Social media: Facebook a big threat to children and democracy; The company's former data chief Hogan testified in the US Senate

Former Facebook data scientist Francis Hogen has said that Facebook is a big threat to children's mental health, democracy, and society. This creates discrimination. Elected public representatives should control this. Because the Facebook company knows that its apps like Instagram are not safe but despite this, the company does not take any action to improve.

In his nearly three-hour-long testimony in the US Senate, Francis said Facebook continues to deliberately try to make children addicted to its app. Democrat Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, who led the Senate testimony, said the information Francis provided was sensational.

He has revealed the internals of the company about which Facebook always kept a veil. Francis also reiterated in his testimony that Facebook's 'profit-over-safety' strategy is most responsible.

Hogan's allegation: China-Iran used in its favor

False information circulated during civil wars in Myanmar and Ethiopia. Facebook had admitted that hate posts could not be stopped.

This is what happened in the China-Iran case. Monopolistic governments used Facebook in favor.

Facebook reduced staff in its anti-terror cell as part of a well-thought-out strategy.

Zuckerberg said: We never compromised on the security

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said that there is no truth to the claims that a social media app harms children. He said that Facebook never gives importance to profit over security. In a blog written to Facebook employees, he has said, we do not intentionally promote such content that harms people.

Bhaskar EXPLAINER

be less dependent on social media

Kazim Rizvi and Mohit, Cyber ​​Expert and Satya Mulay, Cyber ​​Legal Expert

Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram remained suspended for six hours from around 9.15 pm on Monday. According to cyber experts, the border gateway protocol, DNS, can be the main reason for this problem, although there is a human error at the root.

What is Border Gateway Protocol?

The Internet is a network of networks and the Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) connects all the networks. It is because of this protocol that the Internet works. As soon as we open a website, BGP only finds a way to open that website faster in the network. When BGP doesn't work, the Internet router doesn't know what to do, so the Internet doesn't work. In the case of Facebook, Instagram or WhatsApp, when we were trying to open it and there was a problem with BGP, then Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp were not able to tell other networks that they are present on the Internet.

Why was there a problem with BGP?

The website opens with the domain name but we reach from its IP address. There is a system on the Internet called Domain Name Server (DNS) that converts domain names into IP addresses. But if routing changes are made to a website, such as in the case of Facebook, it causes the DNS servers to shut down because addresses are lost and BGP cannot find its way and stalls.

Was it some cyber-attack or hacking?

Facebook denies cyberattacks or hacking. He says the problem was caused by the faulty configuration change. The problem arose from a traffic routing glitch, it was a human error. Configuration changes in the routers that coordinated network traffic in data centers resulted in the loss of connections between machines. The main server had to be reset which took about six hours.

Can this happen in the future also?

Websites providing services around the world are generally carefully monitored. But its hardware is operated by people and there is always a possibility of human error. So it can happen in the future also. To prevent this from happening, very strict efforts are made and for years it is possible that there may not be an incident of complete stoppage of services but it is impossible to ensure this. This has happened once on Facebook even in 2011 when services were stalled for 24 hours.

What has been learned from this incident?

It would be better if we do not use platforms like WhatsApp and Facebook for ambulance calls, vaccination certificates, slot booking, or for sending messages to our loved ones and friends in bad times. Don't depend on it. Social media platforms should be kept away from activities related to public welfare and crisis management because if services are closed for several hours, we will not be in a position to assess the damage or deal with this situation.