Messenger

With just over a year left until the 2020 U.S. presidential election, Facebook is stepping up its efforts to ensure it is not used as a tool to interfere in politics and democracies around the world.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Thursday launched a defense of how tech companies promote and regulate free speech, arguing that Facebook and its peers have emerged as a “fifth estate” of digital speech in society alongside traditional news media. Ian Cull reports.

The number of “revenge porn” cases reported to the San Diego Police Department is growing each year, according to data obtained by NBC 7 Investigates. Why at least one attorney thinks the increase is a sign of positive change.

Users of Amazon’s Alexa digital assistant can now request that recordings of their voice commands delete automatically. Amazon says it saves such commands to improve the service. But the practice has raised concerns with privacy experts who say the recordings could get into the wrong hands, especially as Amazon and other companies use human reviewers rather than just machines.

Soon, you could get fewer familiar ads following you around the internet — or at least on Facebook. Facebook is launching a long-promised tool that lets you block the social network from gathering information about you on outside websites and apps.

“You can panic,” reads the subject line of one fake sextortion email. Another has a victim’s real password in the subject line, in an attempt to establish authenticity. These low-tech frauds spiked in 2018, according to the FBI’s Internet Crime Compliant Center (IC3), netting millions for scammers. Last year, electronic extortion complaints rose 242% to 51,146 reported crimes, with total...

A 49-year-old former San Francisco man was sentenced Friday to five years in prison for possession of child pornography, having pleaded guilty in November to possessing approximately 20 videos and 300 still images depicting children, the United States Attorney’s office said.

Facebook says two of its top executives are leaving the company. Chief Product Officer Chris Cox and Chris Daniels, who heads messaging app WhatsApp, are departing. It isn’t clear what future plans the executives have....
Cox was in charge of Facebook’s apps including its flagship social media site, as well as Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger. He joined 13 years ago and...

Mark Zuckerberg’s abrupt Wednesday declaration of a new “privacy vision ” for social networking was for many people a sort of Rorschach test. Looked at one way, the manifesto read as an apology of sorts for Facebook’s history of privacy transgressions, and suggested that the social network would de-emphasize its huge public social network in favor of private messaging between...

Facebook, which grew into a colossus by vacuuming up your information in every possible way and using it to target ads back at you, now says its future lies in privacy-oriented messaging that Facebook itself can’t read. Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder and CEO, announced the shift in a Wednesday blog post apparently intended to blunt both criticism of the company’s data...

Facebook asked users to add their phone numbers as an extra security measure, but now users are learning their numbers are being used as a way to look up their profiles and even target them with ads, without the option to opt out. TechCrunch first reported the feature after Jeremy Burge, who runs the site Emojipedia, called it out in...

People in one East Bay city have a new way to report crime. Pinole police have launched a first-of-its-kind video reporting program, allowing people to make a face-to-face police report right from their phone.

People in one East Bay city have a new way to report crime. Pinole police have launched a first-of-its-kind video reporting program, allowing people to make a face-to-face police report right from their phone. Jodi Hernandez reports.

Facebook Messenger now gives anyone the option to delete a regretful or mistaken message from their chat history. Facebook initially promised the feature after TechCrunch reported in April that multiple people said Facebook messages they received from CEO Mark Zuckerberg later appeared to have been deleted while their own messages remained. At the time, Facebook told TechCrunch Zuckerberg’s messages were...

The Contra Costa County Sheriff’s Office is investigating an alleged rape attempt that occurred near a BART station Thursday afternoon. A woman was reportedly approached by a man at the Pittsburg/Bay Point station and when they got off the train, he exposed himself and asked her to perform a sexual act on him, officials said.

The state of the union is dark. A large majority of Americans say they are pessimistic about the state of the country and few expect things will get better in the year ahead, according to a poll released Tuesday by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. A week before President Donald Trump delivers his assessment of the nation...

Two former Presentation High students on Wednesday addressed allegations of sexual misconduct by teachers at the prestigious all-girls Catholic school in San Jose. Vicky Nguyen reports on a story that first aired Wednesday Nov. 22.

Five days after placing two current teachers on administrative leave for allegations of sexual misconduct, the Board of Directors at Presentation High school sent a letter to the school community expressing confidence in the current principal and lamenting the spotlight causing “stress and confusion” for faculty, staff and students.

Family members of a UPS worker who was found dead late last month said someone has been sending them suspicious messages pretending to be their beloved father and brother in a “cruel prank” following his death.

NBC Bay Area has partnered with ProPublica and other news organizations covering problems that prevent eligible voters from casting ballots. The Electionland project relies on citizens on the ground to tell us about issues like long lines, registration problems, purged voter rolls, broken machines, voter intimidation and changed voting locations. Click through for information on how you can participate: