BS ZB POS nervous much???

Zuckerberg says Facebook will become a ‘privacy-focused’ platform

Mark Zuckerberg appears to have gotten religion when it comes to protecting privacy.

In a long blog post shared Wednesday, the Facebook chief executive announced the tech company will increasingly focus its efforts on building a “privacy-focused communications platform.”

The social media giant will encrypt conversations on more of its messaging services, including Messenger and Instagram, said Zuckerberg, who predicted that direct messaging will soon dwarf applications like Facebook’s news feed.

“Working towards implementing end-to-end encryption for all private communications is the right thing to do,” he wrote.

“People are more cautious of having a permanent record of what they’ve shared,” the 34-year-old executive said, adding there is “an opportunity to build a simpler platform that’s focused on privacy first.”

By using encryption, private messages would not be able to be seen by Facebook.

The move comes almost on the one-year anniversary of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which kick-started countless reports highlighting Facebook’s privacy lapses.

It is also a day after Forbes dropped him three places on its billionaires list — to No. 8 from No. 5 — after his personal wealth declined by $9 billion in a year dominated by privacy scandals.

“I understand that many people don’t think Facebook can or would even want to build this kind of privacy-focused platform — because frankly we don’t currently have a strong reputation for building privacy-protective services,” he said.

The strategy could frustrate law enforcement surveillance efforts as well as lawmakers who have called on Facebook to better moderate user content. It also would limit the company’s ability to generate revenue through targeted ads.

But Zuckerberg said he could live with those trade-offs, indicating that users want better control of their data while still having easy access to their contacts.

Facebook shares edged up $1.25, to $172.51. They are down 7.5 percent since the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke.

https://nypost.com/2019/03/06/zuckerberg-says-facebook-will-become-a-privacy-focused-platform/

Florida State Sen. Joe Gruters Files Legislation To Punish Twitter and Facebook For Conservative Censorship

State Senator Joe Gruters, who also serves as the Chairman of President Donald Trump’s 2020 campaign efforts in Florida, has submitted a bill that would fine tech companies Twitter and Facebook $75,000 per purposeful deletion or censoring of a user’s speech.

His legislation comes on the heels of an eye-opening segment with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, his top lawyer, and blogger Tim Pool on the Joe Rogan Experience where he admitted to arbitrary censorship of conservatives and a varying set of explanations on how the company enforced it’s terms of services upon users.

Dorsey has also announced that he was “too harsh” in his censorship of right-wing personalities as he let violent calls to action and harassment continue on progressive accounts.

A recent study showed that in nearly two-dozen instances of high-profile permanent suspensions by Twitter of prominent political or social commentators, 99% of those suspensions were directed at conservative or right-leaning accounts.

Facebook has also been exposed by a top-level whistle-blower for “deboosting” and “shadowbanning” conservative and Trump-aligned content, which corroborates a Project Veritas video expose from several months ago released by investigative journalist James O’Keefe.

In recent studies The Gateway Pundit’s Jim Hoft and Casssandra Fairbanks were shadowbanned. Associate Editor Cristina Laila was threatened by Twitter for breaking Pakistani blasphemy laws. And writer Jacob Engels was banned from Twitter for posting about Muslim rape gangs.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2019/03/florida-state-sen-joe-gruters-files-legislation-to-punish-twitter-and-facebook-for-conservative-censorship/

Cabal sending messages again?

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-03-06/ghastly-vancouver-home-sales-crash-33-lowest-1985

House Intel obtains new info, documents from Cohen in 8-hour interview

Former Trump attorney Michael Cohen was grilled by congressional investigators for eight hours Wednesday as part of the House Intelligence Committee’s sweeping probe of the president’s finances and links to Russia.

In his second day over the past two weeks providing closed-door testimony, Cohen offered lawmakers new documents, including some that reportedly showed his prior false statements about a proposal to build a Trump property in Moscow were edited before he delivered them to Congress.

Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) described the interview as “enormously productive” in brief remarks Wednesday evening, but declined to offer specifics about what Cohen told lawmakers or the documentation he provided.

“He answered every question that was put to him by members of both parties. He was fully cooperative with the committee,” Schiff said. “We had requested documents of Mr. Cohen. He has provided additional documents to the committee.”

Schiff noted there “may be additional documents that he still has to offer, and his cooperation with our committee continues.”

Cohen, flanked by his attorney and spokesman Lanny Davis, emerged from the secure committee room around 5:30 p.m. carrying the same suitcase and thick folder he entered with, telling reporters that he believed the questioning went “very, very well.”

He did not answer shouted questions from reporters about whether he would be making another appearance before lawmakers in the coming weeks, but said he was prepared to cooperate with any further requests made to his lawyers to “the fullest extent of my abilities.”

Wednesday’s appearance marked Cohen’s fourth day of testimony on Capitol Hill over the past two weeks.

“Mr. Cohen has now spent 16 hours with the [House Intelligence Committee] answering many questions from both Republicans and Democrats,” Davis said in a statement Wednesday evening. “Mr. Cohen responded to all questions truthfully and has agreed at the request of chairman Schiff to provide additional information in the future, if needed. He also offered to answer additional questions from Republican members. He remains committed to telling the truth and cooperating with authorities.”

Cohen, who is due to start a three-year prison sentence in May for crimes he pleaded guilty to last year, has been a key person of interest in burgeoning congressional investigations into Trump by the Democrat-controlled House.

He testified publicly last week before the House Oversight and Reform Committee and implicated his former boss in a host of nefarious and criminal activity. In particular, Cohen detailed Trump’s alleged involvement in a scheme to pay off women who alleged they had affairs with him before the 2016 election.

At the same time, Cohen has been subject to escalating attacks on his credibility from President Trump and his Republican allies.

Wednesday’s appearance was expected to focus substantially on the Trump Moscow discussions. Cohen pleaded guilty in November to lying to Congress in 2017 about the duration of discussions about that project as part of a deal to cooperate with special counsel Robert Mueller, admitting they extended as late as June 2016 — six months longer than he initially testified.

Lawmakers offered few details about Cohen’s testimony or the documentation he provided as they came and went from the security facility on Wednesday.

But the details won’t remain unknown for long; the committee said it plans to release a transcript of Cohen’s closed-door testimony in the near future.

https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/432965-house-intel-obtains-new-info-documents-from-cohen-in-8-hour