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Facebook regularly deals with accusations of anti-conservative bias, but a new report suggests it may have been particularly forgiving. Washington Postsources say Facebook has limited punishment for Donald Trump allies who repeatedly violate rules against misinformation, in some cases removing strikes that could have led to reduced News Feed distribution or even bans. The social network pulled a repeat infraction claim against Donald Trump Jr. on Instagram due to fear of a “backlash” from the penalties that would follow, according to the reported insiders.
Other Trump family members also had strikes removed, the sources said. A pro-Trump PAC (America First Action) and other organizations that have repeatedly posted known false information also appeared to have escaped consequences. Facebook said it would label some posts that break its rules, but the Post found examples of clearly false claims from Rush Limbaugh, Gateway Pundit and others that hadn’t received those disclaimers.
Facebook spokeswoman Andrea Vallone didn’t directly challenge the report, noting the social media giant wouldn’t penalize accounts in “rare cases” when a rating wasn’t “appropriate or warranted.” The representative stressed that “many” pages the Post found had been punished for spreading falsehoods, but declined to say how or what the thresholds were to avoid opportunities for “gaming the system.”
If accurate, the exceptions wouldn’t be surprising. Like Twitter and other internet heavyweights, Facebook is aware that Trump and Republicans currently hold power that could lead to regulation and other legal action. Trump’s order demanding a rethink of the Communications Decent Act’s Section 230 is widely considered retaliation against Twitter for fact-checking one of his posts, and Facebook itself caught flak from Senate Republicans for limiting a New York Post story making hotly disputed allegations against Joe Biden’s son Hunter.
Stlll, this isn’t going to help quiet accusations that Facebook has separate standards for different people and groups. Critics have contended that Facebook is allowing misinformation to spread as a consequence, and that it shouldn’t have to fear retaliation when allegations of free speech violations haven’t held up in court. Its bid to please both sides of the American political discourse may have ultimately stoked tensions.
If you’ve been having problems syncing data across your Apple devices, you’re not alone. Apple is reporting (via 9to5Mac) outages across several of its iCloud services, including backups, calendars, Find My, photos and even sign-ins. The company only noted on its status page that “some users” were affected, but the failures appear to have started around 9AM Eastern and were still ongoing as of 1PM.
We’ve asked Apple for comment. Other major services like Apple Music, FaceTime and Siri were still working properly as we wrote this.
The issue comes weeks after an outage that affected both iCloud and Apple’s media services. It also follows mere days after the debut of Apple One, where iCloud storage (also affected by the outage) plays an important role. The timing is less than ideal, to put it mildly, even if this is likely to be a small interruption in the grander scheme of things.
Update 11/1 5PM ET: The outages appear to have been resolved later in the afternoon.
Facebook is finally testing a dark mode in its mobile app beyond a handful of users. The social network has teamed up with code sleuth Jane Manchun Wong to confirm that it’s publicly testing dark mode on Android and iOS. Just who’s getting the option isn’t clear, but MacRumorsnoted that many more people were reporting access to the night-friendly option.
If you have the option, you’ll see a Dark Mode button in the Settings & Privacy section under the Menu tab. You can force it on or off, or leave it up to your system-level settings. If you have an OS-level dark mode switch on when the Sun goes down, Facebook can follow suit.
The feature has been a long time in coming. Facebook let users opt in to a dark mode on desktop back in March, and companion apps like Messenger have had the choice since 2019. It’s not certain why the core Facebook app is getting this feature so much later, but the wait suggests it was determined to tread carefully given the sheer importance of an app likely used by billions of people.
Fact checking is increasingly a mainstay of the modern internet, and that now includes ‘dead’ web pages. The Internet Archive has started adding fact checks and context to Wayback Machine pages to explain just why they were removed. If a page was part of a disinformation campaign or pulled due to a policy violation, a conspicuous yellow banner will explain as much.
The checks come from a variety of well-established outlets, including FactCheck.org, Politifact, the AP and the Washington Post.
The archivists saw the fact checks as striking a balance between historical preservation and acknowledging the problems with resurfacing false info. It hoped users would “better understand what they are reading” in the archives. It’s also striving for neutrality — one banner for context explained that including a page in the Wayback Machine “should not be seen” as endorsing the content.
This move won’t please people who’ve accused internet companies of political bias, whether or not it’s justified. Even ‘dead’ pages are now subject to scrutiny, after all. It might be necessary in ghe long run, however. It’s an acknowledgment that political material on the web rarely exists in a vacuum, and that future visitors might not always know why a page vanished from the ‘live’ web.
Oculus’ move to require Facebook accounts is creating serious problems for some of its biggest fans. Windows Centralreports that Facebook is banning Oculus users who simultaneously use more than one VR headset linked to the same social network account. This violates Facebook’s terms of service, support representatives claim. In other words, you’re risking a ban if you buy a couple of Oculus Quest 2s for the family and don’t want to set up different accounts to let people play at the same time.
The company is planning on support for multiple Facebook accounts on one headset, but that doesn’t address problems for people who can’t or don’t want to create accounts, such as kids under 13. The current situation could force people to either create placeholder accounts or use only one headset at a time, potentially hurting some of Oculus’ most loyal users.
We’ve asked Facebook for comment.
The tech giant has claimed that the account requirement will help people find friends for social experiences like games, cut back on trolls, and allow integration features like the Horizon VR space. However, critics have argued that this ties users to the Facebook ecosystem and makes it easier for the firm to track users’ habits. These new reports won’t help Facebook’s case — it’s now harder to use Oculus headsets in a way that suits your household.
