This afternoon, Facebook held an emergency press conference to disclose a startling security breach. The company said 50 million Facebook accounts were affected in a hack that allowed attackers to control an account as if they were the account holders.

“Since we’ve only just started our investigation, we have yet to determine whether these accounts were misused or any information accessed,” said Facebook’s VP of product management Guy Rosen during a morning press call. “We also don’t know who’s behind these attacks or where they’re based.”

Following the press call, it became immediately apparent: this was a gigantic security breach and the full ramifications were yet unknown. Word of the Facebook hack was quickly covered by several major news outlets and spread throughout social media. Naturally, Facebook users wanted to share the story to warn their friends of the exploit.

But for a brief period Friday afternoon, many users found that they could not share stories from several legitimate news outlets. Facebook was reportedly blocking people from posting stories about the hack published by The Guardian, Sacramento Bee, and Associated Press. 

“Our security systems have detected that a lot of people are posting the same content, which could mean that it’s spam. Please try a different post,” read a Facebook popup when people were trying to post a link about the hack from one of those three sites. 

On Twitter, people were sharing the Facebook spam filter message in frustration.

And while conspiracy theories are likely to run rampant about Facebook purposely blocking a negative story about itself from being shared on its platform, it’s important to note that other major outlets like Washington Post and USA Today reported no such issues with the links to its stories.

But, you don’t need a far-out conspiracy theory to come to the conclusion that the spam filter error is a real problem. While it’s, of course, good that Facebook has a spam filter in place to stop accounts or bots from posting what could be a link to a scam or a fake news site, it’s incredulous that Facebook’s spam filter would mistake links from well-known credible news organizations like the Associated Press as spam. In fact, with a news outlet like the AP or The Guardian, Facebook’s spam filters should be set up to expect a lot of people posting the same content within a short period of time because it should take into account that breaking news would be shared in a viral fashion specifically from those types of websites.

Additionally, the spam filter issue is a problem, no matter how brief, because the average Facebook user is likely not going to troubleshoot for a fix. If a Facebook user receives an error when trying to post a news story about an issue like a Facebook security breach, they’re not going to search for alternative links and test out which news outlets are passing Facebook’s spam filter. The odds are that the user is just not going to try and share the story after the spam filter blocks them from doing so and this information will fail to go out to that user’s network.

While Facebook will no doubt be laser focused on dealing with the 50 million account security breach, this spam filter issue is without a doubt one that must be dealt with as well.

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The Senate Judiciary Committee approved the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh but there’s a catch.
USA TODAY

Brett Kavanaugh testified the other day that he might never coach girls’ basketball again.

He shouldn’t – at least not until further investigation has concluded.

The U.S. Senate may yet confirm Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, but he should stay off basketball courts for now when kids are around.

More: Mark Judge: Brett Kavanaugh’s friend and potential witness, will cooperate with FBI

More: What just happened? Here’s a breakdown of the Brett Kavanaugh vote and what happens next

“I love coaching more than anything I’ve ever done in my whole life,” Kavanaugh said in his opening statement on Thursday. “But thanks to what some of you on this side of the committee have unleashed, I may never be able to coach again.”

He just might be right. Oh, not the part about blaming Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee – that’s just to avoid placing blame on his wholly sympathetic accuser – but the may-never-coach-again part. The nation is newly vigilant on who coaches and trains its children given recent scandals in gymnastics and other sports.

Turns out, though, Kavanaugh is free to continue coaching in the Catholic Youth Organization and his daughters’ private school in Washington, according to Edward McFadden, spokesperson for the Archdiocese of Washington. He said a coach accused of sexual misconduct would have to go through the full legal process and be convicted before being banned.

McFadden told USA TODAY Sports’ A.J. Perez on Friday that “adult volunteers with extensive contact with children” go through fingerprinting, criminal background checks and training under what is called the VIRTUS program.

“The person is VIRTUS-trained,” McFadden said of Kavanaugh, “and has gone through a background check, which was clean.”

Besides, McFadden said he thinks Kavanaugh’s reference to not being able to coach again is related to protesters who shout down political figures in restaurants and other public spaces.

“It may be impossible for him to coach,” McFadden said. “Imagine being in a public gym where people could come in and be disrupting. I’m not sure he was referring to the claim (of sexual misconduct), but the overall environment. He has no record and has no criminal background. He’s gone through the (training) process. He can coach.”

