A law in the US Congress is being drafted. Facebook on Monday announced a new feature that allows users to upload massive amounts of personal data, such as photos and videos, to other services, including the Google Photos service.
Editor’s note: This article comes from Tencent Technology , review: Cheng Xi.
It is well known that in the past few years, the U.S. social network giant Facebook has reported numerous countless personal privacy infringement scandals, and its corporate image has plummeted. The U.S. government, consumers, and media have demanded that Facebook take various measures to better To protect personal privacy. According to the latest news from foreign media, according to a law currently being drafted by the US Congress, Facebook announced a new feature on Monday that allows users to upload massive amounts of personal data such as photos and videos to other services, including the Google Photos service.
According to foreign media reports, some members of the US House of Representatives previously proposed a draft of a new law that requires large social networking platforms like Facebook to allow users to easily transfer their data to other services.
Democratic Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, and Republican Senator Josh Holly of Missouri, among others, proposed this in October. Act of the ACCESS Act.
Facebook has previously written about the importance of allowing users to transfer personal data to other platforms, a feature known as data portability in terminology.
In March of this year, Facebook CEO Zuckerberg said in a review article in the Washington Post that he hopes that the US government will introduce relevant regulations to allow the personal data of social networks to be migrated. In September, Facebook again released a white paper that talked about this feature.
Facebook has started rolling out this feature. The site used to allow users to download a file containing all of their data, but it was not easy to transfer that data to a competitor’s social network. Facebook, a new tool, has done all the work for users, at least for now, it is possible to transfer massive personal photos or videos to Google services.
The launch of this new feature comes at a time when Facebook is facing antitrust investigations against the company by the United States and the United States. Among them, the U.S. House of Representatives, the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and almost all states in the U.S. Investigated Facebook’s various monopoly issues. An investigation case previously exposed by the media involving the companyWith more than 90 mergers and acquisitions in the past ten years or so, the US government suspects that the purpose of these acquisitions by Facebook is to eliminate potential future rivals in advance.
According to foreign media reports, antitrust penalties for technology companies are often determined based on the damage they cause to users, and Facebook launched a tool to migrate personal privacy data, which allows users to freely and easily when they are dissatisfied with the services of Facebook. Leaving, thereby alleviating some antitrust concerns.
In the face of antitrust investigations, the company may have the opportunity to argue that if users can more easily transfer their Facebook privacy data elsewhere, it means competitors can use this data to launch competition with Facebook Services, which will reduce the possibility of allegations that Facebook has a monopoly on the market.
Facebook said in a blog post that this new tool will be launched first in Ireland in Europe and will be launched globally in the first half of 2020. Users will be able to migrate their information from the settings under “Your Facebook Info”, where users are now able to download personal data.
Facebook said that personal data transmitted through this migration tool will be encrypted and require users to re-enter the Facebook platform password again.
Facebook said in a blog post that the company wants to launch a personal data migration tool that people can trust and use effectively. In addition, in order to build credibility, consumers and Internet companies need to establish clear rules on what types of data should be transferable and who is responsible for protecting this data when it is transferred to different services. Help advance the conversation about the privacy issues we identified in the white paper. We know we can’t do this alone, so we encourage other companies to join data migration projects, expand choices for people, and continue to drive innovation in data portability. “< / p>
Huge data
Facebook has been attacked by public opinion for violating personal privacy, and has been subject to a large number of antitrust investigations. One important reason is that the company has too much personal privacy data.
Facebook has four social tools (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger), each of which has more than one billion users. The company has the most personal privacy data in the world’s Internet industry.
In the aftermath of the privacy invasion scandal, including the “Cambridge Analytica Incident,” public opinion demanded a spin-off of Facebook, at least the divestiture of WhatsApp and Instagram, which had been acquired for more than $ 20 billion. Because the spin-off can lead to a reduction of Facebook’s private data and reduce intrusionMake a risk of privacy.
New law
According to foreign media reports, the aforementioned “Data Access Law” proposed by the US Senate will apply to Internet product or service platforms with more than 100 million monthly active users in the United States.
Besides Facebook ’s core platform, this legislation will also affect Facebook ’s Messenger, Instagram, and Google ’s video site YouTube.
“Social media has huge benefits,” Senator Warner said in a statement announcing the bill. “But, as we can see, the huge advantages of a few large platforms also have significant disadvantages. For those who want to use social media to connect with friends, store photos, or watch pet cat videos, they see the entire market There are only a few platforms on it, and there is almost no real competition. “
The bill will require technology companies to allow users to access their personal data in a structured and machine-readable format. They must also maintain transparent technical interfaces and allow competing platforms to access data. The proposal will allow users to work with third parties to update and manage their accounts and privacy settings.