Sheera Frenkel

More than 100 Facebook employees have joined Mr. Amerige to form an online group called FB’ers for Political Diversity. The aim of the initiative is to create a space for ideological diversity within the company. The new group has upset other Facebook employees, who said its online posts were offensive to minorities.

The Russian military intelligence unit that sought to influence the 2016 election appears to have a new target: conservative American think tanks that have broken with President Trump and are seeking continued sanctions against Moscow, exposing oligarchs or pressing for human rights. Microsoft detected and seized websites that were created in recent weeks by hackers linked to the Russian unit formerly known as the G.R.U.

For months, Facebook has weathered a series of scandals — including Russian misuse of the platform to interfere in the 2016 American presidential campaign and the harvesting of its users’ data through the political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica — with hardly any effect to its business. Facebook has continued to post healthy double-digit increases in revenue and profit every quarter. But on July 25 it showed some of the first signs of wear and tear from the months of scrutiny.

 Facebook was hit with the maximum possible fine in Britain for allowing the political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica to harvest the information of millions of people without their consent, in what amounts to the social network’s first financial penalty since the data leak was revealed. The fine of 500,000 pounds, or about $660,000, represents a tiny sum for Facebook, which brings in billions of dollars in revenue every year.

The Senate Commerce and Judiciary committees rleased nearly 500 pages of information Facebook provided concerning more than 2,000 questions from lawmakers on topics including its policies on user data, privacy and security. Yet much of the information that Facebook included was not new and the social network sidestepped providing detailed answers, in a move that may embolden some of its critics.

Facebook has said that political data firm Cambridge Analytica improperly harvested the public profile data of up to 87 million of its users, including their political beliefs, interests and friends’ information. Now the company has revealed that the extent of the harvesting went even further — it included people’s private messages, too.

Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive, tried to get ahead of a week of intense scrutiny for him and his company by visiting several top lawmakers in Washington and reiterating how sorry he was for the social network’s failings. He held several meetings with leaders of the Senate Commerce and Judiciary Committees. He also posted testimony apologizing for Facebook’s role in false news, data privacy leaks and foreign interference in elections, as his company announced that it would form an independent commission of academic researchers to study social media’s impact on elections.

For Facebook, April 10, 2018 is being seen as a kind of dreaded final exam. That’s when Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s chief executive, will swap out his trademark gray T-shirts for a suit and tie, and embark on a two-day marathon of testimony on Capitol Hill. His goal? To apologize for Facebook’s missteps, reassure Congress that Facebook intends to stop foreign powers from using its service to meddle in American elections and detail the company’s plans to better protect its users’ privacy.

Tech giants are preparing for a stringent new set of data privacy rules in the region, called the General Data Protection Regulation. Set to take effect on May 25, the regulations restrict what types of personal data the tech companies can collect, store and use across the 28-member European Union. Among their provisions, the rules enshrine the so-called right to be forgotten into European law so people can ask companies to remove certain online data about them. The rules also require anyone under 16 to obtain parental consent before using popular digital services.

As Facebook updates and tweaks its service in order to keep users glued to their screens, countries like Bolivia are ideal testing grounds thanks to their growing, internet-savvy populations. But these changes can have significant consequences, like limiting the audience for nongovernmental news sources and — surprisingly — amplifying the impact of fabricated and sensational stories. Facebook announced plans to make similar changes to its News Feed around the world.