Lawmakers in Washington peppered Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg with tough questions this week about his firm’s handling of user data and privacy. They also suggested new ways they or others might regulate internet firms. Michelle Quinn reports.
…

Nonprofit international organization for public competitions XPRIZE has announced 10 finalists in its race to develop new technologies to lower carbon-dioxide emissions. Each team will get an additional incentive of $5 million to scale up their ideas and present them for the top prize of $20 million. VOA’s George Putic reports.
…

Nonprofit international organization for public competitions XPRIZE has announced 10 finalists in its race to develop new technologies to lower carbon-dioxide emissions. Each team will get an additional incentive of $5 million to scale up their ideas and present them for the top prize of $20 million. VOA’s George Putic reports.
…

Facebook says it will stop spending money to fight a proposed California ballot initiative aimed at giving consumers more control over their data.

The measure, known as the “California Consumer Privacy Act,” would require companies to disclose upon request what types of personal information they collect about someone and whether they’ve sold it. It also would allow customers to opt out of having their data sold.

The company made the announcement Wednesday as chief executive Mark Zuckerberg underwent questioning from Congress about the handling of user data.

Pressure has mounted on Facebook to explain its privacy controls following revelations that a Republican-linked firm conducted widespread data harvesting.

Facebook had donated $200,000 to a committee opposing the initiative in California — part of a $1 million effort by tech giants to keep it off the November ballot.

Facebook said it ended its support “to focus our efforts on supporting reasonable privacy measures in California.”

Proponents of the ballot measure applauded the move.

“We are thrilled,” said Mary Ross, president of Californians for Consumer Privacy.

The California Chamber of Commerce and other groups are fighting to keep the measure off the ballot through the “Committee to Protect California Jobs.” Google, AT&T, Verizon and Comcast also contributed $200,000 each to that effort in February.

Committee spokesman Steve Maviglio said the measure would hurt the California economy.

“It is unworkable and requires the internet in California to operate differently — limiting our choices, hurting our businesses, and cutting our connection to the global economy,” he said.
…

Facebook says it will stop spending money to fight a proposed California ballot initiative aimed at giving consumers more control over their data.

The measure, known as the “California Consumer Privacy Act,” would require companies to disclose upon request what types of personal information they collect about someone and whether they’ve sold it. It also would allow customers to opt out of having their data sold.

The company made the announcement Wednesday as chief executive Mark Zuckerberg underwent questioning from Congress about the handling of user data.

Pressure has mounted on Facebook to explain its privacy controls following revelations that a Republican-linked firm conducted widespread data harvesting.

Facebook had donated $200,000 to a committee opposing the initiative in California — part of a $1 million effort by tech giants to keep it off the November ballot.

Facebook said it ended its support “to focus our efforts on supporting reasonable privacy measures in California.”

Proponents of the ballot measure applauded the move.

“We are thrilled,” said Mary Ross, president of Californians for Consumer Privacy.

The California Chamber of Commerce and other groups are fighting to keep the measure off the ballot through the “Committee to Protect California Jobs.” Google, AT&T, Verizon and Comcast also contributed $200,000 each to that effort in February.

Committee spokesman Steve Maviglio said the measure would hurt the California economy.

“It is unworkable and requires the internet in California to operate differently — limiting our choices, hurting our businesses, and cutting our connection to the global economy,” he said.
…

Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said on Tuesday his company would step up efforts to block hate messages in Myanmar as he faced questioning by the U.S. Congress about electoral interference and hate speech on the platform.

Facebook has been accused by human rights advocates of not doing enough to weed out hate messages on its social-media network in Myanmar, where it is a dominant communications system.

“What’s happening in Myanmar is a terrible tragedy, and we need to do more,” Zuckerberg said during a 5-hour joint hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee and Senate Judiciary Committee.

More than 650,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled Myanmar’s Rakhine state into Bangladesh since insurgent attacks sparked a security crackdown last August.

United Nations officials investigating a possible genocide in Myanmar said last month that Facebook had been a source of anti-Rohingya propaganda.

Marzuki Darusman, chairman of the U.N. Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar, said in March that social media had played a “determining role” in Myanmar.

“It has … substantively contributed to the level of acrimony and dissension and conflict … within the public. Hate speech is certainly of course a part of that. As far as the Myanmar situation is concerned, social media is Facebook, and Facebook is social media,” he said.

Zuckerberg said Facebook was hiring dozens more Burmese-language speakers to remove threatening content.

“It’s hard to do it without people who speak the local language, and we need to ramp up our effort there dramatically,” he said, adding that Facebook was also asking civil society groups to help it identify figures who should be banned from the network.

He said a Facebook team would also make undisclosed product changes in Myanmar and other countries where ethnic violence was a problem.
…

Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said on Tuesday his company would step up efforts to block hate messages in Myanmar as he faced questioning by the U.S. Congress about electoral interference and hate speech on the platform.

Facebook has been accused by human rights advocates of not doing enough to weed out hate messages on its social-media network in Myanmar, where it is a dominant communications system.

“What’s happening in Myanmar is a terrible tragedy, and we need to do more,” Zuckerberg said during a 5-hour joint hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee and Senate Judiciary Committee.

More than 650,000 Rohingya Muslims have fled Myanmar’s Rakhine state into Bangladesh since insurgent attacks sparked a security crackdown last August.

United Nations officials investigating a possible genocide in Myanmar said last month that Facebook had been a source of anti-Rohingya propaganda.

