New Facebook lawsuit addresses huge privacy issue | Official Website of Louis Velazquez, entrepreneur, finance guy and tech innovator

Consumers have long been concerned about privacy issues with Facebook, with controversies dating back as far as 2006, when many site users were initially displeased about their content being rebroadcast on their friends’ pages as part of the company’s newly introduced news feed.

Since then, a series of issues emerged related to the unauthorized sharing of information with advertisers, apps, or on Facebook feeds; unauthorized experimentation on Facebook users; and concerns about the company tracking Facebook users across the Internet.

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Meta (Facebook’s owner and operator) has been sued for some of these issues, and the Federal Trade Commission has also taken action against the company.

But this time, Meta is actually on the other side of a lawsuit. Specifically, it has filed a suit in Hong Kong against a company called Joy Timeline HK Limited.

Meta’s lawsuit has high stakes because the software programs that Joy Timeline HK Limited creates and promotes may infringe upon your privacy in very serious ways that most people would hate.

An app is trying to get onto your Facebook page, despite a ban.

Image source&colon; Shutterstock

Meta takes action against company that promotes ‘non-consensual intimate imagery’

Meta is suing Joy Timeline HK Limited because the Hong Kong company won’t stop trying to get around Facebook’s rules.

Joy Timeline created an app called CrushAI, which is a “nudify” app. Essentially, the app includes an AI tool that allows users to upload pictures and “see anyone naked” by using artificial intelligence to generate nude images.

Meta bans “non-consensual intimate imagery” on its platform and has removed ads for nudify technology in the past. It has also permanently blocked any websites associated with apps that provide this nudify functionality, and has deleted pages on its platform that run advertising for Joy Timeline HK Limited and the makers of similar apps.

However, despite banning the app-maker from advertising on Facebook, Meta alleges that Joy Timeline has made “multiple attempts” to circumvent the company’s ad review process and get the advertisements back up, despite clearly violating Meta’s policies.

According to Meta, Joy Timeline has employed a number of different techniques to try to avoid detection when placing content on Facebook, including using inoffensive imagery so that the ads can bypass technology that identifies and blocks ads, in violation of Facebook’s terms of service.

More on Meta:

Meta has been working to develop better tools to delete ads from prohibited companies like this one when those ads appear benign, stating, “We’ve worked with external experts and our own specialist teams to expand the list of safety-related terms, phrases and emojis that our systems are trained to detect with these ads.”

Still, since Joy Timeline has managed to evade efforts to keep its ads off Facebook’s platform, Meta now wants a court order to stop the company from persisting in trying to reach Facebook users.

Meta takes additional steps to try to protect consumers from nudify apps

Meta is also doing more than just suing. The company indicated it is planning to share information about the nudify apps, including ad URLs, with other technology companies through Lantern, which is a cross-platform signal-sharing program aimed at promoting child safety.

Still, Meta believes the lawsuit is crucial to helping protect Facebook users and has made clear that it is pursuing legal action because these issues are a key priority.

“This legal action underscores both the seriousness with which we take this abuse and our commitment to doing all we can to protect our community from it,” a Meta statement reads. “We’ll continue to take necessary steps — which could include legal action — against those who abuse our platforms like this.”