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NYS to Open Probe into Facebook’s Massive Privacy Breaches

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New York State is ready to open a probe into Facebook because it appears it has been acquiring a ton of data from users’ phones that is supposed to be private, according to Crain’s.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Facebook would get some information from applications that were set to send the personal and sensitive data right to the social media tech company. The paper added that Facebook could even learn details about things like heart rate and ovulation cycles.

The story prompted Gov. Andrew Cuomo to tell his Department of State and Department of Financial Services to start looking into the matter by “immediately” investigating possible consumer privacy breaches. The governor is convinced that Facebook violated people’s privacy and wants the federal government to do its part by using regulators to put a stop to Facebook’s privacy breaches. Facebook says that its applications always ask for consent when it comes to data sharing and collection.

The Jewish Voice has reported about Facebook’s secretive activities and practices. Facebook changed the way people communicate and share information, and the company created a ton of value at the same time.

The social media site that got its start as a social network for Harvard students has grown to one of the largest companies ever and has billions of users, or at least that’s the appearance. Plainsite reports that social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter continue dealing with fake accounts, so it’s difficult for the public to know just how many profiles are fake.

So many online interactions with random people could be fake, and the lack of total transparency from these companies is leading to a confidence crisis in which users can’t even be sure they’re ever talking to a real, genuine person.

Despite all of the ongoing issues and privacy breaches, including historic debacles like allowing Russia to interfere in the 2016 presidential election by manipulating Facebook and its users, the scope of the fake account problem could be far worse than anyone outside of Facebook could have imagined.

Plainsite believes Facebook is not being forthright “about the scale of its problem with fake accounts, which likely exceed 50 percent of its network. Its official metrics—many of which it has stopped reporting quarterly—are self-contradictory and even farcical. The company has lost control of its own product.”

There are a number of ways that fake accounts poison the experience and environment. People can buy Facebook ads with the intention of being able to really sharpen the messaging to cater to people’s specific needs. All of the highly valuable personal information that can be mined from people’s Facebook activity isn’t so valuable if a considerable amount of accounts aren’t even real.

The fake accounts will even try to avoid automatic detection by throwing in random activity patterns. Facebook isn’t able to identify these phonies as easily because the random things the account will do masks the true patterns of deception.

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