{"id":415328,"date":"2021-09-22T12:40:12","date_gmt":"2021-09-22T10:40:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=415328"},"modified":"2021-09-22T12:41:08","modified_gmt":"2021-09-22T10:41:08","slug":"facebook-newsfeed-changes-break-watchdog-programmes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/internet\/415328-facebook-newsfeed-changes-break-watchdog-programmes.html","title":{"rendered":"Facebook newsfeed changes break watchdog programmes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Social media giant Facebook has started rolling out a news feed update that is hampering observation of the platform by watchdogs, according to a <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/themarkup.org\/citizen-browser\/2021\/09\/21\/facebook-rolls-out-news-feed-change-that-blocks-watchdogs-from-gathering-data\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">report from The Markup<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>The Markup said it discovered changes in Facebook&#8217;s website code that disrupts automated data collection of posts \u2014 the methodology used by auditors of the platform.<\/p>\n<p>According to their findings, Facebook has been attaching &#8220;junk code to HTML features meant to improve accessibility for visually impaired users.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The changes also influence adblocking services on the social media platform and The Markup Citizen Browser&#8217;s and New York University Ad Observer&#8217;s ability to collect data from the news feed.<\/p>\n<p>Facebook&#8217;s changes &#8220;had the effect of breaking Ad Observer&#8221;. However, they were able to find a workaround, according to Laura Edelson, lead researcher at NYU&#8217;s Cybersecurity for Democracy \u2014 which controls Ad Observer.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Last Saturday, Facebook made a change to their DOM that had the effect of breaking Ad Observer, as well as <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/themarkup?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">@themarkup<\/a>&#8216;s Citizen Browser, and most importantly, screen readers for the visually impaired. It only impacted us for a week, but screen readers can&#8217;t be fixed as easily.\/1 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/svN6B9BEIM\">pic.twitter.com\/svN6B9BEIM<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Laura Edelson (@LauraEdelson2) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/LauraEdelson2\/status\/1440307503246417934?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 21, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Lindy Wagner, communications manager at Facebook, said that the company was looking into the claims in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We constantly make code changes across our services, but we did not make any code changes to block these research projects,&#8221; she told The Markup.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Our accessibility features largely appear to be working as normal, however, we are investigating the claimed disruptions.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>This comes after the company <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/about.fb.com\/news\/2021\/08\/research-cannot-be-the-justification-for-compromising-peoples-privacy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">disabled the personal accounts<\/a><\/strong> of NYU researchers participating in Ad Observers operations last month, saying the accounts had violated Facebook&#8217;s privacy policy.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">Now Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/internet\/414730-facebook-fights-back.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Facebook fights back<\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Facebook has added junk code to HTML features on the platform that disrupt watchdog activity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341076,"featured_media":396907,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[72576,161,72572,72574],"class_list":["post-415328","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-internet","tag-citizen-browser","tag-facebook","tag-nyu-ad-observer","tag-the-markup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415328"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341076"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=415328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415328\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/396907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=415328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=415328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=415328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}