Marzuki Darusman, chairman of the U.N. Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar, said in March that social media had played a “determining role” in Myanmar.

“It has … substantively contributed to the level of acrimony and dissension and conflict … within the public. Hate speech is certainly of course a part of that. As far as the Myanmar situation is concerned, social media is Facebook, and Facebook is social media,” he said.

Zuckerberg said Facebook was hiring dozens more Burmese-language speakers to remove threatening content.

“It’s hard to do it without people who speak the local language, and we need to ramp up our effort there dramatically,” he said, adding that Facebook was also asking civil society groups to help it identify figures who should be banned from the network.

He said a Facebook team would also make undisclosed product changes in Myanmar and other countries where ethnic violence was a problem.
…

Dumping sewage into a local river is common practice in some of America’s older cities.  With the benefits of modern engineering, cities like Washington D.C. will soon be able to divert hundreds of millions of liters of raw sewage every day to wastewater treatment plants instead of a river.  Arash Arabasadi reports.
…

The group known as the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots says fully autonomous lethal weapons that can strike selected targets are no longer within the realm of science fiction. The coalition says it wants pre-emptive action taken to ban them. Government experts will spend the next two weeks discussing the issue at a meeting of the U.N. Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons.

The Campaign to stop Killer Robots – a coalition of 65 non-government organizations – says the world is running out of time to prevent these systems from becoming a dangerous reality.

Campaign co-founder Richard Moyes warns the world is moving closer to situations where machine intelligence, instead of humans, may make life and death decisions on the battlefield.

“We need humans involved in these processes and it needs to be a substantial engagement that allows sort of human ethical judgment and human moral engagements with the decision about the use of force…From my perspective, I think there is a real risk in thinking that violence and killing people can ever be a really clean business,” said Moyes. “I think…we should be very wary about thinking that machines and computers can solve that.”

Campaign co-founder Mary Wareham tells VOA autonomous weapons systems with decreasing levels of human control are currently in use and development by six countries – the United States, China, Israel, South Korea, Russia and Britain. She says the U.S. is the most advanced.”

“I think all of them have commented that these weapons systems, the fully autonomous weapons systems, lethal autonomous weapons systems, do not exist yet,” said Wareham. “That is the common refrain that we hear in the room; but, there is acknowledgement that this is the direction that it could head in.”   

Human Rights Watch – a founding member of the campaign – has said previously that precursors to killer robots include armed drones.  

The campaign says the government experts have made some progress in identifying key issues of concern regarding autonomy in weapons systems. It says 22 countries are calling for a ban on fully autonomous weapons and many others agree some human control must be retained over future weapons systems.  

The activists say they are heartened by the increasing number of countries that have expressed interest in negotiating a new international law on killer robots. The campaign says it wants member states to conclude a legally binding treaty “prohibiting the development, production, and use of fully autonomous weapons systems by the end of 2019.”

 
…

The group known as the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots says fully autonomous lethal weapons that can strike selected targets are no longer within the realm of science fiction. The coalition says it wants pre-emptive action taken to ban them. Government experts will spend the next two weeks discussing the issue at a meeting of the U.N. Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons.

The Campaign to stop Killer Robots – a coalition of 65 non-government organizations – says the world is running out of time to prevent these systems from becoming a dangerous reality.

Campaign co-founder Richard Moyes warns the world is moving closer to situations where machine intelligence, instead of humans, may make life and death decisions on the battlefield.

“We need humans involved in these processes and it needs to be a substantial engagement that allows sort of human ethical judgment and human moral engagements with the decision about the use of force…From my perspective, I think there is a real risk in thinking that violence and killing people can ever be a really clean business,” said Moyes. “I think…we should be very wary about thinking that machines and computers can solve that.”

Campaign co-founder Mary Wareham tells VOA autonomous weapons systems with decreasing levels of human control are currently in use and development by six countries – the United States, China, Israel, South Korea, Russia and Britain. She says the U.S. is the most advanced.”

“I think all of them have commented that these weapons systems, the fully autonomous weapons systems, lethal autonomous weapons systems, do not exist yet,” said Wareham. “That is the common refrain that we hear in the room; but, there is acknowledgement that this is the direction that it could head in.”   

Human Rights Watch – a founding member of the campaign – has said previously that precursors to killer robots include armed drones.  

The campaign says the government experts have made some progress in identifying key issues of concern regarding autonomy in weapons systems. It says 22 countries are calling for a ban on fully autonomous weapons and many others agree some human control must be retained over future weapons systems.  

The activists say they are heartened by the increasing number of countries that have expressed interest in negotiating a new international law on killer robots. The campaign says it wants member states to conclude a legally binding treaty “prohibiting the development, production, and use of fully autonomous weapons systems by the end of 2019.”

 
…

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is set to testify publicly Tuesday before a group of U.S. senators after apologizing for the way his company handled data for millions of users.

He is due to appear before a joint hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee and Senate Commerce Committee, and on Wednesday will go before House lawmakers.

Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley said users “deserve to know how their information is shared and secure,” and that he wants to explore with Zuckerberg ways to balance safety with innovation.

Zuckerberg met privately with lawmakers in Washington on Monday and released written testimony saying the social media network should have done more to prevent itself and the data of its members from being misused.

