The Federal Trade Commission has approved a fine of roughly $5 billion against Facebook for mishandling users personal information, according to three people briefed on the vote, in what would be a landmark settlement that signals a newly aggressive stance by regulators toward the countrys most powerful technology companies, ( ). Besides for the fine, Facebook also has to give more insight of how data is collected when it comes to the users. This is one of the biggest fines that many have seen, especially when it comes to online platforms. According to N.Y. Times, Facebook has been violating laws and agreements since 2011. That earlier settlement which came after the company was accused of deceiving people about how it handled their data, required the company to revamp its privacy practices, ( ). The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) also has filed claims with Facebook because of their targeted advertisements. The Department of Housing and Urban Development alleged that Facebooks targeted advertising platform violates the Fair Housing Act, encouraging, enabling, and causing unlawful discrimination by restricting who can view housing ads, ( ). B
y doing this, landlords and realtors can exclude people such as people with kids, people of specific cultures or ethnicities, or people that have service animals. Another issue with the company is that hackers were able to get into users accounts and steal their information. Hackers try to steal information such as name and address and they are able to get into their other social media platforms. This goes hand and hand with the invasion of privacy. More claims against the company have been that they are not up front with what data they take whenever you do sign in or make an account. There are instances where people will click on the button that say save your password. When this happens, employees for the company are able to see the users passwords in a directory. Lastly, the final major issue that has been happening with Facebook is the facial recognition system. Whenever people upload photos, you are given the option to tag people in them. Facebook has started using this to suggest that it could possibly be the person that is actually in the picture. More and more claims show up as time goes on with this company and they continue to get into trouble for it.