How Facebook's policies protect its worst users

The SEC has requested information from Facebook seeking to understand how much the company knew about Cambridge Analytica’s use of the data, these people said. The agency also wants to know how the company analyzed the risk it faced from developers sharing data with others in violation of Facebook’s policies, they added.

The SEC enforces securities laws that govern what must be disclosed to shareholders so they can make informed investment decisions. It is one of several government agencies investigating Facebook and its handling of user data.

NPR has reviewed information connected with the investigation and found 48 such accounts. They have names such as @ElPasoTopNews, @MilwaukeeVoice, @CamdenCityNews and @Seattle_Post.

“A not-insignificant amount of those had some sort of variation on what appeared to be a homegrown local news site,” said Bret Schafer, a social media analyst for the Alliance for Securing Democracy, which tracks Russian influence operations and first noticed this trend.

Facebook recently closed a privacy loophole that allowed third parties to discover the names of people in private, “closed” Facebook groups. A Chrome extension that was made specifically for marketers to harvest this information en masse was also shut down prior to Facebook’s move, after the social media network issued a cease-and-desist letter to the application’s makers earlier this year, according to a spokesperson.

Facebook’s decision came after members of a private group for women with a gene mutation associated with a higher risk breast cancer complained, concerned that their names might be exposed and open them to discrimination from insurers or other privacy violations. A spokesperson for Facebook said shutting down the ability to view members of closed groups was a recent decision based on “several factors,” but was not related to this group’s outreach.

An executive at one digital media company who said that its Facebook Watch show brought in tens of thousands of dollars of ad revenue said it could have made $1.5 million if the show had appeared on its own site.

You can almost count on one hand the number of black women – six – who work as senior managers or executives at Facebook in the U.S., accounting for less than 1 percent of those 769 jobs. The next layer of managers at Facebook isn’t more diverse: 34 out of a total of 2,816, or 1.2 percent.

The number of Hispanic women who are senior managers or executives can be counted on two hands – 10 – for about 1.3 percent of those jobs, according to the most recent documents Facebook filed with the federal government. Hispanic women hold 46 of the next layer of management positions at Facebook, or 1.6 percent.

The spectacular regeneration of King’s Cross in London in recent years has gone further. Glittering glass buildings have shot up alongside plant-covered walls, colour-changing fountains and kitsch billboards. Every part of the area now features something that looks like a prop - from steps covered in fake grass where people eat lunch to a giant neon swing that cries out to be photographed. Then, at King’s Cross station, there is the fictional platform 9¾ that featured in the Harry Potter books, where fans queue to “crash” through the barrier. There is even a professional photographer to mark your moment.

Kate Beavis, an expert in vintage interiors, thinks this kind of pop-up urbanism is becoming the norm. “The things you see on Instagram, such as pastel-coloured houses and walls, seem to be becoming more visible in cities and suburbs. Instagram selfie-wall opportunities are cropping up everywhere, even at events. This is now the norm, so it makes sense for architects to plan them in. What will happen is that all our communal areas will take on a new look and feel to match the Insta need, but, in reality, this is what a trend is: something popular that works into our spaces and life. In 10 years, it will be something else.”

Going private on Instagram means only people who follow you can see and share your content. If a friend drops a link to a funny meme from a private page into a group chat, only those who already follow the page will be able to see it. So, the thinking goes, anyone who wants to see it and can’t will smash the follow button.

“People go private because they get more followers when a follower sends a post to their friends and that person has to follow the account in order to see. It’s that simple,” says Jack Wagner, a Los Angeles–based director who has run several meme accounts. “It’s just a weird technique somebody noticed one day and now lots of people do it.”

A new analysis by real estate resource BuildZoom sheds additional light on the Menlo Park-based company’s efforts to build a satellite virtual reality HQ in and around Seattle. Over the last three years, Facebook has spent $106 million on construction and development permits for Oculus offices in Redmond.

In 2018 alone, Facebook spent $88.3 million on Oculus -related permits for as many as eight new offices in the area. BuildZoom’s analysis identifies five properties in particular, all on Willow Road in Redmond, that span more than 90,000 square feet of lab and office space. Those locations are 10545 Willows Rd., 10785 Willows Rd., 9805 Willows Rd., 9845 Willows Rd. and 9461 Willow Road.

Ultimately their fortunes all derive from the same place. “Social media is an amazing platform,” Jenner says. “I have such easy access to my fans and my customers.”

That and a large dose of tastemaking are pretty much her entire business, an invention of the Instagram age. Hewlett and Packard immortalized the garage–Jenner has her (or her mom’s) kitchen table. Her near-billion-dollar empire consists of just seven full-time and five part-time employees. Manufacturing and packaging? Outsourced to Seed Beauty, a private-label producer in nearby Oxnard, California. Sales and fulfillment? Outsourced to the online outlet Shopify. Finance and PR? Her shrewd mother, Kris, handles the actual business stuff, in exchange for the 10% management cut she takes from all her children. As ultralight startups go, Jenner’s operation is essentially air. And because of those minuscule overhead and marketing costs, the profits are outsize and go right into Jenner’s pocket.

Ask anyone who has dealt with persistent harassment online, especially women: this is not usually what happens. Instead, the harasser keeps pushing and pushing to get the reaction they want with even more tenacity and intensity. It’s the same pattern on display in the litany of abusers and stalkers, both online and off, who escalate to more dangerous and threatening behavior when they feel like they are being ignored. In many cases, ignoring a troll can carry just as dear a price as provocation.

The first easy question to ask of the big tech companies: What are they, really? Certainly not what they tell consumers they are. Twitter and Facebook are not merely places to hang out with or meet people, or competitors with the news media, but entirely new forms of discourse built around centralized advertising marketplaces. Uber is not a car company but an attempt to build a new private transit layer over the places in which it operates. Amazon is not a competitor to bookstores or brick-and-mortar retail — or even a store of any kind — but a new logistical model for the exchange and transport of goods, media and services.

“I thought it was a tennis ball or something,” Sakasegawa said in an interview Thursday. He’d just passed a guy walking his dogs. He ran to catch up to the rolling object, and it was only as he got closer that he noticed it was actually a piece of fruit.