“We didn’t take a broad enough view of our responsibility, and that was a big mistake. It was my mistake, and I’m sorry,” Zuckerberg said.Zuckerberg was called to testify after news broke last month that personal data of millions of Facebook users had been harvested without their knowledge by Cambridge Analytica, a British voter profiling company that U.S. President Donald Trump’s campaign hired to target likely supporters in 2016.

WATCH:  Video report on Facebook Data Breach

Cambridge Analytica connection

Prior to 2016, Facebook allowed a British researcher to create an app on Facebook on which about 200,000 users divulged personal information that was subsequently shared with Cambridge Analytica. The number of affected Facebook users multiplied exponentially because the app also collected data about friends, relatives and acquaintances of everyone who installed it.

Cambridge Analytica said it had data for 30 million of Facebook’s 2.2 billion users.

On Capitol Hill, U.S. lawmakers signaled they want action, not just contrition, from social media executives.

“If we don’t rein in the misuse of social media, none of us are going to have any privacy anymore,” the top Democrat on the Senate Commerce Committee, Bill Nelson of Florida, told reporters after meeting privately with Zuckerberg Monday.

Meanwhile, Facebook announced it is starting to notify tens of millions of users, most of them in the United States, whose personal data may have been harvested by Cambridge Analytica.

New cyber firewalls

The social media giant is also empowering all its users to shut off third-party access to their apps and is setting up cyber “firewalls” to ensure that users’ data is not unwittingly transmitted by others in their social network.

For years, Congress took a largely “hands-off” approach to regulating the internet. Some analysts believe that is about to change after the Facebook data breach, as well as a cascade of revelations about Russian cyber-meddling.

“At this point in time, it’s really up to Congress and the federal agencies to step up and take some responsibility for protecting privacy, for regulating Facebook as a commercial service which it clearly is,” Marc Rotenberg, president of the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center, told VOA. “We’ve gone for many years in the United States believing that self-regulation could work — that Facebook and the other tech giants could police themselves, but I think very few people still believe that.”

 
…

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is set to testify publicly Tuesday before a group of U.S. senators after apologizing for the way his company handled data for millions of users.

He is due to appear before a joint hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee and Senate Commerce Committee, and on Wednesday will go before House lawmakers.

Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley said users “deserve to know how their information is shared and secure,” and that he wants to explore with Zuckerberg ways to balance safety with innovation.

Zuckerberg met privately with lawmakers in Washington on Monday and released written testimony saying the social media network should have done more to prevent itself and the data of its members from being misused.

“We didn’t take a broad enough view of our responsibility, and that was a big mistake. It was my mistake, and I’m sorry,” Zuckerberg said.Zuckerberg was called to testify after news broke last month that personal data of millions of Facebook users had been harvested without their knowledge by Cambridge Analytica, a British voter profiling company that U.S. President Donald Trump’s campaign hired to target likely supporters in 2016.

WATCH:  Video report on Facebook Data Breach

Cambridge Analytica connection

Prior to 2016, Facebook allowed a British researcher to create an app on Facebook on which about 200,000 users divulged personal information that was subsequently shared with Cambridge Analytica. The number of affected Facebook users multiplied exponentially because the app also collected data about friends, relatives and acquaintances of everyone who installed it.

Cambridge Analytica said it had data for 30 million of Facebook’s 2.2 billion users.

On Capitol Hill, U.S. lawmakers signaled they want action, not just contrition, from social media executives.

“If we don’t rein in the misuse of social media, none of us are going to have any privacy anymore,” the top Democrat on the Senate Commerce Committee, Bill Nelson of Florida, told reporters after meeting privately with Zuckerberg Monday.

Meanwhile, Facebook announced it is starting to notify tens of millions of users, most of them in the United States, whose personal data may have been harvested by Cambridge Analytica.

New cyber firewalls

The social media giant is also empowering all its users to shut off third-party access to their apps and is setting up cyber “firewalls” to ensure that users’ data is not unwittingly transmitted by others in their social network.

For years, Congress took a largely “hands-off” approach to regulating the internet. Some analysts believe that is about to change after the Facebook data breach, as well as a cascade of revelations about Russian cyber-meddling.

“At this point in time, it’s really up to Congress and the federal agencies to step up and take some responsibility for protecting privacy, for regulating Facebook as a commercial service which it clearly is,” Marc Rotenberg, president of the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center, told VOA. “We’ve gone for many years in the United States believing that self-regulation could work — that Facebook and the other tech giants could police themselves, but I think very few people still believe that.”

 
…

Facebook users in Southeast Asia, particularly the Philippines, were especially exposed to recent data privacy breaches due to high user numbers and the popularity of an app at the core of the problem, analysts believe.

According to Facebook figures, the data of 1.175 million users in the Philippines may have been “improperly shared” with London-based voter profiling firm Cambridge Analytica. That estimate is the second highest, single-country total after the United States. Indonesia ranks third at around 1.1 million people exposed to data breaches. Vietnam was ninth with 427,000.

Filipinos had also enjoyed a personality quiz app that spread fast due to the sharing of results, said Renato Reyes, secretary general of the Bagong Alyansang Makabaya alliance of social causes in Manila. The app is suspected as a source of Cambridge Analytica data.

In Vietnam, where the media outlet VnExpress International estimates 64 million of the country’s 92 million people use Facebook, younger people like the outlet to show off, technology specialists say. Indonesians use it to communicate for free across their 13,000 islands, some impoverished.

The Silicon Valley social media giant said that beginning April 9 it would add a News Feed link for users to see what information they have shared on which apps.

