Content-type: text/html Downes.ca ~ Stephen's Web ~ Facebook spamming users via their 2FA phone numbers

Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

This article is a bit off in that its original title appears and then is obscured by the newer title. The original title? "Facebook is so desperate for engagement, it's spamming users via their 2FA numbers." I like it better than the original. '2FA' stands for 'Two Factor Authentication' and here refers to the practice of having people enter their phone numbers so they can verify logins via text messages. Now Facebook is sending marketing through these numbers. It also appears to have struck a deal with Microsoft to have its application automatically installed on Windows 10 machines, hence marketing themselves through the desktop as well (I use Windows 10 but can't report having seen these). These are annoying, to be sure, but also the inevitable result of a business plan based on massive numbers of eyeballs. And as I read recently, "The older generation is afraid of social media doing to their children what television did to them."

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

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Last Updated: Nov 03, 2024 4:58 p.m.

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