Facebook's China Deals Could Be Bigger Scandal Than Cambridge Analytica
*By Conor White*
Facebook is bracing for another round of questions and criticism after confirming a New York Times report that the social networking giant made a deal with four Chinese electronics companies to share user data. One of those companies is phone maker Huawei, which has been deemed a national security threat by U.S. intelligence agencies.
According to President George W. Bush's former Chief Information Officer, Theresa Payton, this scandal could be even bigger than the one unleashed by Cambridge Analytica.
"This is a compounding effect," Payton said in an interview with Cheddar. "So we've got this drip, drip, drip going on, and candidly, it would be in Facebook's best interest and all other high-tech companies who offer us free services in exchange for us on being the product, the collection of our data, and the packaging and reselling of our data, to come forward and say 'we are investigating not only our practices, making sure there's no violation of the practices, but we are investing in understanding the true usage of that data after we sell it.'"
Facebook confirmed it made the deal with Huawei and defended its practices. The company said it had already ended the data partnerships with three of the four Chinese companies. Facebook said it would end the partnership with Huawei this week.
Payton, now the CEO of cybersecurity firm Fortalice Solutions, said Facebook's intentions are to blame.
"They really do want to be a force for good, and so they believe that people that are buying this data, that it's also a force for good, and they're not really putting together things that are outside of their control."
For full interview, [click here]( https://cheddar.com/videos/why-facebook-could-be-facing-its-greatest-challenge-yet).
Joe Cecela, Dream Exchange CEO, explains how they are aiming to form the first minority-controlled company to operate an exchange in U.S. history. Watch!
A Michigan judge is putting sponges in the hands of shoplifters and ordering them to wash cars in a Walmart parking lot when spring weather arrives. Genesee County Judge Jeffrey Clothier hopes the unusual form of community service discourages people from stealing from Walmart. The judge also wants to reward shoppers with free car washes. Clothier says he began ordering “Walmart wash” sentences this week for shoplifting at the store in Grand Blanc Township. He believes 75 to 100 people eventually will be ordered to wash cars this spring. Clothier says he will be washing cars alongside them when the time comes.
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.