Facebook...er, Meta Hatred

[Free]

Law enforcement doesn’t want to be “customer service” reps for Meta any more

“Dramatic and persistent spike” in account takeovers is "substantial drain" on resources.

arstechnica.com

Forty-one state attorneys general penned a letter to Meta’s top attorney on Wednesday saying complaints are skyrocketing across the United States about Facebook and Instagram user accounts being stolen and declaring “immediate action” necessary to mitigate the rolling threat.

The coalition of top law enforcement officials, spearheaded by New York Attorney General Letitia James, says the “dramatic and persistent spike” in complaints concerning account takeovers amounts to a “substantial drain” on governmental resources, as many stolen accounts are also tied to financial crimes—some of which allegedly profits Meta directly.

“We have received a number of complaints of threat actors fraudulently charging thousands of dollars to stored credit cards,” says the letter addressed to Meta’s chief legal officer, Jennifer Newstead. “Furthermore, we have received reports of threat actors buying advertisements to run on Meta.”

“We refuse to operate as the customer service representatives of your company,” the officials add. “Proper investment in response and mitigation is mandatory.”

 

[Ghost Pepper]

I recently deleted my Facebook account as well as Instagram. I don't miss them. Had to not login for a month for Facebook to be deleted.

 

[Essence Lumin]

Evernote, not Facebook. They sent me a notice a couple of days ago I was now limited to one notebook and 50 notes. Earlier they made a restriction of one phone and a pc. There are two things I used Evernote for. One was for grocery lists which means it needs a checkbox mode where each new line gets a checkbox and they can be checked with the line stricken out. Zoho Notes does that just fine. The other is for clipping articles from the web. Zoho Notes has that capability but I haven't tried using it yet. So to hell with Evernote and their annoying restrictions. Evernote also says they can take up to a month to delete your account.

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

Law enforcement doesn’t want to be “customer service” reps for Meta any more

“Dramatic and persistent spike” in account takeovers is "substantial drain" on resources.

arstechnica.com

Meta has almost 35% profit margin. They can afford to spend A LOT more on customer service reps to fix this kind of thing more readily. That said, law enforcement also needs to do a lot more to round up hackers. They are a blight on the Earth and not just with Meta products.

I know corporations fear a loss of profit for any reason, but I bet it might even help their stock price if they announced a big effort to crack down on hacked accounts since everyone who uses it knows this is a problem.

 

[Free]

Meta has almost 35% profit margin. They can afford to spend A LOT more on customer service reps to fix this kind of thing more readily.

Baby, you know they've got to pump funds into the shareholders coffers long before they can put a few pennies towards customer service.

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

Baby, you know they've got to pump funds into the shareholders coffers long before they can put a few pennies towards customer service.

of course... though I have seen cases where the stock market actually rewarded companies for taking on short term loses for taking on a known problem. The hacking doesn't make them look good. I know they'd rather sweep it under the rug, but I think that ship has sailed. I think it might be bad enough to make it in their best interests to address it. Not out of the goodness of their own hearts, but because they can't keep the problem hidden any longer.

 

[Noodles]

Evernote, not Facebook. They sent me a notice a couple of days ago I was now limited to one notebook and 50 notes. Earlier they made a restriction of one phone and a pc. There are two things I used Evernote for. One was for grocery lists which means it needs a checkbox mode where each new line gets a checkbox and they can be checked with the line stricken out. Zoho Notes does that just fine. The other is for clipping articles from the web. Zoho Notes has that capability but I haven't tried using it yet. So to hell with Evernote and their annoying restrictions. Evernote also says they can take up to a month to delete your account.

I switched to One Note when Ever ote made the first change you mentioned, limiting devices.

I was a Beta user of Evernote before that and loved Evernote. I had confirmed this because my join date is before the launch date listed on Wikipedia.

These days I still use One Note, but I am slowly switching to Joplin, which you can sync on your own choice of backend and has encryption. Joplin runs off markdown if you want too as well.

For groceries I just use Microsoft ToDo, it works for that, but I am not in love with it because it's reminder functions are broken. If you fail to mark a reoccurring reminder complete, it never repeats.

Wunderlist was great, but they got bought my Microsoft and then just closed down.

 

[Noodles]

Meta has almost 35% profit margin. They can afford to spend A LOT more on customer service reps to fix this kind of thing more readily. That said, law enforcement also needs to do a lot more to round up hackers. They are a blight on the Earth and not just with Meta products.

I know corporations fear a loss of profit for any reason, but I bet it might even help their stock price if they announced a big effort to crack down on hacked accounts since everyone who uses it knows this is a problem.

Every tech company needs better customer service and could afford it. But they are 1000% averse to actually hiring people who do not bring in income of any kind. Which is annoying and frustrating.

It's only going to get worse with AI as they try to replace CS agents with shitty AI.

This issue would not even be hard to automate.

Check every password, if it's shorter than 10 characters.

If it uses sequential letters or number (abcdefghij12).

If it's on any number of the common password lists hackers use.

Force a reset and lock the person out until they do.

And then force some kind of 2 factor, even if it's shitty SMS based.

Proper 2 factor too. Facebook's 2 Factor is so weird and frankly, feels incredibly insecure. You log in, it says "We sent you a text message/email/whatever" but also you get a pop up it does not tell you about asking "was this you", that works.

I don't want ten different working 2Fa methods. I want one, of my choosing (Authenticator app), somits consistently the same.

