Texas sues Facebook bigly: says FB was 'secretly capturing' users' "highly sensitive information"

The great state of Texas is suing Facebook's parent company, Meta Platforms Inc., alleging they violated the state's privacy protections, as the media giant faces more legal battles.

The lawsuit was filed by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. It states that Facebook unlawfully collected facial recognition data without user consent, as reported by the Wall Street Journal.

Meta has discontinued their facial recognition technology, which was often used for “tag suggestions” to encourage users to link photos to a friend’s profile, which would add to the data collection.

The Texas lawsuit alleges that Facebook should be responsible for billions of dollars in damages. Paxton said that the company violated the privacy laws of Texas by using the biometric data of millions throughout the state, both those who used Facebook and those who did not.

“In this action, the State alleges that Facebook unlawfully captured the biometric identifiers of Texans for a commercial purpose without their informed consent, disclosed those identifiers to others and failed to destroy collected identifiers within a reasonable time, all in violation of the Texas Capture or Use of Biometric Identifier Act,” the lawsuit states.

Paxton also released a statement alleging the company captured facial geometry in photos that users uploaded from 2010 to last year — when Facebook discontinued their facial recognition. This resulted in “tens of million of violations” of Texas law.

“Facebook has been secretly harvesting Texans’ most personal information — photos and videos — for its own corporate profit,” Paxton said, the WSJ reported.

“Texas law has prohibited such harvesting without informed consent for over 20 years. While ordinary Texans have been using Facebook to innocently share photos of loved ones with friends and family, we now know that Facebook has been brazenly ignoring Texas law for the last decade,” he added.

“‘Facebook was secretly capturing, disclosing, unlawfully retaining — and profiting off of — Texans’ most personal and highly sensitive information,” the complaint reads, according to the WSJ.

Texas law makes it unlawful to capture people’s biometric identifiers without consent. The state’s laws also prohibit sharing any identifier information. 

The Texas law provides a $25,000 fine per violation and with millions of Texans using the platform, the lawsuit is estimated to run billions of dollars in damages, the WSJ wrote.

Paxton condemned “Big Tech” in general for illegal practices like this, and said that Facebook must stop taking advantage of its users in this way.

“Facebook will no longer take advantage of people and their children with the intent to turn a profit at the expense of one’s safety and well-being. This is yet another example of Big Tech’s deceitful business practices, and it must stop. I will continue to fight for Texans’ privacy and security,” Paxton said in a statement.

While this lawsuit is quite significant because it's coming from a state, other similar lawsuits have been levied against the company.

Last year Facebook settled a class action suit that users brought against it. The suit said that user data has been used without consent. Facebook settled for $650 million, NPR, a taxpayer-funded, left wing outlet reported.

In addition to class action suits, the Federal Trade Commission and other state attorney generals have filed suits against Meta, like the one in 2019, when the company agreed to create more oversight in a privacy settlement with the FTC and also had to pay a $5 billion fine.

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“The FTC and nearly every state attorney general are also seeking to break up Meta for allegedly squashing competition to maintain its dominance in social networking,” The Times reported.

Meta has been vocal about defending itself in these suits, however.

“These claims are without merit, and we will defend ourselves vigorously,” a spokesperson for Meta said, The Times reported.

Hopefully, the Texas lawsuit will succeed and Facebook will get what it deserves.

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Rashida Tlaib believes all white people can't tell the difference between black people

She's an idiot, a racist and a flaming anti-Semite: the untalented, not very repulsive looking Rashida Tlaib, the Democrat congresswoman from Michigan. She has shown her true colors by stereotyping all white people by claiming we cannot differentiate black people from one another and saying that only black folks should be hired as facial recognition analysts.

That would be considered outrageous if the shoe was on the other foot, but she is able to get away with her crap because she's a Palestinian-American and as such, she is also allowed to hate Israel and the Jews that live therein.

Tlaib's hairbrained suggestion came Monday during a tour of the Detroit Police Department's Real Time Crime Center, where the department uses facial recognition technology to locate suspects.

Police Chief James Craig was showing the Democratic racist how the software works, and how analysts use it to identify and locate individuals. The department had naively extended the invitation to her after she tweeted them, calling facial recognition technology "bulls**t." This is the same potty-mouth repugnant person who called the President a "motherf*****r."

"Analysts need to be African-Americans, not people that are not," Tlaib said. "It's true, I think non-African-Americans think African-Americans all look the same!"

She was speaking for herself--she stereotypes all African-Americans and obviously believes they all look the same. She also doesn't understand how facial recognition equipment works--it has nothing to do with the analyst.

But does Tlaib also believe that black analysts are better able to distinguish Asian people and white people better than an Asian and white analyst? I suspect she hasn't even given it a thought, but pandering to the African-American community is how she hopes to win in 2020.

Tlaib cited instances where she witnessed people confuse Reps. John Lewis, (D-GA), and Elijah Cummings, (D-MD).

Tlaib also claimed that "the error rate among African-Americans, especially women," was 60 percent.

In an appearance on "Fox & Friends: First" with co-hosts Jillian Mele and Rob Schmitt, Craig refuted the freshman congresswoman's silly claims.

"It's a software. It's biometrics," he said. "And, to put race in it ... we're talking about trained professionals. My staff goes through intense training with the FBI, and so they're not looking at race but it's measurements. We were appalled when she made this statement," the police chief said of the racist congresswoman.

"We even put her in the seat of an analyst so she could understand how it works!" Craig exclaimed. "And, she was somewhat resistant. Not really interested. But, it was important for me to invite her in after she made her initial comments. So, at least she could learn something about how we use it and maybe have a great appreciation for it."

It isn't surprising that she wasn't really interested. She is only interested in making outrageous statements that will get her ugly face in the media.

The "Squad" member's tour was recorded and posted by a reporter with The Detroit News.

The Detroit News reporter followed up Tlaib's assertion that only black people should be hired to use the software, asking: "Are you saying white people are not qualified to--?"

And Tlaib cut him off: "No, I think there's actually been studies out that it's hard for, you know, like African-Americans would identify African-Americans, similar, Latino same thing."

"This is a double standard," Craig told Mele and Schmitt. "If I had made the exact same comment, they would've been calling for my resignation and she would have been leading that charge. That's a fact."

"We know [there are] flaws in the technology. We've addressed that through the rigorous system that we have in place. So, we have a modeled approach on how we use this technology very effectively," Craig said.

Hopefully, racists like Tlaib and the other members of the so-called "Squad," will be primaried out of office next year. The are hateful, stupid people who have no business be in public office.


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