Facebook Will Stop Phone Numbers For Friend Suggestions

Facebook has reported that it will stop using the phone numbers of its users from its two-factor authentication security tool to enhance the friend suggestion feature.

The company used these numbers, which users specifically offered to protect their accounts from unauthorized access, to encourage them to add members of their calendar to their list of friends on the social network .

This change is part of a privacy agreement of 5,000 million dollars (about 4,500 million euros) that Facebook reached with the United States Federal Trade Commission in July on the privacy practices of the social network.

According to the company, the change, which will prevent any telephone number provided during registration for two-factor authentication from being used for friendship suggestions, will occur this week in Ecuador, Ethiopia, Pakistan, Libya and Cambodia and will reach the rest of the world in 2020 .

Based on the comments of the privacy and security communities, we have begun to update our two-factor authentication feature so that the phone numbers that people add are not used to suggest friends.

Hours before it has been discovered that the data of more than 267 million Facebook users have been exposed for two weeks in a database that could be accessed without the need for an authentication system.

The name, phone number and Facebook ID of 267 million Facebook users have been found in a database hosted on an unprotected website, as reported by Comparitech, a cybersecurity company that has worked on this investigation together with the researcher Bob Diachenko

The data has been exposed two weeks, “before access was removed,” according to the statement. The website where they were was not password protected or by any other form of authentication.

Instagram To Stop Showing Likes Worldwide

The popular Instagram photo app has announced that it will start testing the elimination of “likes” markers globally. From now on, those users who enter the test program, including the Spanish , will no longer see the number of interactions that third party content receives on the platform. Starting today, we will expand our test of private likes counts worldwide. If you are in the test, you will no longer see the total number of likes and views in photos and videos published unless they are yours, ”said the social network owned by Facebook through its Twitter account.

Instagram was already testing the elimination of the “Like” number in several countries . The test, according to the “app”, has been well received by the users of these territories. This does not imply that the disappearance of the likes in the accounts of those who are part of the experiment will be permanent, although everything indicates that it will end up being in the near future. The response to the first tests in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Ireland, Italy, Japan and New Zealand has been positive. This is a fundamental change in Instagram, so we continue our test to learn more about our global community, ”explained the“ app ”in another tweet.

The goal that Instagram pursues with this measure is to encourage people to share their content without complexes. Without paying too much attention to the amount of raised thumbs you have compared to other users. And is that the number of “likes” that one receives when publishing on social networks can affect more than it seems at first glance . Especially the youngest. «The screens have increased narcissism, by putting the ‘I’ in the first place: our image becomes the main emblem and this can have negative side effects: exhibitionism, transformation of privacy and privacy, cyberbullying, threats, etc.  Recently assured Europa Press the psychologist and professor in Psychology and Educational Sciences of the UOC, José Ramón Ubieto.

The expert pointed out, in turn, that the elimination of the “Like” marker “reduces the hypertrophy of the ‘I’, this narcissistic phenomenon in which one tends to look for ‘likes’ and let everyone know that he has them and can also reduce the anguish of having them.

Instagram is not the only social network owned by Mark Zuckerberg that has deleted the “likes” counter. Right now, Facebook is performing the same test in Australia. The measure has long been criticized especially by ” influencers “,who see the disappearance of “like” a potential risk to their way of life. 

And it is that the artist, like the rest of the content creators, knows that the companies that the companies that hire her to advertise their products pay attention to the number of interactions that their publications receive. A recent study prepared by HypeAuditorshows that the influencers who reside in the countries where Instagram has been testing in recent months the disappearance of the “like” counter significantly reduced their activity in the social network. This measure will force the social commitment to reward the user’s commitment rather than vanity. The commitment to an “influencer” is measured more by the number of comments and “clicks” it gets for the company it represents than by the “likes”, which also, as in the case of followers, they can be bought.

The phenomenon of “likes” has ended up causing some content creators to buy followers and “likes” to get more large contracts. However, now the rules of the game have changed. Thanks to this, much will be gained in transparency in social networks. The “influencers” will be obliged to interact more with their followers so that their publications win in number of comments, which is a much more appropriate measure when assessing the influence of a user. It will also help to see in a clearer way to what extent an “influencer” is a good business for a company that wants to advertise. Up to now, special attention was paid to the number of likes and followers.