But should he? The U.S. Center for SafeSport was established in 2017 to investigate misconduct claims in the U.S. Olympic movement. It does not cover youth sports such as the CYO. But its policies are nevertheless instructive.

Dan Hill, a spokesperson for SafeSport, said a credible allegation of sexual abuse by a coach covered under SafeSport could well lead to an investigation, even where there are no formal charges brought by law enforcement. He said the burden of proof in such cases is the civil standard of more likely than not, rather than the criminal standard of beyond a reasonable doubt.

Hill did not comment on Kavanaugh specifically but more generally about cases with facts similar to Kavanaugh’s circumstance. Hill said decisions are made on a case-by-case basis. And he said there is no statute of limitations.

The nation is deeply divided. Sometimes it feels like we don’t agree on anything anymore. But credibly accused sex offenders should not coach youth basketball, girls or boys, without deeper investigation. Can’t we all agree on that?

Elon Musk on Friday sent an email to all of Tesla, urging his employees to keep working diligently in the face of mounting pressure from federal regulators and a crashing stock price.

From the email:

Ignore all distractions. One more hardcore weekend and we will be victorious. Thanks for being amazing, Elon

This email comes fewer than 24 hours after the SEC sued Musk for making false statements about the company, including his August claim that he had “funding secured” to take Tesla private at $420 a share. The SEC is also recommending that Musk be barred from helming a public company.

You didn’t forget that Facebook owns Instagram, did you?

That little fact is extra germane today following the news that at least 50 million Facebook users, and possibly 90 million, had their accounts accessed by hackers. And, it turns out, those users’ Instagram accounts could have been compromised, too. 

Here’s the key detail: You can log into your Instagram account with your Facebook account. And, if you used your affected Facebook account to log into your Instagram account, hackers would have been able to access that account as well. 

To make matters worse, according to Krebs on Security, it’s not just hacked individuals’ Instagram accounts that were vulnerable. Potentially every third-party service that lets you log in with Facebook is vulnerable, too.

Think Tinder, Uber, and so, so many others. 

Facebook’s VP of product management Guy Rosen confirmed as much on an afternoon phone call with reporters. 

Importantly, the company at present doesn’t have any evidence that attackers actually gained access to Instagram accounts. But don’t think everything is chill just yet. As Facebook repeatedly insisted both in its official statement and on the conference call, the investigation is still in its early stages. 

Meaning, there’s still a lot about the hack that the company doesn’t know. Fun, right?

Facebook hasn’t revealed a ton about the data breach in which hackers exploited code that could let them take over around 50 million user accounts. CEO Mark Zuckerberg explained that the company’s investigation is still in its early stages. But this latest rupture is another bruise for a company that has already been hammered by a series of privacy and security violations, leading to a Zuckerberg grilling before Congress back in April.

More: Facebook says accounts of nearly 50 million users were breached in attack

More: 5 key factors to note in SEC charges against Tesla CEO

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More: Gig economy: Here’s how much you can make delivering for Grubhub, Uber Eats and DoorDash

Here’s what we know about this latest attack and what you should do about it:

Facebook says hackers exploited a vulnerability in the “View As” feature, which lets you see what your profile looks like to other people. Attackers were able to steal Facebook “access tokens” or the digital keys that keep you logged into Facebook so that you don’t need to reenter your password every time you use the app. 

The vulnerability apparently stemmed from a change made in July 2017 in the way video was uploaded on the site, which the social network says impacted “View As.” Having obtained such access tokens, the bad guys were able to steal more tokens.

Should I not use View As?

Actually, for now, you won’t be able to use it. While it investigates what happened here and who was responsible, Facebook has temporarily turned off the feature.

Is my own account safe?

The short answer is you can’t know for sure, but Facebook has taken precautionary steps. On Friday, it forced some 90 million people to log out of their accounts –representing the 50 million it knows were affected, plus 40 million other accounts that took advantage of the View As feature in the last year. 

Can I trust Facebook?

That’s a question many among Facebook’s 2.2 billion monthly active users are undoubtedly asking, and it is hard to blame anyone who doesn’t. 

After all, this latest breach follows Facebook’s disclosure earlier in the year of an estimated 87 million people who had their profiles scraped and improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica, a political ad-targeting firm. During his testimony before Congress, Zuckerberg acknowledged that Facebook can amass data to construct what are being referred to as “shadow profiles” of you, even if you never opted in or joined Facebook.

That’s going to wig some of you out for sure.