“I think we are in a position to demand an explanation directly from the officials at Facebook considering that we are the second highest country in net exposure,” Reyes said.

Why Southeast Asia?

Data from about 87 million users worldwide may have been improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica, Facebook says.

Southeast Asia faced exposure because a rise in the number of “affordable” mobile phones has expanded consumption of news on social media, said Athina Karatzogianni, associate professor in media, communication and sociology at the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom.

Total smartphone shipments in emerging Southeast Asia came to about 100 million last year, according to the market research firm IDC.

In parts of the subcontinent, people rely on Facebook as an easy, free means to share news and images with family or friends across long distances, said Lam Nguyen, country manager with IDC.

App sharing in the Philippines

Filipinos worry that Cambridge Analytica’s parent company crunched the results of the personality quiz app to grasp voter psychology for targeted advertising on behalf of political campaigns, Reyes said. It may have taken the Philippine 2016 election as a “laboratory” for the U.S. presidential race later that year, he said.

Cambridge Analytica says independent research contractor GSR “licensed data” from no more than 30 million users and that no information was used for the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The organization took legal action against GSR.

“The use of personal data in order to influence the outcome of elections is really a cause for concern,” Reyes said.

The Philippine National Privacy Commission has required Facebook to give updates on controlling against any further risk, the commission said Friday. Any data leaked would have arisen from use of University of Cambridge academic psychologist Aleksandr Kogan’s personality quiz app, it said.

Facebook rage in Vietnam

In Vietnam, Facebook took off about 11 years ago along with emerging wealth, including access to other foreign goods and services.

A lot of people use Facebook to show off travel photos, said Phuong Hong, communications director with an app developer in Ho Chi Minh City. Such elaborate public posting exposes users to information harvesting, she said.

“In Vietnam, people (are) more open and they don’t as much realize the impact if they publish all their information on social channels,” she said.

“Just some highly well educated people who already know about the after effects will try to limit it by themselves, but most of young, from 14 to 25, and even older people 25 to 40, they just go to that site, create an account and just follow to what Facebook asks for to fill in the information,” she added.

Facebook users in Vietnam may remember a breach four years ago that let phone numbers and e-mails find their way to marketers, Nguyen said.

“When the (Cambridge Analytica) story came to light, I think a lot of Facebook users here in Vietnam were kind of like ah, OK, so now it comes to light, but we already know our personal data have been breached a couple of years ago already,” he said.

Vietnam’s national defense and diplomatic officials met last week to discuss “internet security” with an eye toward Facebook, VnExpress International said.

Indonesia, Facebook discuss ‘abuse’

In Indonesia, the communications minister met the Indonesian Facebook public policy head April 5 to discuss any “abuse” of user data, the Ministry of Communication and Informatics said on its website.

The number of Indonesian Facebook users had reached 130 million in January, 6 percent of the world total.
…

Apple on Monday said it had achieved its goal of powering all of the company’s facilities with renewable energy, a milestone that includes all of its data centers, offices and retail stores in 43 countries.

The iPhone maker also said nine suppliers had recently committed to running their operations entirely on renewable energy sources like wind and solar, bringing to 23 the total number to make such a pledge.

Major U.S. corporations such as Apple, Wal-Mart and Alphabet have become some of the country’s biggest buyers of renewable forms of energy, driving substantial growth in the wind and solar industries.

Alphabet’s Google last year purchased enough renewable energy to cover all of its electricity consumption worldwide.

Costs for solar and wind are plunging thanks to technological advances and increased global production of panels and turbines, enabling companies seeking to green their images to buy clean power at competitive prices.

“We’re not spending any more than we would have,” Lisa Jackson, Apple’s vice president for environment, policy and social initiatives, said in an interview. “We’re seeing the benefits of an increasingly competitive clean energy market.”

Renewable energy projects that provide power to Apple facilities range from large wind farms in the United States to clusters of hundreds of rooftop solar systems in Japan and Singapore. The company has also urged utilities to procure renewable energy to help power Apple’s operations.

Encouraging suppliers to follow suit in embracing 100 percent renewable energy is the next step for Apple. The suppliers that pledge to use more clean energy know they will have “a leg up” against competitors for Apple’s business, Jackson said.

“We made it clear that, over time, this will become less of a wish list and more of a requirement,” she said.
…

On the eve of an expected grilling by U.S. lawmakers, Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg once again apologized for inadequately protecting the data of millions of social media platform users and highlighted steps the firm is taking to prevent a repeat.

In multiple interviews with news media outlets and in prepared remarks to be delivered on Capitol Hill, Zuckerberg on Monday acknowledged that the tools Facebook provides to promote human interconnectedness were exploited for ill or nefarious purposes.

“It was my mistake, and I’m sorry,” Zuckerberg said in testimony released ahead of Tuesday’s appearance before the Senate Judiciary and Commerce committees and Wednesday’s appearance before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

“I started Facebook, I run it, and I’m responsible for what happens here,” Zuckerberg added.

Zuckerberg was called to testify after news broke last month that personal data of millions of Facebook users had been harvested without their knowledge by Cambridge Analytica, a British voter profiling company that U.S. President Donald Trump’s campaign hired to target likely supporters in 2016.

Prior to 2016, Facebook allowed a British researcher to create an app on Facebook on which about 200,000 users divulged personal information that was subsequently shared with Cambridge Analytica. The number of affected Facebook users multiplied exponentially because the app also collected data about friends, relatives and acquaintances of everyone who installed it.

