Facebook 'leaked' moderators' identities to suspected terrorists

June 17, 2017

San Francisco, Jun 17: : A report on Friday alleged that Facebook had put the safety of its content moderators at risk after accidentally exposing their personal details to suspected terrorist users of the social network.3000

As per The Guardian, a bug in the software, identified in late 2016, affected more than 1,000 workers across 22 departments at Facebook, who used the company"s moderation software to review and remove inappropriate content from the platform, including sexual material, hate speech and terrorist propaganda.

This all started after Facebook moderators started receiving friend requests from people affiliated with the terrorist organisations they were scrutinising.

It was later discovered by the company that the personal Facebook profiles of its moderators had been automatically appearing in the activity logs of the terror groups they were shutting down.

The report added that “of the 1,000 affected workers, around 40 worked in a counter-terrorism unit based at Facebook"s European headquarters in Dublin, Ireland. Six of those were assessed to be `high priority` victims of the mistake after Facebook concluded their personal profiles were likely viewed by potential terrorists.”

Upon coming to know about the glitch, one of the six workers fled Ireland and went into hiding in eastern Europe for five months.

The Iraqi-born Irish citizen, who is in his early twenties, said he found out that seven individuals associated with a suspected terrorist group he banned from Facebook – an Egypt-based group that backed Hamas and, he said, had members who were Islamic State sympathizers – had viewed his personal profile.

"The security glitch, which lasted for a month before Facebook was able to correct it in November, made the moderators' profiles appear in the notifications of Facebook groups that are thought to be administrated by terrorists with ties to Islamic State, Hezbollah and the Kurdistan Workers Party," the report quoted a moderator as saying.

The moderator revealed about his family's tryst with terrorism in the past - his father had been abducted and beaten, and his uncle executed in Iraq.

Confirming the security breach, a Facebook spokesperson told The Guardian that the website had made technical changes to "better detect and prevent these types of issues from occurring".

"We care deeply about keeping everyone who works for Facebook safe. As soon as we learned about the issue, we fixed it and began a thorough investigation to learn as much as possible about what happened," the spokesperson added.

After the leak was detected, Facebook convened a "task force of data scientists, community operations and security investigators".

The internal e-mails of Facebook revealed that the company warned all the employees and contracted staff it believed were affected, and also set-up an e-mail address, [email protected], to field queries from those affected.

"For those in the high-risk group, Facebook also offered counselling through its employee assistance program, over and above counselling offered by the contractor, Cpl. It also offered to install a home alarm monitoring system and provide transport to and from work to the six," the report said.

However, the moderator, who went into hiding, said that Facebook needed to do more to address their pressing concerns for their safety and families.

The moderator has filed a legal claim against Facebook and Cpl, seeking compensation for the psychological damage caused by the leak.

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Agencies
June 10,2020

US dictionary Merriam-Webster will update the meaning of the word "racism" after being contacted by a Missouri black woman, who claimed the current definition fell short of including the systematic oppression of people of colour, according to media reports.

"A revision to the entry for racism is now being drafted to be added to the dictionary soon, and we are also planning to revise the entries of other words that are related to racism or have racial connotations," according to a statement of the 189-year-old dictionary shared by Kennedy Mitchum, a recent graduate of Drake University in Iowa, on her Facebook.

Mitchum, 22, emailed the dictionary last month, following the death of African American George Floyd in the custody of four Minneapolis police officers, Xinhua news agency reported.

"I kept having to tell them that definition is not representative of what is actually happening in the world," Mitchum told CNN. "The way that racism occurs in real life is not just prejudice, it's the systemic racism that is happening for a lot of black Americans."

Merriam-Webster's first definition of racism is "a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race."

"It's not just disliking someone because of their race," Mitchum wrote in a Facebook post on Friday. "This current fight we are in is evidence of that, lives are at stake because of the systems of oppression that go hand-in-hand with racism."

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Agencies
July 13,2020

New Delhi, Jul 13: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has blocked Bharti Airtel's Platinum and Vodafone Idea's RedX premium plans that offer faster data speeds and priority services to customers as both the plans were violating net neutrality norms.

The telecom watchdog has asked Bharti Airtel to explain within seven days how such a similar plan being launched does not violate the rules of net neutrality.

Vodafone Idea's RedX plan has been in the market since November 2019. They made some modifications in May 2020 and the Bharti Airtel was soon going to launch a similar plan.

According to TRAI, the higher speed for premium customers discriminate against others and violates net neutrality.

Responding to TRAI's move, Airtel spokesperson said: "We are passionate about delivering the best network and service experience to all our customers. This is why we have a relentless obsession to eliminate faults and have been consistently recognised by international agencies as the best network in terms of speed, latency and video experience."

"At the same time, we want to keep raising the bar for our post-paid customers in terms of service and responsiveness. This is an ongoing effort at our end," the spokesperson said.

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News Network
July 28,2020

Bengaluru, Jul 28: Congress leader Siddaramaiah on Monday alleged that BJP is trying to destabilise the Congress government in Rajasthan.

"It is the duty of the Governor to act according to the decision of the state cabinet. But he is acting like a central government puppet," he said at a protest organised here by Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC).

He said the Congress is protesting across the country to save democracy and save the constitution.

"We are not fighting through violence. We are protesting peacefully. The Constitution has given the right to protest in a democratic system," he said.

He accused the BJP of "being disrespectful" to the Constitution.

"Governments must walk within the framework of the Constitution. The Constitution gives everyone rights and duties. BJP destabilises elected governments and buys our legislators by horse-trading by spending crores of money. The same thing happened in Karnataka as well," he alleged.

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