More: How to delete your Facebook account (and the pros and cons of doing so)

Facebook did go to great pains to  explain how and why it tracks non-users. You can read about such policies in this blog post from April, which privacy advocate Marc Rotenberg of the Electronic Privacy Information Center called at the time, “a giant surveillance warning label.”

What steps should I take right away?

Facebook claims you won’t need to change your password because of what has happened, but in my view better safe than sorry.

Gary Davis, Chief Consumer Security Evangelist, at McAfee recommends certainly recommend changing your password – and not only at Facebook, but at Instagram, Twitter and other social media accounts as well.

You hear this all time, but don’t use the same passwords at each place, either, something all too many folks do. McAfee research reveals a third of people rely on the same three passwords for every account they’re signed up to.

Follow other longstanding cybersecurity best practices. For Tyler Moffitt, senior threat research analyst at threat intelligence provider Webroot, such practices include  “disconnecting any unnecessary apps or games in social media platforms, making sure two-factor authentication is enabled and never giving out personal or financial information in your profile or private messenger conversations.”

Visit Facebook’s Help Center – click the circled question mark near the top of the screen to get there – near to change your password, implement two-factor authentication (Facebook will ask for a security code if it notices a log-in from an unusual device), or take other steps. Meanwhile, in the Security and Login settings, you’ll see a list of all the places that you log into with your Facebook account; Facebook lets you log out of those places with a single click.

Email: ebaig@usatoday.com; Follow USA TODAY Personal Tech Columnist @edbaig on Twitter

Contributing: Jessica Guynn in San Francisco

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USA TODAY

Published 4:40 p.m. ET Sept. 28, 2018 | Updated 6:01 p.m. ET Sept. 28, 2018

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Demonstrators congregated in Senate office buildings Thursday to protest Republicans’ handling of the sexual assault accusation against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh. (Sept. 20)
AP

WASHINGTON –  Using the hashtag “#ImpeachKavanaugh,” Brett Kavanaugh’s critics on social media are suggesting that Congress should remove him from the judiciary, whether or not he makes it to the Supreme Court.

“The #ImpeachKavanaugh movement has begun, and investigations are nowhere near over,” tweeted Howard Fineman, an NBC News analyst. “Not since the days of #FDR’s New Deal has the Supreme Court been such an open venue for raw politics.”

Michael Lindauer tweeted Thursday with the hashtag that based on his “absurd denials, stonewalling, obfuscation, lies and compelling testimony against him, he should impeached.” Scott Wainner‏ tweeted that if the sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh are true, he “should not be a judge.”

Kavanaugh’s opponents say they believe the nominee lied when he denied allegations by Christine Blasey Ford that he sexually assaulted her when they were teenagers. In a day-long hearing Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee heard testimony from both Ford and Kavanaugh. President Donald Trump and Republican leaders have stood by Kavanaugh, saying they found his denials persuasive.

Senate Democrats on Friday were focused on a scramble to push an FBI investigation of Kavanaugh and to delay a vote by the full Senate on his nomination.

But some Democrats in the House said they wanted to see Congress investigate Kavanaugh.

Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., who serves on the House Judiciary Committee, tweeted Friday that if Democrats regain control of the House in the Nov. 6 midterm elections, they could subpoena witnesses to investigate federal judges and justices.

Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., who also serves on the panel, tweeted Friday that the divergent accounts by Kavanaugh and Ford in Thursday’s testimony indicated that “someone committed perjury.”

Kavanaugh “should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law and should not serve as a judge on any court,” Gutierrez said.

In the Senate hearing, Kavanaugh lashed out at Democrats over their handling of Ford’s allegations, calling the process a “national disgrace” and “a circus.”

The Senate Judiciary Committee approved Friday, along party lines, the nomination of Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court – with a request that the FBI conduct an investigation into sexual assault allegations before the full Senate takes a vote.

Trump continued to stand by Kavanaugh and said Friday he hasn’t considered any replacements. “I’m sure it will all be very good,” Trump said. He asked for an FBI investigation to be completed in a week.

“I’ve ordered the FBI to conduct a supplemental investigation to update Judge Kavanaugh’s file,” Trump said in a statement. “As the Senate has requested, this update must be limited in scope and completed in less than one week.”

Democrats have been infuriated by Republicans’ efforts to move ahead with a vote on Kavanaugh without an FBI investigation.