Cambridge Analytica said it had data for 30 million of Facebook’s 2.2 billion users.

On Capitol Hill, U.S. lawmakers signaled they want action, not just contrition, from social media executives.

“If we don’t rein in the misuse of social media, none of us are going to have any privacy anymore,” the top Democrat on the Senate Commerce Committee, Bill Nelson of Florida, told reporters after meeting privately with Zuckerberg Monday.

Meanwhile, Facebook announced it is starting to notify tens of millions of users, most of them in the United States, whose personal data may have been harvested by Cambridge Analytica.

The social media giant is also empowering all its users to shut off third-party access to their apps and is setting up cyber “firewalls” to ensure that users’ data is not unwittingly transmitted by others in their social network.

For years, Congress took a largely “hands-off” approach to regulating the internet. Some analysts believe that is about to change after the Facebook data breach, as well as a cascade of revelations about Russian cyber-meddling.

“At this point in time, it’s really up to Congress and the federal agencies to step up and take some responsibility for protecting privacy, for regulating Facebook as a commercial service which it clearly is,” Marc Rotenberg, president of the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center, told VOA. “We’ve gone for many years in the United States believing that self-regulation could work — that Facebook and the other tech giants could police themselves, but I think very few people still believe that.”

This story was written by Michael Bowman, Ken Bredemeier contributed.
…

On the eve of an expected grilling by U.S. lawmakers, Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg once again apologized for inadequately protecting the data of millions of social media platform users and highlighted steps the firm is taking to prevent a repeat.

In multiple interviews with news media outlets and in prepared remarks to be delivered on Capitol Hill, Zuckerberg on Monday acknowledged that the tools Facebook provides to promote human interconnectedness were exploited for ill or nefarious purposes.

“It was my mistake, and I’m sorry,” Zuckerberg said in testimony released ahead of Tuesday’s appearance before the Senate Judiciary and Commerce committees and Wednesday’s appearance before the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.

“I started Facebook, I run it, and I’m responsible for what happens here,” Zuckerberg added.

Zuckerberg was called to testify after news broke last month that personal data of millions of Facebook users had been harvested without their knowledge by Cambridge Analytica, a British voter profiling company that U.S. President Donald Trump’s campaign hired to target likely supporters in 2016.

Prior to 2016, Facebook allowed a British researcher to create an app on Facebook on which about 200,000 users divulged personal information that was subsequently shared with Cambridge Analytica. The number of affected Facebook users multiplied exponentially because the app also collected data about friends, relatives and acquaintances of everyone who installed it.

Cambridge Analytica said it had data for 30 million of Facebook’s 2.2 billion users.

On Capitol Hill, U.S. lawmakers signaled they want action, not just contrition, from social media executives.

“If we don’t rein in the misuse of social media, none of us are going to have any privacy anymore,” the top Democrat on the Senate Commerce Committee, Bill Nelson of Florida, told reporters after meeting privately with Zuckerberg Monday.

Meanwhile, Facebook announced it is starting to notify tens of millions of users, most of them in the United States, whose personal data may have been harvested by Cambridge Analytica.

The social media giant is also empowering all its users to shut off third-party access to their apps and is setting up cyber “firewalls” to ensure that users’ data is not unwittingly transmitted by others in their social network.

For years, Congress took a largely “hands-off” approach to regulating the internet. Some analysts believe that is about to change after the Facebook data breach, as well as a cascade of revelations about Russian cyber-meddling.

“At this point in time, it’s really up to Congress and the federal agencies to step up and take some responsibility for protecting privacy, for regulating Facebook as a commercial service which it clearly is,” Marc Rotenberg, president of the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center, told VOA. “We’ve gone for many years in the United States believing that self-regulation could work — that Facebook and the other tech giants could police themselves, but I think very few people still believe that.”

This story was written by Michael Bowman, Ken Bredemeier contributed.
…

Social media giant Facebook is starting to notify 87 million of its users whether their personal data was harvested without their knowledge by Cambridge Analytica, the Britain-based voter profiling company U.S. President Donald Trump’s campaign hired to target likely supporters in 2016.

Facebook believes most of the affected users, more than 70 million, are in the United States, but there are also more than a million each in the Philippines, Indonesia and Britain.

The company has apologized for the security breach, with Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg acknowledging the company made a “huge mistake” by not more closely monitoring use of the data and not taking a broad enough view of the company’s responsibilities.

Facebook allowed a British researcher to create an app on Facebook on which about 200,000 users divulged personal information that academic Alexsandr Kogan subsequently shared with Cambridge Analytica.  The number of affected Facebook users multiplied exponentially, however, because of the data collected from all the friends, relatives and acquaintances the 200,000 had online Facebook contact with.

Cambridge Analytica says it only had data for 30 million Facebook users.

Zuckerberg is meeting privately with lawmakers in Washington about the controversy and then testifying publicly Tuesday and Wednesday before two congressional committees.

Facebook is sending a notice to all of its 2.2 billion users with a link to see what apps they use and instructions on how they can, if they wish, shut off third-party access to their apps.

 
…

Congress has plenty of questions for Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who will testify on Capitol Hill Tuesday and Wednesday about the company’s ongoing data-privacy scandal and how it failed to guard against other abuses of its service.

