Facebook finally takes steps against misinformation about COVID vaccines for children

Facebook is stretching the old adage "better late than never" to its limits.

The massive social network that now exists under a brand called Meta published a blog post on Friday detailing some of the steps it would now take to curb COVID vaccine misinformation, specifically as it regards kids getting the vaccine. This came hot on the heels of the FDA finally issuing an emergency use authorizing for the Pfizer vaccine for kids aged 5 to 11.

SEE ALSO: Best headphones for kids

As for specifics, Facebook is going to roll out English and Spanish-language reminders in users' news feeds that the vaccines are now authorized for kids, with information on where and how to get them. Furthermore, false claims about the vaccines being untested, unsafe, or ineffective for kids have been added to the long list of COVID misinformation that Facebook will remove from the site.

Facebook's announcement came after weeks of heightened controversy around the company. Whistleblower Frances Haugen revealed internal documents showcasing the company's seeming disregard for its ability to cause real-world harm. "Fake news" has been a talking point surrounding Facebook for years, and the spotlight has only gotten brighter as time has gone on.

Tackling this brand of misinformation is obviously the correct thing to do, but it's worth asking why Facebook waited until now. We're more than a year and a half into the pandemic in the United States and people have been getting vaccinated for more than a year if you count trial participants. It didn't suddenly become harmful to spread vaccine misinformation about children the second the FDA authorized it for that age group.

Still, unlike a name change, at least this might actually do something to help fix the problem.

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Twitter lets you record Spaces, basically turning them into podcasts

Twitter's quest to give users anything else to do on the app besides post and like tweets continues.

The latest stop in that journey is the ability to keep Twitter Spaces around for posterity after they're over. Spaces is a live audio feature that the platform started rolling out late last year.

Twitter is now starting to allow hosts of the live audio chats to record said chats and post shareable links, giving users a way to tune in and hear whatever great contributions to society were made after the fact. Recording is only available for some iOS and Android users at the moment, but will roll out to more folks over the next several weeks.

Tweet may have been deleted

When starting a Twitter Space, the host will have to opt into recording it up-front. Everyone who attends as listeners or speakers will see an onscreen notification that it's being recorded, so nobody will be surprised if their idle audio chatter is listenable later on. Twitter will keep its own copy of a recorded Space for up to 120 days afterward if it needs to be checked for rule violations, but a host can delete the recording from public access at any time.

If this sounds suspiciously close to just making a podcast that's only available on Twitter for some reason, that's basically what it is. The main difference is that it's sorta hard to connect a professional-grade microphone to a smartphone (you can only create Spaces on mobile right now), so a large majority of recorded Spaces will sound markedly worse than a podcast. That said, some creators can at least charge money for them, so there's that.

Spaces are far from the worst of Twitter's innovations, as they inoffensively sit at the top of the timeline while they're live and are otherwise easy to ignore. Still, it's easy to wonder why Twitter is leaning so hard into a feature that mostly seemed like a reaction to Clubhouse when it first launched, and hasn't really become a staple of the Twitter experience since then.

At the end of the day, if you want to start a podcast, you don't need to rely on Twitter's mobile infrastructure to do that. Maybe just get a decent mic and do it the conventional way. Your listeners' ears will thank you.

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How to block spam messages on WhatsApp

Pretty much every medium we use to communicate will be vulnerable to spam at some point or another. Texts, emails, social media, and messaging apps. Yep, even WhatsApp.

Spam messages, beyond being super freaking annoying, are potentially harmful in that spammers often try to get you to divulge your personal information, or click on dangerous links. It's so hard to find ways to protect yourself from spam completely, but here are some things you can do to prevent and block spam on WhatsApp.

Block or report a contact

1. Go to the message thread that contains the spam message (be careful not to click on any links within the message).

2. Tap on the contact at the very top of the page.

3. Tap "Block Contact" at the bottom (to block) and "Report Contact" (to report).

Find "block contact" and "report contact" at the bottom. Credit: Screengrab: whatsapp

4. Then tap "Block" again (or "Report again) when prompted. You can also just tap "Report Contact" and you'll have the option to do both at once by tapping "Report and Block"

Adjust your privacy settings

1. Navigate to your WhatsApp settings.

2. Tap "Account."

Find your account settings. Credit: screengrab: whatsapp

3. Tap "Privacy" at the top.

4. In your privacy settings, you can control who can see your online status, profile photo, "Last Seen," and your "About" section, as well as who can add you to groups.

