By Barbara Ortutay, AP Technology Writer
Facebook has shut down the personal accounts of a pair of New York University researchers and shuttered their investigation into misinformation spread through political ads on the social network.
Facebook says the researchers violated its terms of service and were involved in unauthorized data collection from its massive network. The academics, however, say the company is attempting to exert control on research that paints it in a negative light.
The NYU researchers with the Ad Observatory Project had for several years been looking into Facebook's Ad Library, where searches can be done on advertisements running across Facebook's products.
The access was used to "uncover systemic flaws in the Facebook Ad Library, to identify misinformation in political ads, including many sowing distrust in our election system, and to study Facebook's apparent amplification of partisan misinformation," said Laura Edelson, the lead researcher behind NYU Cybersecurity for Democracy, in a statement.
Facebook's action against the NYU project also cut off other researchers and journalists who got access to Facebook data through the project, Edelson said.
The researchers offered Facebook users a web browser plug-in tool that let them volunteer their data showing how the social network targets political ads.
But Facebook said the browser extension was programmed to evade its detection systems and vacuum up user data, creating privacy concerns.
In a blog post late Tuesday, Facebook said it takes "unauthorized data scraping seriously, and when we find instances of scraping we investigate and take action to protect our platform."
Facebook sent a cease-and-desist letter to Edelson and another researcher, Damon McCoy, in October but didn't shut down their accounts until Tuesday, hours after Edelson informed the platform that she and McCoy were studying the spread of disinformation on the platform about the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, the researchers said.
Mike Clark, Facebook product management director, wrote in the blog post that the Menlo Park, California, company welcomes research that holds it accountable but that doesn't compromise the security of the platform or users' privacy.
"While the Ad Observatory project may be well-intentioned, the ongoing and continued violations of protections against scraping cannot be ignored and should be remediated," he wrote.
At least two Democratic senators expressed concerns about Facebook's move. Mark Warner of Virginia said tech platforms should "work with, and better empower, independent researchers" but instead the company has "seemingly done the opposite." Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota said she was troubled by Facebook cutting off researcher access to political advertising data, "which has shown that the company continues to sell millions of dollars' worth of political ads without proper disclosures."
Facebook says it makes information on political ads available through its Ad Library and provides "privacy-protected data sets" to researchers through other means.
Sony reports healthy profits on strong sales of sensors and games
Sony's profit rose 69% in July-September from a year earlier on the back of strong sales of its image sensors, games, music and network services, the Japanese electronics and entertainment company said on Friday.
Quarterly profit was 338.5 billion yen ($2.2 billion), up from 200 billion yen in the year-earlier period, while consolidated quarterly sales edged up 3% year-on-year to 2.9 trillion yen ($19 billion).
Tokyo-based Sony's latest quarterly results were boosted by healthy demand around the world for image sensors used in mobile products.
Sales also held up in its video games division. During the latest quarter, 3.8 million PlayStation 5 game consoles were sold globally, compared with 4.9 million units sold the same period a year ago.
Demand remained strong for PS5 game software, according to Sony.
The top-selling music releases from Sony for the quarter included "SOS" by SZA, David Gilmour's "Luck and Strange" and Kenshi Yonezu's "Lost Corner."
One area where Sony's business suffered was its pictures division, including TV shows and movies, which was impacted by production delays caused by the strikes in Hollywood.
Among the recent hit films from Sony was "It Ends With Us," a romantic drama based on a novel.
Sony, which also makes digital cameras and TVs, maintained its 980-billion yen ($6.4 billion) profit forecast for the fiscal year through March 2025, up 1% from the previous fiscal year.
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