to “children between the ages of 13 and 17.” a report In a statement to at the time, Facebook said “most of the ads were inactive or months or years old” and “many” had been removed for violating “our policies around offering adult products and services.” news organizations It did not address whether it would continue serving the ads to adults. According to our Citizen Browser data, the abortion pill reversal ads are not targeting minors on Facebook but rather adults. It is not clear whether these targeting choices were made by Facebook or the advertisers. “It’s incredibly disappointing, and also dangerous, that platforms have continued a pattern of inaction on this,” said Sarah Eagan, chief of staff at CCDH, in a recent interview. “These are known tactics used by anti-choice groups to leverage misinformation when people are at a point of vulnerability, searching for information that should be accurate about the choices that they may need to make.” She says CCDH now wants Meta to donate its profits from ads about abortion pill reversal to reproductive health organizations. She also says the company owes it to its users to develop a process to let people know that they’ve been exposed to misinformation and direct them toward better sources that have been vetted by medical experts. “There’s never been a more high-stakes time to crack down on misinformation around abortion and abortion access,” said Eagan. “This is really just a plea to Meta to do the right thing here.” Lawmakers are also taking note. In February of this year, Rep. Jerrold Nadler, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, sent to Meta asking why Facebook was continuing to promote content about a medical procedure known to be dangerous. a letter It also asked for documentation of the steps the company had taken and would take in the future to prevent the spread of abortion-related misinformation. In a March 11 responding to Nadler, Meta defended its decision to run the ads: “[O]ur rules related to misinformation, prescription drugs, or coordinating harm may apply to content about abortion,” its response read, in part. letter It noted that ads that advocate on the topic of abortion require prior authorization. “However,” the letter went on, “discussing controversial topics or espousing a debated point of view is not at odds with our Community Standards…. Meta allows posts and ads promoting legal health care services like abortion, as well as discussion and debate around abortion.” . This article was copublished with STAT, a national publication that delivers trusted and authoritative journalism about health, medicine, and the life sciences. Sign up for its health tech newsletter, delivered Tuesday and Thursday mornings, here: https://www.statnews.com/signup/health-tech/ By , , and Lauren Kirchner Maddy Varner Angie Waller Also published here Photo by on Shubham Dhage Unsplash

Facebook Ads Market Potentially Dangerous “Abortion Reversal” Procedure 

This is by (source: ). McGee is a correspondent for Financial Times. Twitter Thread Patrick McGee @PatrickMcGee_ 10-22-2021 https://twitter.com/PatrickMcGee_/status/1451619916994396164?embedable=true&thread=true Feature image generated via Prompt of ‘Google and Facebook collusion’ HackerNoon Stable Diffusion