Check out your privacy settings. Credit: screengrab: whatsapp

5. Edit these settings to your liking by tapping each one and choosing either "Everyone," "My Contacts," or "Nobody" — "Nobody" obviously gives you the most privacy while "Everyone" gives you the least.

We know it can sometimes be hard to tell if a message is spam or not. Sometimes it's obvious, but other times the message can look totally authentic, which of course, is by design. WhatsApp offers some helpful information about what spam messages can look like and how to spot them. You can find that info by going to the "spam and unwanted messages" section of the WhatsApp Help Center.

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TikTok wants you to stop dressing for the male gaze

Why is everyone talking about the male gaze on our FYPs? This week on TikTok we have a variety of trends that span topics like personal style, indie music, and The Rock. So let's dive in, starting with one that's ignited an important discourse around the male gaze and modern fashion trends.

POV you stopped dressing for the male gaze

Lately, the phrase "pov you stopped dressing for the male gaze" has been all over my For You Page, and it's sparking a necessary conversation on the app.

This trend is mostly a way for young people to celebrate their personal style glow-ups while also dismantling the male gaze. It's nice to see someone gain confidence and grow into their sense of style, even when it's set to a super sad mash-up of Taylor Swift’s most heartbreaking songs, "All Too Well" and "Champagne Problems."

But some are arguing that the trend is actually a way to slut-shame others for how they dress. Because adhering to style trends doesn't always mean you're dressing for yourself and out of the male gaze. And personal style is just that: personal. If you stop dressing for the male gaze, then that means you can wear whatever you want and, importantly, whatever makes you feel good.

For example, a video posted by @megacoraoconnel reads, "POV: you stopped dressing in 2014-2016 trends and started dressing in 2019-2021 trends." Her video has over 100,000 likes. And the caption points at the real issue: "I'm glad you found your personal style or whatever but you don’t need to shame people who dress differently than u!"

Another sharp critique was posted by @franksaystwentyeight, who wrote, "This trend is just a way to intellectualise sl*t shaming I started dressing how I wanted to and my titties are still out 24/7 suck it." The video has since garnered 1 million views and over 210,000 likes.

@franksaystwentyeight criticized the trend and got over one million views. Credit: tiktok / franksaystwentyeight

The male gaze is a term that’s thrown around a lot on TikTok, but the meaning is often lost because of its overuse.

"The male gaze is a theory originating in film, but useful for interpreting art, photography, and literature, in which the presumed camera/audience is male and everything in front of it is designed for his consumption, including women," explained Amanda Stanton-Nelson, the 24-year-old masters student behind the account @franksaystwentyeight. "It isn’t something you can consciously or unconsciously dress for, and ascribing it to women and non-binary people’s fashion choices doesn’t make a whole lot of sense," she continued.

Stanton-Nelson found that the videos on her For You Page of this trend were mostly girls who used to wear more revealing clothing and have since adopted more oversized silhouettes. "By saying it was a way to intellectualise slut-shaming I meant it was misusing a sociological term to make women feel bad or complicit in sexism for their clothing choices and imposing some sort of feminist hierarchy to fashion trends."

Indie songs from the 2000s that still slap

OK, this trend is actually hilarious. People have been dueting videos of creator @arijelkins in an attempt to imitate his distinct dances. It all started when @arijelkins, who has 1.2 million followers on the app, began posting a series of videos called “Indie Songs from the 2000s that Still Slap.” So far he’s posted 21 videos, and they're all filmed on his couch and feature stilted dance moves. Other creators picked up on the awkwardness and started imitating them.

Nat Hoops, the 23-year-old behind the account @nartaniel, believes he was the first person to duet @arijelkins's moves. Hoops’s imitation of @arijelkins got over four million views, 730,000 likes, and it has even inspired a slew of copycat videos.

Hoops' video inspired a trend on TikTok. Credit: tiktok / nartaniel

"I just saw his dance and thought it was really goofy, especially for the type of song he was listening to," Hoops told Mashable over Instagram DM.

"I think it caught on because his dance seemed pretty forced and everyone thought it was really awkward to imagine him filming this over and over again alone in his room. It’s also a really easy trend to hop on because he has so many videos that each have an awkward dance," he concluded.

It’s about drive, it’s about power

The song of the week on TikTok is easily "Face Off" by Tech N9ne, Joey Cool, and Dwayne Johnson. Yep, The Rock is a rapper now.

