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Facebook is rejecting claims that it let advertisers target users based on their current mood. It says research into the technology was carried out, but not used for advertising. "The Australian" newspaper report was based on leaked internal data ... that says Facebook could figure out mood swings based on combined data from user posts and pictures, the interactions they had with other users, and other activity on the site. Some of the moods which Facebook could reportedly discover included feeling anxious, defeated, nervous, overwhelmed, silly, stressed, stupid, useless or a failure. ... (view more)

Facebook has admitted it needs to do more to monitor content after a video of a murder was on the site for just over two hours. Shockingly, it took more than 100 minutes for a user to report the video to Facebook. The video was one of three produced ... by the killer, Steve Stephens, who later took his own life while being pursued by police. Stephens posted a video to Facebook saying he planned to commit murder. Two minutes later he posted another video showing his killing of 74-year-old Robert Godwin. Shortly after that Stephens used Facebook's live broadcast feature to both confess to the ... (view more)

A Swiss man is being sued for defamation for "liking" Facebook posts. But the court case looks set to concentrate on the individuals involved, rather than the technological principle. "The Local," a English-language Swiss news site, reports that the ... man had clicked the "like" button beside eight different posts by a range of animal rights groups. Each of the posts accused another man involved in the animal rights movement of anti-Semitism and racism. (Source: thelocal.ch ) It's an intriguing legal point as technically the man being sued for libel has not ... (view more)

Facebook has joined a host of tech companies and non-profit groups to launch a $14 million project to fight fake news. The News Integrity Initiative's aim is to help people "make informed judgments about the news they read and share online." The ... project will be run by the Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York (CUNY). As well as Facebook, it's backed by Firefox developer Mozilla, online ad company AppNexus and journalism investment group, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, among others. The main activity will be holding events at a range of ... (view more)

A major "hack" of prominent Twitter accounts has raised awareness of a big security loophole. The problem isn't with Twitter itself, but rather third party tools. This morning several thousand accounts belonging to public figures and major ... organizations and businesses posted identical messages. The tweets included a swastika symbol and references to Nazi views in Germany and the Netherlands and are thought to relate to an ongoing political spat between the Netherlands and Turkey. (Source: bostonglobe.com ) There's never a good time for accounts to be hijacked in such a way, ... (view more)

A major news organization says Facebook doesn't do enough to remove images that exploit children. The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) says the site removed just 18 out of 100 images that it reported as part of an investigation. The test was ... part of a follow-up to a report last year about people using members-only groups on the site to share inappropriate images of children. At the time, Facebook said it was improving its moderation system. To see if that was the case, the BBC used Facebook's formal reporting button to report 100 images that appeared to breach the site's ... (view more)

Facebook is to make it easier for people to offer practical help after a crisis or natural disaster. It's an update to an existing tool for people to check up on loved ones. When triggered, the "Safety Check" feature will check which Facebook users ... are in the relevant physical area, based on their IP address or the location information on their mobile device. They'll then be asked to choose options of "I'm safe" or "I'm not in the area." Their Facebook friends will then see them listed as safe. The idea is that publicizing somebody as being " ... (view more)

Facebook is making several changes to its Trending Topics section that, in effect, serves as its news headlines. The changes are designed to make it harder for people to game the system with bogus or intentionally provocative stories. Trending ... Topics is not about the stories that appear in the main news feed. They will continue to be decided by how many of the user's friends post, share or comment on links to the relevant web pages. Instead, Trending Topics is a separate list that appears on the right hand side of the page when users are logged in to the Facebook website. Clicking on the ... (view more)

Facebook is testing tools to make it easier to combat "fake news" posted to the site. It's using Germany as a test bed for the tools, which will include making it harder for scammers to make money from false stories. The term "fake news" came to ... prominence last year and has been applied to all sorts of types of writing, including opinionated pieces and legitimate articles with unintended factual errors. However, what Facebook is targeting is material that has the appearance of legitimate news reporting but is largely completely fictional and designed either to spread ... (view more)

Facebook has denied claims that it allows racial discrimination in advertisements based on houses and jobs. A lawsuit may come down to interpretation of anti-discrimination laws. The lawsuit is filed against Facebook and "up to 9,999" unnamed ... co-defendants, though that appears to be a legal procedural move. It says Facebook has violated both the Fair Housing Act and Civil Rights Act. The legal action follows an investigation by "public interest journalism" group ProPublica, which bought an advertisement aimed at house buyers to check out claims of racial bias. Test Ad ... (view more)