Facebook is struggling to cope with the worst privacy crisis in its history – allegations that a Trump-affiliated data mining firm may have used ill-gotten user data to try to influence elections. Zuckerberg and his company are in full damage-control mode, and have announced a number of piecemeal technical changes intended to address privacy issues.

But there’s plenty the Facebook CEO hasn’t yet explained. Here are five questions that could shed more light on Facebook’s privacy practices and the degree to which it is really sorry about playing fast and loose with user data – or just because its practices have drawn the spotlight.

QUESTION 1: You’ve said you should have acted years ago to protect user privacy and guard against other abuses. Was that solely a failure of your leadership, or did Facebook’s business model or other factors create an obstacle to change? How can you ensure that Facebook doesn’t make similar errors in the future?

CONTEXT: Zuckerberg controls 59.7 percent of the voting stock in Facebook. He is both chairman of the board and CEO. He can’t be fired, unless he fires himself. “At the end of the day, this is my responsibility,” he told reporters on a conference call last week. He also admitted to making a “huge mistake” in not taking a broad enough view of Facebook’s responsibility in the world.

Zuckerberg, however, has been apologizing for not doing better on privacy for 11 years . In the current crisis, neither he nor chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg have clarified exactly how Facebook developed such a huge blind spot, much less how it can prevent history from repeating itself.

POSSIBLE FOLLOW-UP: Does Facebook need a chief privacy officer with the authority to take action on behalf of users?

QUESTION 2: Who owns user data on Facebook, the company or the users? If it’s the latter, why shouldn’t Facebook allow people to opt out of being targeted by ads?

CONTEXT: Facebook collects data on its own (your likes, which ads you click on, etc.); keeps data you share yourself (photos, videos, messages); and correlates data from outside sources to data on its platform (email lists from marketers, and until recently, information from credit agencies).

Who owns what is a difficult question to answer, and Facebook clearly hasn’t been good at explaining it. While you can download everything the company knows about you, it doesn’t really allow you to take “your” data to a rival.

Sandberg told Today’s Savannah Guthrie that given Facebook’s ad-driven business model, you can’t currently avoid data mining of your public profile information. (You can opt not to see the resulting targeted ads , though.) Allowing that, Sandberg said, would effectively require Facebook to turn into a “paid product” that charges users.

POSSIBLE FOLLOW-UP: Don’t other businesses allow some users to opt out of ads? Why can’t Facebook charge users who want ad-free experiences the way Hulu and YouTube do?

QUESTION 3: Facebook has made connecting with others and sharing information dead simple. Why haven’t you put similar effort into making your privacy controls equally easy to use?

CONTEXT: Facebook has updated its privacy settings seven times in the last decade, each time aimed at making them simpler to use.

The latest update was on March 28. On April 4, the company announced new technical changes designed to close loopholes that allowed third parties overbroad access to user data.

Facebook makes many pieces of information your profile public by default; to lock them down, you have to change those settings yourself.

POSSIBLE FOLLOW-UP: Does this legacy suggest the government needs to step in with clear and universal privacy rules?

QUESTION 4: Did Facebook threaten legal action against the Guardian newspaper in the U.K. regarding its reporting on the Cambridge Analytica scandal?

CONTEXT: John Mulholland, editor of the Guardian US, tweeted in March that Facebook had threatened to sue to stop publication of its story that broke the Cambridge Analytica scandal in mid-March. Neither the Guardian nor Facebook have commented further.

POSSIBLE FOLLOW-UP: Do you still stand behind Facebook’s actions here?

QUESTION 5: Have you spoken with critics, including some former Facebook investors and colleagues, who argue that the company’s service has become an addictive and corrosive force in society?

CONTEXT: Sean Parker, Facebook’s first president, said Facebook specializes in “exploiting” human psychology and may be harming our children’s brains. An early investor in Facebook, Roger McNamee compared Facebook to an addictive substance such as nicotine and alcohol.

Brian Acton, a co-founder of WhatsApp (acquired by Facebook in 2014), recently recommended that people should delete their Facebook accounts . Chamath Palihapitiya, an early vice president at Facebook, said Facebook’s tools are “ripping apart the social fabric.”

POSSIBLE FOLLOW-UP:  If not, why not?

 
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Congress has plenty of questions for Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who will testify on Capitol Hill Tuesday and Wednesday about the company’s ongoing data-privacy scandal and how it failed to guard against other abuses of its service.

Facebook is struggling to cope with the worst privacy crisis in its history – allegations that a Trump-affiliated data mining firm may have used ill-gotten user data to try to influence elections. Zuckerberg and his company are in full damage-control mode, and have announced a number of piecemeal technical changes intended to address privacy issues.

But there’s plenty the Facebook CEO hasn’t yet explained. Here are five questions that could shed more light on Facebook’s privacy practices and the degree to which it is really sorry about playing fast and loose with user data – or just because its practices have drawn the spotlight.

QUESTION 1: You’ve said you should have acted years ago to protect user privacy and guard against other abuses. Was that solely a failure of your leadership, or did Facebook’s business model or other factors create an obstacle to change? How can you ensure that Facebook doesn’t make similar errors in the future?

CONTEXT: Zuckerberg controls 59.7 percent of the voting stock in Facebook. He is both chairman of the board and CEO. He can’t be fired, unless he fires himself. “At the end of the day, this is my responsibility,” he told reporters on a conference call last week. He also admitted to making a “huge mistake” in not taking a broad enough view of Facebook’s responsibility in the world.