Taking control of one or more chambers of the U.S. Congress would give Democrats the power to launch investigations on Kavanaugh – or other members of the judiciary – if they wanted to.

Lisa Graves, a former deputy assistant attorney general in the Justice Department, called for his impeachment in a September essay in Slate magazine because of allegations he lied under oath about whether he’d received documents stolen from Senate Democrats about President George W. Bush’s judicial nominees while Kavanaugh worked in the White House in the early 2000s.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., asked Kavanaugh at a Sept. 5 hearing whether he was concerned about how a Republican aide obtained the Democratic documents given to Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh replied that Republican and Democratic staffers sometimes cooperated on nominations, so seeing Democratic documents wouldn’t have raised concerns. 

“That is the coin of the realm, Senator X is interested in focusing on administrative law, Senator Y is going to ask about environmental law, senator is concerned about your past work for this client,” Kavanaugh said.

Impeachment of a federal official is a rare and contentious way to remove an official from office for “treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors,” as laid out in the Constitution.

The impeachment process requires a majority vote in the House to initiate the proceedings and a two-thirds vote in the Senate to remove the official from office. The Senate has conducted 16 impeachment trials, beginning in 1797 with Tennessee Sen. William Blount and including President Bill Clinton in 1998, according to a Congressional Research Service report in 2010. Former President Richard Nixon avoided impeachment by resigning in 1974 after the House Judiciary Committee approved three articles of impeachment.

The Senate convicted eight judges – seven District Court judges and one 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judge – in impeachment trials from 1804 to 2010, according to the Congressional Research Service report. One of the judges removed in 1989, Democratic Rep. Alcee Hastings of Florida, won election to the House in 1992 and continues to serve there.

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On Thursday, the third in a new class of preventative migraine medications got approved.

The drug, Emgality, came out at the same list price as the other two medications in the class — $575 per month, or $6,900 a year — along with a plan to provide the drug for free to commercially insured patients for up to a year.

And it’s not the only drug to offer up huge discounts in the first few months — and even years — of coming onto the market, with each drugmaker aiming to capture the migraine market.

Until May, there weren’t any FDA-approved drugs available for alleviating migraines, though other treatments, including Botox and anti-seizure medications, have been used. Pain relievers have also been used to help treat some of the symptoms of migraines.

The new drugs, taken as monthly or quarterly injections, aim to cut down on the number of migraine days patients experience.

About 15 million of those people are eligible for these preventive treatments.

Here’s a breakdown of each drug’s approach to owning the market:

• Amgen and Novartis, Aimovig: $575 per month list price and two months of free samples, followed by a patient assistance program that provides up to a year of coverage if commercial insurance doesn’t cover it. For those with commercial insurance, there’s a $5 copay program that’s capped at $2,700 a year.
• Teva, Ajovy: $575 per month list price and a savings card that lets patients access Ajovy for free until December 2019.
• Lilly, Emgality: $575 per month list price, as well as starter kits in doctors’ offices. Lilly also plans to have a patient access program that provides up to 12 months of Emgality for free.

In recent years, when competing drugs, such as treatments for hepatitis C, enter the market, newcomers have undercut the list price of medications. That’s not the case with the preventive migraine treatments.

“We believe the market for the next year will be very contentious and net pricing could be substantially lower than the $6,900 list price,” Wells Fargo analyst David Maris said in a note Friday. There are still discounts drugmakers provide to middlemen in the form of rebates, which will likely be a competitive area for the three drugs.

For example, Wei-Li Shao, the vice president of Lilly’s neuroscience business, told Business Insider that the company is also in conversations with organizations responsible for paying for medications, such as pharmacy benefit managers, to strike up “value-based agreements” in which the drugmaker would get paid for a medication based on how well it reduces migraines in a particular patient.

For the drugmakers, providing the drug for free serves as a way to get access to more patients at the upstart. Because the treatments are preventative and migraines are a chronic condition, the expectation is that patients will be on the medication for a long enough time to make up for it, even if the drugmakers aren’t making money off of it for months after it comes on the market.

“We view this strategy as testament to the recognized long-term size/value of this largely prevalent pool of patients where we expect a significant degree of ‘stickiness’ once patients are on treatment with a specific agent as opposed to competing on price,” RBC Capital Markets analyst Kennen MacKay said in a note Friday.

Analysts expect Aimovig alone to reach $1 billion in annual sales by 2022, while Wells Fargo projected Ajovy to have $818 million in sales by 2022.