Facebook VP of Messenger Stan Chudnovsky discusses privacy, encryption

The massive project has already gotten pushback from regulators worried about Facebook's size and power. Government officials also worry about Facebook's plans to extend end-to-end encryption to Messenger.

Facebook cancels San Francisco conference amid growing coronavirus concerns

Facebook media relations chief Anthony Harrison says, “Our priority is the health and safety of our teams, so out of an abundance of caution, we canceled our Global Marketing Summit due to the evolving public health risks related to coronavirus.”

Unique Illinois privacy law leads to $550M Facebook settlement of a class-action lawsuit

Privacy advocates hail Illinois' strict biometric privacy law as the nation's strongest form of protection in the commercial use of such data, and it has survived ongoing efforts by the tech industry and other businesses to weaken it.

Twitter, Facebook ban fake users; some had AI-created photos

Tech companies have stepped up efforts to tackle misinformation on their services ahead of next year's U.S. presidential elections.

Facebook and Instagram ban ‘sexual’ use of eggplant and peach emojis

Facebook, which has been caught in a bipartisan battle over political ads, is waging a different type of war against -- eggplants and peaches?

Facebook testing new news feature it says will 'gather insight from journalists and publishers'

Facebook announced Friday it will begin testing Facebook News, which the tech giant said will offer users more control over the stories they see as well as the ability to discover a broader array of content.

Mark Zuckerberg defends Facebook's currency plans before Congress

House Financial Services Committee's immediate focus was Facebook's plans for the currency, to be called Libra. Zuckerberg took pains to reassure lawmakers that his company won't move forward with Libra without explicit approval from all U.S. financial regulators.

Zuckerberg testifies before Congress Wednesday
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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg endured hours of prickly questioning from lawmakers Wednesday as he defended the company's new globally ambitious project to create a digital currency while also dealing with widening scrutiny from U.S. regulators.

Facebook pledges $1 billion toward affordable housing in California

Facebook built a multi-billion dollar business on the back of social networking. Now the Menlo Park tech giant is lending its financial broad shoulders to helping solve the California housing crisis. “It’s a continuum. It’s not new. It’s scaling what we’ve done in the past, where we saw benefits from our interventions,” said Menka Sethi, Facebook’s Location Strategy Director. She says the company began its foray into housing in 2016 to explore possible pitfalls. Now, Facebook is pledging $1 billion to construct 20,000 units of housing state-wide over the next decade. The tech giant says $250 million is designated for mixed-income housing on excess state land and $150 million for affordable housing. Another $225 million, this time in Menlo Park land, earmarked for affordable housing. And $25 million to build teacher and essential worker housing in San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties “If this is gonna be an effective deployment of capitol, it’s important this be true philanthropy and real money on the ground assistance and not another investment scheme,” said Prof. Kelly Snider, a regional and urban planning expert at San Jose State University. Housing and urban planning experts say over this decade, the Bay Area has created only one new unit of housing for every 10 new jobs. The result has pushed the price of housing skyward and forced many middle-class families to leave. Advocates say Facebook and other tech giants such as Google can make a dent in the problem with large donations, coupled with partnerships with community members to address the housing shortage. “This is critical. It means a range of income level people can stay in our communities.,” said Duane Bay, Executive Director of EPACANDO, an affordable housing organization. Added Sethi, “The urgency to step up now and solve the big problems, it felt real and we felt we could help, and so here we are.” There is $350 million being held in reserve for future commitments. The question now: How fast can the multiple municipalities act?

Facebook announces plans to combat election 2020 misinformation

Facebook's CEO announced new security measures aimed at combating misinformation on the social media platform ahead of the 2020 election.

Facebook gifts $25M to Santa Clara County for teacher housing

Facebook is gifting $25 million to Santa Clara County for the county to use on new teacher and school staff homes.