Zuckerberg, however, has been apologizing for not doing better on privacy for 11 years . In the current crisis, neither he nor chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg have clarified exactly how Facebook developed such a huge blind spot, much less how it can prevent history from repeating itself.

POSSIBLE FOLLOW-UP: Does Facebook need a chief privacy officer with the authority to take action on behalf of users?

QUESTION 2: Who owns user data on Facebook, the company or the users? If it’s the latter, why shouldn’t Facebook allow people to opt out of being targeted by ads?

CONTEXT: Facebook collects data on its own (your likes, which ads you click on, etc.); keeps data you share yourself (photos, videos, messages); and correlates data from outside sources to data on its platform (email lists from marketers, and until recently, information from credit agencies).

Who owns what is a difficult question to answer, and Facebook clearly hasn’t been good at explaining it. While you can download everything the company knows about you, it doesn’t really allow you to take “your” data to a rival.

Sandberg told Today’s Savannah Guthrie that given Facebook’s ad-driven business model, you can’t currently avoid data mining of your public profile information. (You can opt not to see the resulting targeted ads , though.) Allowing that, Sandberg said, would effectively require Facebook to turn into a “paid product” that charges users.

POSSIBLE FOLLOW-UP: Don’t other businesses allow some users to opt out of ads? Why can’t Facebook charge users who want ad-free experiences the way Hulu and YouTube do?

QUESTION 3: Facebook has made connecting with others and sharing information dead simple. Why haven’t you put similar effort into making your privacy controls equally easy to use?

CONTEXT: Facebook has updated its privacy settings seven times in the last decade, each time aimed at making them simpler to use.

The latest update was on March 28. On April 4, the company announced new technical changes designed to close loopholes that allowed third parties overbroad access to user data.

Facebook makes many pieces of information your profile public by default; to lock them down, you have to change those settings yourself.

POSSIBLE FOLLOW-UP: Does this legacy suggest the government needs to step in with clear and universal privacy rules?

QUESTION 4: Did Facebook threaten legal action against the Guardian newspaper in the U.K. regarding its reporting on the Cambridge Analytica scandal?

CONTEXT: John Mulholland, editor of the Guardian US, tweeted in March that Facebook had threatened to sue to stop publication of its story that broke the Cambridge Analytica scandal in mid-March. Neither the Guardian nor Facebook have commented further.

POSSIBLE FOLLOW-UP: Do you still stand behind Facebook’s actions here?

QUESTION 5: Have you spoken with critics, including some former Facebook investors and colleagues, who argue that the company’s service has become an addictive and corrosive force in society?

CONTEXT: Sean Parker, Facebook’s first president, said Facebook specializes in “exploiting” human psychology and may be harming our children’s brains. An early investor in Facebook, Roger McNamee compared Facebook to an addictive substance such as nicotine and alcohol.

Brian Acton, a co-founder of WhatsApp (acquired by Facebook in 2014), recently recommended that people should delete their Facebook accounts . Chamath Palihapitiya, an early vice president at Facebook, said Facebook’s tools are “ripping apart the social fabric.”

POSSIBLE FOLLOW-UP:  If not, why not?

 
…

Despite a global abundance of food, a United Nations report says 815 million people, 11 percent of the world’s population, went hungry in 2016. That number seems to be rising.

Poverty is not the only reason, however, people are experiencing food insecurity.

“Increasingly we’re also seeing hunger caused by the displacement related to conflict, natural disaster as well, but particularly there’s been an uptick in the number of people displaced in the world,” said Robert Opp, director of Innovation and Change Management at the United Nations World Food Program.

Humanitarian organizations are turning to new technologies such as AI, or artificial intelligence, to fight global food insecurity.

WATCH: Global Hunger Is Rising — Artificial Intelligence Can Help

“What AI offers us right now, is an ability to augment human capacity. So, we’re not talking about replacing human beings and things. We’re talking about doing more things and doing them better than we could by just human capacity alone,” Opp said.

Analyze data, get it to farmers

Artificial intelligence can analyze large amounts of data to locate areas affected by conflict and natural disasters and assist farmers in developing countries. The data can then be accessed by farmers from their smartphones.

“The average smartphone that exists in the world today is more powerful than the entire Apollo space program 50 years ago. So just imagine a farmer in Africa who has a smartphone has much more computing power than the entire Apollo space program,” said Pranav Khaitan, engineering lead at Google AI.

“When you take your special data and soil mapping data and use AI to do the analysis, you can send me the information. So in a nutshell, you can help me [know] when to plant, what to plant, how to plant,” said Uyi Stewart, director of Strategy Data and Analytics in Global Development of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

“When you start combining technologies, AI, robotics, sensors, that’s when we see magic start to happen on farms for production, to increase crop yields,” said Zenia Tata, vice president for Global Impact Strategy at XPRIZE, an organization that creates incentivized competitions so innovative ideas and technologies can be developed to benefit humanity.

“It all comes down to developing these techniques and making it available to these farmers and people on the ground,” Khaitan said.

Breaking down barriers

However, the developing world is often the last to get new technologies.

As Stewart said, “815 million people are hungry and I can bet you that nearly 814 million out of the 815 million do not have a smartphone.”

Even when the technology is available, other barriers still exist.

“A lot of these people that we talked about that are hungry, they don’t speak English, so when we get insights out of this technology how are we going to pass it onto them?” Stewart said.

While it may take time for new technologies to reach the developing world, many hope such advances will ultimately trickle-down to farmers in regions that face food insecurity.