Update 10/25 6:15PM ET: Oculus has responded to the customer complaint in a series of tweets that using the same Facebook account on two headsets will not get the user banned. It also added that it plans to “introduce the ability for multiple users to log into the same device using their own Facebook account.”
Update 10/26 2:53 AM ET: The headline originally stated that Facebook would ban users with multiple Oculus devices, but Oculus stated that information is not correct. The headline has been updated with the correct information.
Microsoft may have finally devised a way to get people to stop using Internet Explorer once and for all (via ZDNet). When the company releases the next version of its Edge browser, currently slated to come out sometime in November, Internet Explorer users won’t be able to access some 1,156 websites, including popular destinations like YouTube, Twitter, Instagram and ESPN. Instead, they’ll be promoted to go to those websites using Microsoft’s more modern, Chromium-based browser.
The list is held on a DLL file Microsoft has been adding to Edge installations over the summer. IE loads the file through a plugin, which then monitors what websites you’re visiting through the browser. When you navigate to one that Microsoft would prefer you not visit through IE, you’ll see the following support page. “You've been redirected to Microsoft Edge where you can continue your browsing uninterrupted,” the company says on the page. “If you come across a site that needs Internet Explorer, you can load that site in Internet Explorer mode without ever leaving Microsoft Edge.”
Four years after Microsoft ended support for Internet Explorer 8, 9 and 10, you might think the browser is a non-entity. However, like older versions of Android, there’s still a small but sizeable contingent of people who continue to use the software to navigate the internet. According to StatCounter, as of September 2020, IE has a 1.19 percent share of the worldwide browser market. This IE behavior is part of Microsoft’s plan to deprecate the browser finally. As always, IT administrators will have some say in the matter. But short of not having Edge installed on their PC, there’s little way for consumers to avoid the move.
In August, Instagram repeatedly deleted a series of photos of Nyome Nicholas-Williams that showed the Black plus-size model with her arms over her bare chest. Nicholas-Williams argued that Instagram censored her while simultaneously allowing similar photos of thin, white women to stay up on the platform with little or no penalty. "Millions of pictures of very naked, skinny white women can be found on Instagram every day," shetold The Guardian at the time. "But a fat black woman celebrating her body is banned? It was shocking to me. I feel like I'm being silenced." Other Black, plus-size and marginalized creators found Instagram did the same with their photos, and the enforcement action led to a groundswell of online activism centered around the #IWantToSeeNyome hashtag.
A spokesperson for Instagram told The Guardian it had made a mistake when it deleted the photos. “As we looked into this more closely, we realized it was an instance where our policy on breast squeezing wasn’t being correctly applied,” they said. “Hearing Nyome’s feedback helped us understand where this policy was falling short, and how we could refine it.”
In a follow-up with Engadget, a spokesperson for Instagram said photos that show a person squeezing their chest, with a distinct change in the shape of the breasts, are still against the company’s rules. The company says it will continue to censor those to protect users under the age of 13. In instances where there might be some doubt, Instagram says it will instruct its reviewers to leave the content up.
“We are grateful to our global community for speaking openly and honestly about their experiences and hope this policy change will help more people to confidently express themselves,” Carolyn Merrell, global head of policy programs at Instagram, told Engadget. “It may take some time to ensure we’re correctly enforcing these new updates but we’re committed to getting this right.”
For her part, Nicholas-Williams welcomed the announcement. “Hopefully this policy change will bring an end to the censorship of fat black bodies,” she wrote in an Instagram post celebrating the victory.
Amazon appears to have stopped a strange plot that used phones in trees to game delivery route assignments. Contract drivers talking to Bloomberg said that they’re now getting more routes even when they’re miles away from the Whole Foods locations that had been hubs for the scheme. The tree-borne phones have vanished along with the people lurking around them, one Chicago driver said.
The tree-phone move reportedly exploited the behavior of the Amazon Flex dispatch system. Rogue drivers synced their phones with those in the trees, helping them snap up deliveries that would otherwise go to competing drivers. As Flex drivers are gig workers who get paid by the delivery, this was potentially lucrative — much to the chagrin of drivers who weren’t involved.
An insider aware of Amazon’s order system told Bloomberg that fixing the issue that allowed the effort only required altering a “few lines of code.” It could create a “dead zone” around places like Whole Foods to prevent gaming attempts. Your orders could take longer to arrive, but it would also ensure a fairer distribution of work.
The company hasn’t confirmed the move, instead saying that waiting in the parking lot or using store WiFi was “not an effective way” to claim delivery orders.
It’s still not clear exactly who’s behind the tree-based plot. However, it does underscore issues with the gig economy. Workers’ livelihoods depend heavily on the code that assigns their gigs, and that can give some people a strong incentive to exploit the code.
Streaming services are keen to prevent regulators from censoring their content, and they’re willing to police themselves to ensure that artistic freedom. Variety reports that Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+ Hotstar and 12 other companies have signed a self-regulatory code to stay on the good side of India’s regulators. This includes common approaches to age labels and content descriptions as well as a way to report any violations of the system. Streaming services have to set up complaint departments, internal committees or both to deal with any issues.
The code was created by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (disclaimer: Engadget’s parent brand Verizon Media is a member) and is already in effect.
The Indian government has been hesitant to censor streaming services and would rather they keep themselves in check. This theoretically keeps officials happy — they don’t have to worry as much that parents will inadvertently play inappropriate movies for their kids, or that there will be no way to report a TV show.
Services like Netflix already honor age ratings in other countries. However, it’s rare for these internet-focused outlets to unite on a rating system — they’ve clearly determined that it’s easier to work with each other than to have the government step in.