 

[GoblinCampFollower]

Every tech company needs better customer service and could afford it. But they are 1000% averse to actually hiring people who do not bring in income of any kind. Which is annoying and frustrating.

Yeah, I know. It's hard enough for companies to spend money on non revenue items even when it's clearly in their own best interests. I'm being a bit optimistic about Meta's leadership. Regulators likely have to force their hand.

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

And then force some kind of 2 factor, even if it's shitty SMS based.

Given that one of the easiest ways to counter SMS 2FA is to social engineer the target's phone number by chatting to their carrier's support people, and which leaves them doubly DOS-ed, SMS can be worse than no 2FA at all.

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

Evernote, not Facebook. They sent me a notice a couple of days ago I was now limited to one notebook and 50 notes. Earlier they made a restriction of one phone and a pc.

UM WTF is the point of Evernote if you can't use it on multiple devices? They haven't restricted me thusly, but I have a paid subscription.

 

[Free]

“Really bad timing”: Meta is killing misinformation analysis tool on August 14

Replacement tool will no longer allow access for journalists, public.

arstechnica.com

Meta is discontinuing data analysis tool CrowdTangle on August 14. The closure will come three months ahead of the next US presidential election and three years after it was reported that the platform used for spotting misinformation on Facebook and Instagram was causing internal strife.

Meta acquired CrowdTangle in 2016. CrowdTangle has been used by researchers, reporters, and government officials to identify trends about conspiracies and other forms of misinformation spreading through Facebook. Meta is going to replace CrowdTangle with a technology currently under development called Meta Content Library, but it will only be available to academic and non-profit researchers. For-profit organizations, like many news organizations, will lose access, as The Wall Street Journal points out.

 

[Free]

An update from a Meta spokesperson claims it's another of those unexplainable and unrelated errors. (The unrelated claim: Kansas Reflector had published a piece critical of Facebook's blocking of climate change-related ads)

Facebook has blocked Kansas Reflector. Here's what we're doing, and how you can help. • Kansas Reflector

This morning, sometime between 8:20 and 8:50 a.m., every post directing to Kansas Reflector's website was removed from Facebook.

kansasreflector.com

 

[Free]

Analysis: How Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta failed children on safety | Honolulu Star-Advertiser

In April 2019, David Ginsberg, a Meta executive, emailed his boss, Mark Zuckerberg, with a proposal to research and reduce loneliness and compulsive use on Instagram and Facebook.

www.staradvertiser.com

The states accuse Meta of unfairly ensnaring teenagers and children on Instagram and Facebook while deceiving the public about the hazards. Using a coordinated legal approach, the attorneys general seek to compel Meta to bolster protections for minors.

A New York Times analysis of the states’ court filings — including roughly 1,400 pages of company documents and correspondence filed as evidence by the state of Tennessee — show how Zuckerberg and other Meta leaders repeatedly promoted the safety of the company’s platforms, playing down risks to young people, even as they rejected employee pleas to bolster youth guardrails and hire additional staff.

In interviews, the attorneys general of several states suing Meta said Zuckerberg had led his company to drive user engagement at the expense of child welfare.

 

[Noodles]

I barely use Facebook anymore but I went scrolling today and the entire timeline is recommended pagea/groups to follow/join now?

Is it just dead?

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

I think that's the nature of antisocial media.

I just turned on a twitter account I hadn't used in a couple years and its timeline is almost 100% either wannafuck troll scammers or recommended posts from Fash.

Kinda annoyed how many clicks it takes to block someone.

 

[Khamon]

I barely use Facebook anymore but I went scrolling today and the entire timeline is recommended pagea/groups to follow/join now?

Is it just dead?

Yes, Meta products have, rather recently and quickly, become flooded with suggested pages and reels with the effect of crowding out social posts from friends and groups. Scrolling has become relatively useless and boring. One used to mark not interested and clean out the feed for a few weeks but that no longer helps.

 

[Free]

Just a tiny bit less hatred for Meta about this one.

RFK Jr’s anti-vaccine group can’t sue Meta for agreeing with CDC, judge rules

Meta can censor “distasteful” anti-vaccine views, appeals court rules.

arstechnica.com

 

[Free]

How Meta Brings in Millions Off of Political Violence

CalMatters and The Markup used Facebook’s AI model to count the millions of dollars it makes after violent news events.

gizmodo.com

After the attempted assassination of Donald Trump in July, the merchandise started showing up on Facebook.

Trump, fist in the air, face bloodied from a bullet, appeared on everything. Coffee mugs. Hawaiian shirts. Trading cards. Commemorative coins. Heart ornaments. Ads for these products used images captured at the scene by Doug Mills for the New York Times and Evan Vucci for the Associated Press, showing Trump yelling “fight” after the shooting. The Trump campaign itself even offered some gear commemorating his survival.

As the Secret Service drew scrutiny and law enforcement searched for a motive, online advertisers saw a business opportunity in the moment, pumping out Facebook ads to supporters hungry for merch.

In the 10 weeks after the shooting, advertisers paid Meta between $593,000 and $813,000 for political ads that explicitly mentioned the assassination attempt, according to The Markup’s analysis. (Meta provides only estimates of spending and reach for ads in its database.)

Even Facebook itself has acknowledged that polarizing content and misinformation on its platform has incited real-life violence. An analysis by CalMatters and The Markup found that the reverse is also true: real-world violence can sometimes open new revenue opportunities for Meta.

 

[Innula Zenovka]