“You’ve invented the technology. The big investments have gone in. Now you’re modifying it, which brings the cost down as well,” said Teddy Bekele, vice president of Ag Technology at U.S.-based agribusiness and food company Land O’Lakes.

“So, I think three to four years maybe we’ll have some of the things we have here to be used there [in the developing world] as well,” Bekele predicted.

Those who work in humanitarian organizations said entrepreneurs must look outside their own countries to adapt the new technologies to combat global hunger, or come up with a private, public model. Farmers will need the tools and training so they can harness the power of artificial intelligence to help feed the hungry in the developing world.

This story was written by Elizabeth Lee​.
…

Despite a global abundance of food, a United Nations report says 815 million people, 11 percent of the world’s population, went hungry in 2016. That number seems to be rising.

Poverty is not the only reason, however, people are experiencing food insecurity.

“Increasingly we’re also seeing hunger caused by the displacement related to conflict, natural disaster as well, but particularly there’s been an uptick in the number of people displaced in the world,” said Robert Opp, director of Innovation and Change Management at the United Nations World Food Program.

Humanitarian organizations are turning to new technologies such as AI, or artificial intelligence, to fight global food insecurity.

WATCH: Global Hunger Is Rising — Artificial Intelligence Can Help

“What AI offers us right now, is an ability to augment human capacity. So, we’re not talking about replacing human beings and things. We’re talking about doing more things and doing them better than we could by just human capacity alone,” Opp said.

Analyze data, get it to farmers

Artificial intelligence can analyze large amounts of data to locate areas affected by conflict and natural disasters and assist farmers in developing countries. The data can then be accessed by farmers from their smartphones.

“The average smartphone that exists in the world today is more powerful than the entire Apollo space program 50 years ago. So just imagine a farmer in Africa who has a smartphone has much more computing power than the entire Apollo space program,” said Pranav Khaitan, engineering lead at Google AI.

“When you take your special data and soil mapping data and use AI to do the analysis, you can send me the information. So in a nutshell, you can help me [know] when to plant, what to plant, how to plant,” said Uyi Stewart, director of Strategy Data and Analytics in Global Development of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

“When you start combining technologies, AI, robotics, sensors, that’s when we see magic start to happen on farms for production, to increase crop yields,” said Zenia Tata, vice president for Global Impact Strategy at XPRIZE, an organization that creates incentivized competitions so innovative ideas and technologies can be developed to benefit humanity.

“It all comes down to developing these techniques and making it available to these farmers and people on the ground,” Khaitan said.

Breaking down barriers

However, the developing world is often the last to get new technologies.

As Stewart said, “815 million people are hungry and I can bet you that nearly 814 million out of the 815 million do not have a smartphone.”

Even when the technology is available, other barriers still exist.

“A lot of these people that we talked about that are hungry, they don’t speak English, so when we get insights out of this technology how are we going to pass it onto them?” Stewart said.

While it may take time for new technologies to reach the developing world, many hope such advances will ultimately trickle-down to farmers in regions that face food insecurity.

“You’ve invented the technology. The big investments have gone in. Now you’re modifying it, which brings the cost down as well,” said Teddy Bekele, vice president of Ag Technology at U.S.-based agribusiness and food company Land O’Lakes.

“So, I think three to four years maybe we’ll have some of the things we have here to be used there [in the developing world] as well,” Bekele predicted.

Those who work in humanitarian organizations said entrepreneurs must look outside their own countries to adapt the new technologies to combat global hunger, or come up with a private, public model. Farmers will need the tools and training so they can harness the power of artificial intelligence to help feed the hungry in the developing world.

This story was written by Elizabeth Lee​.
…

Despite a global abundance of food, a United Nations report says 815 million people, 11 percent of the world’s population, went hungry in 2016. Advances in technology and artificial intelligence can help feed them, but there are challenges that keep first world technologies from reaching the developing world. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee explains.
…

The next generation of life-saving robots could be inspired by cockroaches. Faith Lapidus explains how.
…

Facebook violates its users’ privacy rights through the use of its facial recognition software, according to consumer groups led by the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

Their complaint to the federal government focuses on the use of Facebook software that identifies people in photographs that are uploaded to its site.

A complaint filed Friday by a coalition of consumer organizations with Federal Trade Commission said the social media giant “routinely scans photos for biometric facial matches without the consent of the image subject.”

The complaint says the company tries to improve its facial recognition prowess by deceptively encouraging users the participate in the process of identifying people in photographs.

“This unwanted, unnecessary, and dangerous identification of individuals undermines user privacy, ignores the explicit preferences of Facebook users, and is contrary to law in several state and many parts of the world.”

The groups maintain there is little users can do to prevent images of their faces from being in a social media system like Facebook’s. They contend facial scanning can be abused by authoritarian governments, a key argument considering Facebook may be required to provide user information to governments.

The complaint is the latest in a string of privacy-related issues the FTC is already investigating, including charges it allowed the personal information of 87 million users to be improperly harvested by Cambridge Analytica, the British consulting firm which was hired by U.S. President Donald Trump during his 2016 presidential campaign.

Until Thursday, Facebook had not said how many accounts had been harvested by Cambridge Analytica. Facebook has also been hesitant to explain how the company’s product might have been used by Russian-supported entities to affect the U.S. presidential election outcome.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is scheduled to testify next week before two congressional committees.
…