Mark Zuckerberg Again Rejects Claims Of Facebook Impact On US Election

November 14, 2016

New York, Nov 14: Facebook Inc chief executive Mark Zuckerberg again rejected the idea that the social network affected the US presidential election, saying late Saturday it is "extremely unlikely" news hoaxes changed the outcome.

MaEnsnared in a string of content controversies in recent months, Facebook has insisted that it is a technology company, not a media firm. But scrutiny of the site has heightened since the surprise election of Republican Donald Trump on Tuesday, with critics alleging the site helped spread lies via fake news stories and hoaxes.

Zuckerberg has vehemently defended the network against such criticism, calling the idea that Facebook affected the election "crazy" at a conference on Thursday. He echoed that stance in his late Saturday post, though he said the company would do more to prevent fake news.

Such hoaxes represent a sliver of content shared on Facebook and because they are not limited to partisan views or politics, it is unlikely they could have changed the election's outcome, Zuckerberg said.

"Of all the content on Facebook, more than 99 percent of what people see is authentic," he said, noting the network's goal is to "give every person a voice."

Still, Facebook has launched work to enable people to flag hoaxes and fake news, the statement said.

Facebook has faced a number of content controversies this year, including international outcry after it removed an iconic Vietnam War photo due to nudity, a decision that was later reversed. The thorniest content issues are decided by a group of top executives at Facebook.

Questions over content policing have returned to the fore in the tense days since the election, which has led to protests against Trump and his proposed policies in major US cities.

Ahead of the Nov. 8 election, Facebook users saw fake news reports erroneously alleging that Pope Francis endorsed Donald Trump and that a federal agent who had been investigating Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton was found dead.

Senior management have launched a conversation to examine Facebook's involvement in affecting opinions and votes, The New York Times reported on Saturday, saying a group of vice presidents and executives began discussing late Tuesday the company's role in the election's outcome.

Facebook's policy team was called together and the firm plans to address staff concerns at a broader meeting, the paper reported, citing anonymous sources.

Facebook representatives were not immediately available to comment on the report.

"After the election, many people are asking whether fake news contributed to the result, and what our responsibility is to prevent fake news from spreading," Zuckerberg said on Saturday.

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Agencies
January 12,2020

Washington D.C., Jan 12: A recent study has claimed that people end up wasting almost an entire day when they take a vacation.

This can happen while standing in a queue or searching for places to visit, people do not keep a count of the time they have actually utilised during the trip. As a result, they end up doing much lesser activities than they originally had planned.

According to a recent report in Fox News, the study has also shared the fact that people try to justify time waste with planning and scheduling activities whereas the truth is that these things can be done well ahead to save time during the trip.

The average time waste according to the study commissioned by Sykes Holiday Cottages also said the people taking a seven days' trip waste a minimum of 17-and-a-half hours to figure out various factors.

But there are other causes involved as well. When one visits any crowded location, the real-time spent to enjoy the location is lesser than the time spent on reaching and trying to get involved. For instance, if one visits an amusement park, the activities take lesser time than the preparatory and other phases.

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Agencies
June 27,2020

Mumbai, Jun 27: The Bombay High Court observed that COVID-19 patients from poor and indigent sections cannot be expected to produce documentary proof to avail subsidised or free treatment while getting admitted to hospitals.

The court on Friday was hearing a plea filed by seven residents of a slum rehabilitation building in Bandra, who had been charged ₹ 12.5 lakh by K J Somaiya Hospital for COVID-19 treatment between April 11 and April 28.

The bench of Justices Ramesh Dhanuka and Madhav Jamdar directed the hospital to deposit ₹10 lakh in the court.

The petitioners had borrowed money and managed to pay ₹10 lakh out of ₹12.5 lakh that the hospital had demanded, after threatening to halt their discharge if they failed to clear the bill, counsel Vivek Shukla informed the court.

According to the plea, the petitioners were also overcharged for PPE kits and unused services.

On June 13, the court had directed the state charity commissioner to probe if the hospital had reserved 20% beds for poor and indigent patients and provided free or subsidised treatment to them.

Last week, the joint charity commissioner had informed the court that although the hospital had reserved such beds, it had treated only three poor or indigent persons since the lockdown.

It was unfathomable that the hospital that claimed to have reserved 90 beds for poor and indigent patients had treated only three such persons during the pandemic, advocate Shukla said.

He further argued that COVID-19 patients, who are in distress, cannot be expected to produce income certificate and such documents as proof.

However, senior advocate Janak Dwarkadas, who represented the hospital, said the petitioners did not belong to economically weak or indigent categories and had not produced documents to prove the same.

A person who is suffering from a disease like COVID-19 cannot be expected to produce certificates from a tehsildar or social welfare officer before seeking admission in the hospital, the bench noted and asked the hospital to deposit ₹10 lakh in court within two weeks.

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Agencies
May 19,2020

Cybersecurity researchers on Monday warned of a Trojan malware campaign which is targeting India's co-operative banks using COVID-19 as a bait.

Seqrite, the enterprise arm of IT security firm Quick Heal Technologies, detected the new wave of Adwind Java Remote Access Trojan (RAT) campaign.

Researchers at Seqrite warned that if attackers are successful, they can take over the victim's device to steal sensitive data like SWIFT logins and customer details and move laterally to launch large scale cyberattacks and financial frauds.

According to the researchers, the Java RAT campaign starts with a spear-phishing email which claims to have originated from either the Reserve Bank of India or a nationalised bank.

The content of the email refers to COVID-19 guidelines or a financial transaction, with detailed information in an attachment, which is a zip file containing a JAR based malware.

Upon further investigation, researchers at Seqrite found that the JAR based malware is a Remote Access Trojan that can run on any machine which has Java runtime enabled and hence it can impact a variety of endpoints, irrespective of their base operating system.

Once the RAT is installed, the attacker can take over the victim's device, send commands from a remote machine, and spread laterally in the network.

In addition, this malware can also log keystrokes, capture screenshots, download additional payloads, and extract sensitive user information, Seqrite said, adding that such attack campaigns can effectively jeopardise the privacy and security of sensitive data at the co-operative banks and result in large scale attacks and financial frauds.

To prevent such attacks, users need to exercise ample caution and avoid opening attachments and clicking on web links in unsolicited emails.

Banks should also keep their operating systems updated and have a full-fledged security solution installed on all the devices, Seqrite advised.

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