Facebook

Facebook said the "accelerated" launch was a direct response to the Covid-19 lockdown.

The app lets users follow high-profile gamers, watch live gaming streams and leave comments without interacting with the rest of Facebook.

It also lets gamers broadcast their own smartphone screen.

While Facebook remains the largest social network on the planet, it has struggled to compete against dominant players Twitch and YouTube when it comes to games streaming and esports.

The hacking group OurMine posted on the Twitter and Instagram accounts for Facebook and Messenger, writing "even Facebook is hackable".

The accounts have now been restored.

OurMine claims its attacks are an attempt to show cyber vulnerabilities. In January it hijacked over a dozen accounts for teams in the US National Football League.

The group posted a statement on Facebook's Twitter account. "Hi, we are OurMine. Well, even Facebook is hackable but at least their security is better then Twitter."

They reveal 11.6 million pieces of content related to child nudity and child sexual exploitation were taken down between July and September 2019.

For the first time, Facebook is also releasing figures for Instagram and including numbers for posts related to suicide and self-harm.

This follows a public outcry over the death of 14-year-old Molly Russell.

The teenager killed herself in 2017 and her father then found large amounts of graphic material about self-harm and suicide on her Instagram account.

But the remaining members have insisted it’s full steam ahead.

The 21 founding companies in the Libra Association - down from 28 when the project was first announced - met for the first time in Geneva on Monday.

A spokesman told the BBC he believed the currency was still on track to launch next year.

But, he added, it would only do so if suitable regulatory approval had been granted.

It comes after a stern warning from the G7 group of nations that Libra risked disrupting the global financial order.

Facebook Dating launched on Friday in the United States, a service for those 18 and older. 

The platform, reportedly displayed as a separate tab on the mobile app, seeks to match users with common interests who aren't already friends. 

Similar to pre-existing dating apps Bumble and Hinge, you can then send a cutie a 'like' and a corresponding message. 

Many may not like what they see.

A feature in settings called Off-Facebook Activity will show all the apps and websites that send information about you to Facebook, which is then used to target ads more effectively.

You will also be able to clear your history and prevent your future off-app behaviour being tapped. But one expert said the move was unlikely to have a big impact on the firm's profits.

For now, it is rolling out very slowly, with only Ireland, South Korea and Spain getting access. But the goal is to eventually offer it globally.

Twitter said it removed 936 accounts it said were being used to “sow political discord in Hong Kong”.

The network said the accounts originated in mainland China and were part of a coordinated attempt to undermine the “legitimacy and political positions of the protest movement”.

Facebook said it had, after being tipped off by Twitter, removed "seven Pages, three Groups and five Facebook accounts.”

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has been investigating allegations that political consultancy Cambridge Analytica improperly obtained the data of up to 87 million Facebook users.

The settlement was approved by the FTC in a 3-2 vote, sources told US media.

Facebook and the FTC told the BBC they had no comment on the reports.

How was the settlement reached?

The consumer protection agency the FTC began investigating Facebook in March 2018 following reports that Cambridge Analytica had accessed the data of tens of millions of its users.

The website Down Detector reported that thousands of people globally had complained about the Facebook-owned trio being down from 11.30 BST onwards.

Facebook users were presented with the message: "Something went wrong."

At 14:50, the site said it had resolved the issue after some users "experienced trouble connecting" to the apps.

A spokesman for the company added: "We're sorry for any inconvenience."

Facebook did not comment on the cause of the problem, or say how many users had been affected.

Security researcher Brian Krebs broke the news about data protection failures, which saw up to 600 million passwords stored in plain text.

The passwords that were exposed could date back to 2012, he said.

In a statement, Facebook said it had now resolved a "glitch" that had stored the passwords on its internal network.

In a detailed expose, Mr Krebs said a Facebook source had told him about "security failures" that had let developers create applications that logged and stored the passwords without encrypting them.