Behind The Google and Facebook Collusion - A Thread

One of the largest pediatric networks in the country was sending personal information about children and their parents to Facebook, The Markup found. Nemours Children’s Health, which serves nearly half a million families in the U.S., had a Facebook tracking tool on its appointment scheduling website that shared details about the appointment with Facebook. The site also had a handful of other third-party trackers that share potentially sensitive information with data brokers. The Markup could not always determine what information the trackers were sending to data brokers, simply that the trackers were present. With Meta’s tracker, however, we found the Nemours site sending Facebook visitors’ IP addresses, information about the specific doctor and specialty the patient was scheduling an appointment with, and in some cases the first and last name of the child the appointment was for. That information, in combination with other data available to Facebook, could be used to link health conditions to individuals and to the Facebook profiles of their parents. And experts say the data-sharing with Facebook could violate patient privacy laws. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) covers health care providers like Nemours and services they provide, like scheduling appointments, said Charlotte Tschider, an assistant professor at Loyola University with a focus on information privacy and the health care industry. After The Markup reached out to Nemours, many of the trackers on the scheduling site were removed, but trackers from Facebook, Google, and Salesforce remained. Last week, after The Markup published a story about dozens of hospitals with Facebook, Nemours removed the Facebook tracker as well. sharing the sensitive health information of patients Not all health data is covered under HIPAA. The law specifically applies to health care providers, health insurance providers, and health care data clearinghouses. It also applies to companies that do businesses on behalf of those organizations, Tschider said. “When you are going to a covered entity’s website, and you’re entering information related to scheduling an appointment, including your actual name, and potentially other identifying characteristics related to your medical condition, there’s a strong possibility that HIPAA is going to apply in those situations,” Tschider said. The Markup found trackers on the Nemours site through our website scanning tool, . Blacklight A scan on May 9 showed the main website of the children’s health network, which boasts more than 95 locations in four states, had nine ad trackers and 10 third-party cookies. But its had more than double the number of trackers, with 25 ad trackers and 38 third-party cookies, including from companies like Facebook, Amazon, and Google. scheduling site There were also trackers from data brokers like Oracle, a tech giant that boasts data insights on more than , the advertising platform , and LiveRamp, which . 80 percent of the U.S. internet population MediaMath operates a data marketplace Blacklight also detected a session recorder on the page from the company Mouseflow. Session recorders can potentially track what people click on a page. Mouseflow’s website the company will sign a Business Associate’s Agreement, a legal agreement that needs to be in place to allow a HIPAA-covered organization to transfer covered health data to a third party. states When we asked whether such an agreement was in place between Nemours and Mouseflow, Mouseflow did not respond to the question. “Mouseflow does not allow the recording of PII or PHI. Mouseflow automatically masks IP addresses and all information website visitors are typing into form fields and search fields. This information is not being recorded,” Jakob Ohlsen Baagø, director of enterprise sales at Mouseflow, wrote in an email. “According to our terms, our customers are not allowed to record any PII or PHI and Mouseflow offers all the necessary tools to easily comply with this.”' Nemours Children’s Health did not respond to our requests for comment. Facebook collects data from websites , an analytics and marketing tool that developers can install on their websites. In 2018, that its pixel was embedded in more than two million websites. through the Meta Pixel Facebook told U.S. lawmakers The pixel can log specific actions on a page, like if a person on a retail site or signs of a product. The pixel is also present on non-commercial sites. adds an item to their shopping cart up for a free trial The Markup recently found . In that case, we found that Facebook was receiving such information from the FAFSA site as an applicant’s first name, last name, country, phone number, and email address. Facebook trackers on the Department of Education’s federal student aid application site Meta spokesperson Dale Hogan told The Markup that the company has systems that are supposed to detect and block sensitive health information coming from the pixel and other tracking tools. “Advertisers should not send sensitive information about people through our Business Tools as doing so is against our policies. While our system is designed to filter out potentially sensitive data it is able to detect, we are reaching out to Nemours Health directly,” Hogan said in an emailed statement. The Markup could not determine whether the Nemours data was in fact removed before storage, and Hogan did not comment on whether or not the data was retained or used by Facebook. A recent joint investigation by Reveal and The Markup found that the about appointments a reporter requested with crisis pregnancy centers. filters did not block information Pixels are primarily used by marketers who want to run targeted ads based on the data that Facebook collects—and hospitals aren’t immune to advertising needs. Health care companies spent more than $2.5 billion on marketing in 2018, . according to a study in the Journal of Medicine and Life The study noted that digital marketing gives the health care industry the “potential to significantly increase its coverage.” But privacy advocates worry that such marketing campaigns could end up leaking sensitive information about patients. “The hospitals have been incredibly greedy in trying to take advantage of social and digital media to capture potential new patients and to retain existing ones,” Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, said. “They mindlessly adopted Facebook’s pixel at the beginning of Facebook’s expansion without thinking of the consequences.” AddThis, a marketing company that Oracle bought in 2016, has trackers on the scheduling page but not the main website. The company offers a free tool that loads tracking cookies and pixels, claiming to collect “up to 30 data points” from each visitor, . The Markup reported in 2020 “Once companies know there’s a child that’s sick in the household, you can market to that child quite differently, you can appeal to emotions better, you can market to the family,” Katharina Kopp, the deputy director of policy at the Center for Digital Democracy, said. “The data that is out there undermines our rights to move around without being profiled and compared to people like us.” Experts said HIPAA requires covered entities like Nemours to protect health information that is linked to 18 kinds of personally identifiable information, including IP addresses. “So using a name, an appointment date, or an IP address in connection with health services of a covered entity would likely qualify for HIPAA [protected health information] status,” Tschider, the Loyola professor, said. The law provides an exemption for or in specific instances where patients consent to sharing their information. de-identified health information While the Meta Pixel hashes patients’ names before it collects that data from Nemours’ website, hashing would not prevent Facebook from being able to link a patient to their Facebook profile. In addition, the data can be sent alongside Facebook cookies that allow Facebook to link a user of the scheduling site to their Facebook profile and an IP address. “It is particularly unfair to do this about children,” Kopp said. “This is going to stick with the family and the child, potentially, for the rest of his or her life.” Credits: , Alfred Ng Simon Fondrie-Teitler Also published here Photo by on Brandon Holmes Unsplash

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