The song is an intense ode to hustle culture. The snippet trending on TikTok features the lyric "it’s about drive, it’s about power, we stay hunger, we devour, put in the work, put in the hours." The sound currently has over 390,000 videos on the app.

Similar to the "while you were sitting around" trend of a couple weeks ago, "Face Off" is typically paired with sped up videos and text that doesn’t warrant the ferocity of the audio. My favorite video of the trend was made by @niamhadkins. The text of her video reads, "middle school me making sure my ponytail didn’t have a single bump," and it shows her aggressively brushing her hair in double speed. I also brought that intensity to my ponytails in middle school, and clearly, I wasn't alone in my hair-brushing hustle. The video has over 6 million views.

Another iteration of the trend is sped up videos of K-pop idols working out and, well, devouring food. There's endless potential for this audio.

Finally, if you're looking for a last-minute Halloween costume, you might want to check out the videos under this sound. You're welcome.

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Facebook joins a long list of weird rebrands with Meta name change

In a likely attempt to divert from its increasingly toxic public image, Facebook has officially announced its parent company’s name will be Meta.

While the change is definitely rare, it’s not the first company to switch things up.

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Trump's social network has 30 days to comply with Mastodon's license... or else

Former President Donald Trump's new social network might fail to launch — all because it won't abide by the terms laid out by the people who wrote its source code.

Mastodon, the open-source platform that TRUTH Social is using, announced on its website that it's giving the social network 30 days to comply with its license before it permanently revokes it. Mastodon says it sent a formal letter on Oct. 26 to TRUTH Social's chief legal officer requesting compliance.

A policy violation? From Trump? No way.

Last week, Trump announced a new business venture called Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG). The organization's first product: TRUTH Social, a social media platform meant to compete with Facebook and Twitter, which banned the former president in the aftermath of the Capitol riots on Jan. 6.

While the current plan is to publicly launch a beta version of TRUTH Social in November, a slew of trolls discovered an unprotected sign-up form for the unreleased social network hours after the announcement. The trolls registered available usernames like @DonaldJTrump and @MikePence and defaced the profiles by posting meme pictures such as Pig Poop Balls.

While TMTG shut down the accounts later that same night, this was just the beginning of its problems.

TRUTH Social's earliest "unofficial" users noticed that TRUTH Social is actually built on an open-source social networking platform called Mastodon. Anyone can download Mastodon's code, which is developed by volunteers, at no-charge and create their own social platform using it.

However, when using open-source software like Mastodon, you are bound to its licensing terms. Users quickly discovered that Trump's social network was violating that license.

TRUTH Social's terms of service claim that it is "proprietary property" and all the source code is owned, controlled, or licensed to them. There is no mention of Mastodon or links to its source code. These credits are included in Mastodon by default, meaning TRUTH Social went out of its way to remove them.

Mastodon's publishes its source code for free under an AGPLv3 license. It requires that when a developer uses Mastodon and modifies parts of it to create its own custom version, it must publish the source code with all of the modifications included. And that brings us to another issue: TRUTH Social does not provide its source code. According to ZDNet, the social network has been ignoring requests for its source code.

So will Trump's team comply with Mastodon's requests? Or will TRUTH Social somehow last even less time than Trump's blog, which was shut down after just one month? Maybe TMTG will hire a developer team to recreate TRUTH Social from scratch?

We'll find out TRUTH Social's fate in approximately one month.

But, one thing is for certain. Trump has already made a ton of money from his social network.

In a press release last week, TMTG announced it was merging with publicly-traded SPAC Digital World Acquisition Corp. (DWAC). SPACs are basically shell corporations listed on the stock exchange with the intent to acquire or partner with a company in order to provide it with a stock listing. The merger valued TMTG at $875 million. The day after the press release, DWAC stock spiked by more than 500 percent.

It looks like you can make a ton of money off open-source software, at least if you're Donald Trump.

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Facebook scammers are hacking accounts and running ads with stolen money

Scammers are hacking Facebook accounts, running ads with stolen money, and bragging about their fraudulent fortunes right on the social network.

If you're one of the 10 million Facebook users running ads on the platform, beware of a growing scam ring that's hacking advertisers' accounts, using their credit cards to steal tens of thousands of dollars in Facebook ads, and openly bragging about the money they're making off the scheme right on the platform.

What's going on here?

