Facebook announced yesterday that it was notifying more than 800,000 users about a bug in Facebook and Messenger that unblocked some of the people that those users had previously blocked. The bug was active between May 29th and June 5th. “It did not reinstate any friend connections that had been severed,” according to Facebook chief privacy officer Erin Egan. “83 percent of people affected by the bug had only one person they had blocked temporarily unblocked, and someone who was unblocked might have been able to contact people on Messenger who had blocked them.” Continue reading Facebook Notifying Over 800,000 Users About Blocking Bug

Before the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) goes into effect on May 25, Facebook plans to debut a new privacy center that will be a hub for all its privacy settings. The company also published its “privacy principles” for the first time, with details of how it handles user information. Chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg says the result will be a “good foundation” for meeting GDPR’s requirements. The GDPR limits how technology companies collect, store and utilize users’ personal information. Continue reading Facebook Lists its Privacy Principles as EU’s Data Laws Loom

At an event in Brussels this week, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg announced that the social platform plans to introduce major privacy changes later this year. Facebook will roll out a global privacy settings hub for individuals to manage their data as part of an effort to comply with the European Union’s upcoming General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), “which aims to simplify data protection laws and provide citizens across all member states with more control over their personal data,” reports ZDNet. Meanwhile, the U.K. government has issued “a warning over businesses’ lack of preparation for the change.” Continue reading Facebook Complies with GDPR, U.K. Warns Firms Not Ready

Facebook has always had its eye on search, but the company is trying again to take on Google and Twitter. Facebook already handles 1.5 billion searches a day on its site, but the vast majority of those searches are for names. In October 2015, Facebook made it possible to search for all public posts, developing an algorithm to rank trillions of posts daily. If its efforts pay off, Facebook will dwarf Twitter’s 320 million users, and provide a more personal, friend-oriented spin on Google’s more generic search. Continue reading Facebook Adds Algorithm, Indexing to Grow Search Capabilities