The scam

Digital marketer Loni Mayse knew something was wrong when ten of the Facebook ad accounts she manages started running $15,000 per day ads for what she describes as a "Santa Clause on a stripper pole" Christmas decoration.

The fraudulent ads running on Loni Mayse's Facebook pages were pushing users to this ecommerce store. Credit: mashable screenshot

"Let's be honest who the fuck wants that?" she said, referring to the product being hawked via ads on a Facebook post describing the nightmare scenario she just went through.

Let's be honest who the fuck wants that?

"[The scammers] were in about 10 of my accounts within minutes," she explained in an online conversation with Mashable. "All running this ad. Bypassed every single Facebook security protocol as well."

Mayse says the scammers quickly placed two unauthorized users inside her Facebook Business Manager, which is the backend portal that allows social media managers and marketers to run multiple Facebook Pages and ad accounts from one dashboard. They also changed the names of the Facebook pages.

She explained how their emails and usernames tried to disguise what they were doing. In one instance, the scammers tried to spoof Facebook support by using a fake customer service email address for the user being added to the account. In another, they added a fake profile utilizing her own name, Loni Mayse, perhaps in an effort to make the duplicate look like a glitch and not an actual separate unauthorized account added to her Business Manager.

This is not a glitch. One of those Loni Mayse accounts are not really hers. Credit: Loni Mayse

The scammers were also able to raise the billing threshold on her ad accounts, allowing them to spend more of Mayse's and her clients' funds. Mayse pointed out how this requires approval from Facebook.

"I just do not understand how they got it approved so fast," she told me.

A screenshot of Loni Mayse's Facebook ad manager showing the scammer's ad and the $15k per day advertising budget that they set. Credit: Loni Mayse

The tens of thousands of dollars a day in Facebook ads that the scammers had access to were pushing users to an online shop called "HappyStore.info." The site is built using ShopBase, an ecommerce platform like Shopify located in San Francisco. In fact, the majority of the ecommerce shops involved in this particular scam ring appear to be built on the ShopBase platform.

ShopBase did not immediately respond to Mashable's request for comment.

The hack

How are these scammers gaining access to all these Facebook ad accounts?

It's pretty sneaky. A scammer will reach out to a digital marketer via Facebook Messenger posing as someone looking to hire a Facebook ad campaign manager. After their pitch, they'll send over a project proposal with all the details about the company, budget, and what they're looking to do. This proposal is cover for a .exe file download, disguised as an innocent PDF, which gives the scammer access to the target's Facebook Business Manager.

A PDF is just simply a document file. An .exe on the other hand is an executable file often used to run or install applications on a Windows-based PC. A user should never download an .exe file from someone they don't know as its often used to install viruses and other nefarious software on their computers.

Ecommerce strategist Alex Stiehl tells Mashable he was also targeted, but had seen the spreading warnings about the scam.

The unsolicited Facebook messages sent to Alex Stiehl. Credit: Alex StiehL

"They pretended to want me to run ads for them," Stiehl said. "I did not accept the [Facebook messages] and they have not gotten access to my accounts."

In the messages provided to Mashable, the script used by multiple scammer profiles have been similar, with each sending the target a Dropbox or MediaFire download link to a compressed file that includes the .exe disguised as a PDF. In one instance, the scammer even checked to make sure that its target had been using a PC as the .exe file would not be able to run on a Mac.

Unfortunately for Loni Mayse, she did download the file.

The unsolicited Facebook messages sent to Loni Mayse. Credit: Loni mayse

Upon doing so, the scammers were able to completely bypass the two-factor authentication she has on her Facebook account. However, she doesn't think the .exe file provided the scammers with remote access to her computer as she was monitoring the actions in real-time. One possibility is that the scammers were able to swipe Mayse's EAAB, a static access token that provides a user account with access to Facebook's API.

The scammers

Perhaps the most incredible thing about this scam is that the alleged perpetrators are openly bragging about their success right on Facebook, on what appears to be legitimate profile pages.

That's right. It's known who they are, or at least what they go by on Facebook, thanks to sloppiness on their part.

"They left way too many breadcrumbs," Mayse tells me, providing the Facebook Pixel used by the scammers.

A Facebook Pixel is a piece of code that allows the social media company to track the effectiveness of your ad campaigns. Using this, one can find all the campaigns attached to the ad account connected to the pixel. For example, the Facebook pixel tells us that one of the other websites they were advertising is an ecommerce shop called "joynesse.net."

According to the scammers' Facebook Pixel, their scheme appears to be very successful. Credit: Loni Mayse

Using the Facebook pixel, we can see that the scammers were still running ads on Facebook to their ecommerce stores as of the night of Oct. 27. But, the most revealing information came from a crucial mistake that the scammers made while changing the settings around on Loni Mayse's Facebook Pages.

Not long after taking over Mayse's accounts, it appears as if the scammers were attempting to add their fake Loni Mayse profile as an editor to a different Facebook Page they ran. Instead, they mistakenly added Loni Mayse's real Facebook profile, revealing the other profiles that were running the page.

The scammers accidentally added Loni Mayse as an editor on one of their own Facebook Pages. Credit: Loni Mayse

The scammers appear to be based out of Vietnam. When Mayse posted some information to her Facebook profile, one of her followers reached out.

Nguyen Luan, a computer engineer based in Vietnam who is familiar with the scam says he's aware of the scam tactics because he runs legit ecommerce shops that have all but gone out of business as an effect of the grift. Luan says he does not know these individuals personally.

In a conversation with Mashable, Luan explained how these scammers often track what legit ecommerce shops are selling to see what's popular and then clone the websites and its products. Next, they target ad agency owners and use their hacked ad accounts and stolen funds attached to them to run high-priced Facebook ads. The legit ecommerce shops cannot compete because the scammers are outbidding them on ads with this "free money."

Are the scammers at least sending the unsuspecting buyers the product listed on their ecommerce site? That part is unclear. However, if they are, they are most likely selling cheap, scammy knockoff versions from dropshipping websites of the actual advertised item, a common tactic used in other Facebook scams.

The accounts of some of the alleged scammers provided to Mashable by Luan match the users that took over Mayse's accounts, such as profiles belonging to Bá Tiệp and Võ Văn Kiều.

The alleged scammers are making bank. Credit: Mashable Screenshot

Luan pointed to this braggadocios Facebook post from Võ Văn Kiều, with a screenshot attachment of an ecommerce earnings dashboard, as an example of the alleged millions of dollars these scammers are making from their fraudulent activities.

"Guess the result and win a prize," posted Võ Văn Kiều in a Facebook post asking his friends and followers to guess the first number in the 7-figure earnings from the alleged scam.

"They live like a king here with the stolen money," Luan told Mashable. "They have [run the scam campaign] for like 2 years now. The trend is going up and more people are doing this. They can't be caught or go to jail because they live outside the U.S. Shutting down their profiles can't stop them."

What can be done

Unfortunately, it appears Luan is right.

This Facebook ad hack and scam is only getting worse, and it appears like not much is being done about it. For example, Mari Smith, one of the biggest names in the Facebook marketing world, recently shared that she fell victim to this very same scam too.

There is a history of Facebook-related ad schemes attached to scam rings from Vietnam, yet Facebook seems to be struggling to keep up with it. Just this past summer, Facebook announced it was suing four Vietnamese individuals for taking part in a similar ecommerce-related Facebook account takeover scam. While Facebook was able to shut down that particular scheme, the scammers were still able to ring up over $36 million in unauthorized ads.

For users, like Loni Mayse, who've been affected, all they can really do is reach out to Facebook support and wait for help.

"I've had a support ticket open for six days," Mayse told me. While the scammers no longer have access to Mayse's pages or Business Manager, Facebook has put limits on what she can do, too. As of right now, for example, she can't run any Facebook ads.

Most users that fell victim to this scheme who've shared their experience say they've been able to recoup most if not all their funds. Mayse says she caught the issue while the scammers' ads were still in-review and not yet approved by Facebook, so she had not yet been charged.

Facebook declined to comment on record for this story. The company provides information in its Help Center on avoiding scams on its platform and has recently taken additional steps to warn users about possible suspicious activity. Facebook says it is also developing a new type of account so users will no longer have to use their personal Facebook logins to access Business Manager.

While the scammers are no longer inside Loni Mayse's account, they're still on Facebook. On Alex Stiehel's Facebook post warning his friends and followers about the scheme, there are dozens and dozens of comments from users just this week saying they just fell victim to this scam.

Nguyen Luan believes that the only thing that can stop these scams is to cut them off at the payment processor level. If the scammers can't collect their funds via platforms like PayPal or Stripe, then the majority of ecommerce scams will die out.

"Facebook can't do anything about it," Luan explained to me. "What can you do about it?"

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