title: Postal code

text: Postal codes in the Netherlands originally did not use the letters 'F', 'I', 'O', 'Q', 'U' and 'Y' for technical reasons. But as almost all existing combinations are now used, these letters were allowed for new locations starting 2005. The letter combinations "SS" (), "SD" (), and "SA" () are not used, due to links with the Nazi occupation in World War II.


title: Postal code

text: Postal codes in Canada do not include the letters D, F, I, O, Q, or U, as the optical character recognition (OCR) equipment used in automated sorting could easily confuse them with other letters and digits. The letters W and Z are used, but are not currently used as the first letter. The Canadian Postal Codes use alternate letters and numbers (with a space after the third character) in this format: A9A 9A9


title: Postal code

text: In Ireland the eircode system uses the following letters only: A, C, D, E, F, H, K, N, P, R, T, V, W, X, Y. This serves two purposes:


title: Postal code

text: Most of the postal code systems are numeric; only a few are alphanumeric (i.e., use both letters and digits). Alphanumeric systems can, given the same number of characters, encode many more locations. For example, while a two digit numeric code can represent 100 locations, a two character alphanumeric code using ten numbers and twenty letters can represent 900 locations.


title: Postal code

text: Countries which prefix their postal codes with a fixed group of letters, indicating a country code, include Andorra, Azerbaijan, Barbados, Ecuador and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.


title: Postal code

text: ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country codes were recommended by the European Committee for Standardization as well as the Universal Postal Union to be used in conjunction with postal codes starting in 1994, but they have not become widely used.


title: Postal code

text: Andorra, Azerbaijan, Barbados, Ecuador, Latvia and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines use the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 as a prefix in their postal codes.


title: Postal code

text: In some countries (such as in continental Europe, where a numeric postcode format of four or five digits is commonly used) the numeric postal code is sometimes prefixed with a country code when sending international mail to that country.


title: Postal code

text: Postal services have their own formats and placement rules for postal codes. In most English-speaking countries, the postal code forms the last item of the address, following the city or town name, whereas in most continental European countries it precedes the name of the city or town.


title: Postal code

text: In Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Turkmenistan it is written at the beginning of an address. In Japan it is written at the start of the address when written in Japanese, but at the end when the address is written in the Latin alphabet.


title: Postal code

text: Postal codes are usually assigned to geographical areas. Sometimes codes are assigned to individual addresses or to institutions that receive large volumes of mail, e.g. government agencies or large commercial companies. One example is the French Cedex system.


title: Postal code

text: Before postal codes as described here were used, large cities were often divided into postal zones or postal districts, usually numbered from 1 upwards within each city. The newer postal code systems often incorporate the old zone numbers, as with London postal district numbers, for example. Ireland still uses postal district numbers in Dublin. In New Zealand, Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch were divided into postal zones, but these fell into disuse, and have now become redundant as a result of a new postcode system being introduced.


title: Postal code

text: Some postal code systems, like those of Ecuador and Costa Rica, show an exact agreement with the hierarchy of administrative country subdivisions.


title: Postal code

text: Format of six digit numeric (eight digit alphanumeric) postal codes in Ecuador, introduced in December 2007: ECAABBCC


title: Postal code

text: In Costa Rica these codes were originally used as district identifiers by the National Institute of Statistics and Census of Costa Rica and the Administrative Territorial Division, and continue to be equivalent.


title: Postal code

text: The first two digits of the postal codes in Turkey correspond to the provinces and each province has assigned only one number. They are the same for them as in .


title: Postal code

text: The first two digits of the postal codes in Vietnam indicate a province. Some provinces have one, other have several two digit numbers assigned. The numbers differ from the number used in .


title: Postal code

text: In France the numeric code for the departments is used as the first two digits of the postal code, except for the two departments in Corsica that have codes 2A and 2B and use 20 as postal code. Furthermore, the codes are only the codes for the department in charge of delivery of the post, so it can be that a location in one department has a postal code starting with the number of a neighbouring department.


title: Postal code

text: The first digit of the postal codes in the United States comprises discrete states. From the first three digits one can infer the state, with a few exceptions where an area is served by a central office in an adjacent state.


title: Postal code

text: Similarly, in Canada, the first letter indicates the province or territory, although the provinces of Quebec and Ontario are divided into several lettered sub-regions (e.g. H for Montreal and Laval), and the Northwest Territories and Nunavut share the letter X.


title: Postal code

text: The first two digits of the postal codes in Germany define areas independently of administrative regions. The coding space of the first digit is fully used (0-9); that of the first two combined is utilized to 89%, i.e. there are 89 postal zones defined. Zone 11 is non-geographic.


title: Postal code

text: Royal Mail designed the postal codes in the United Kingdom mostly for efficient distribution. Nevertheless, people associated codes with certain areas, leading to some people wanting or not wanting to have a certain code. See also postcode lottery.


title: Postal code

text: In Brazil the are an evolution of the five-digit area postal codes. In the 1990s the Brazilian five-digit postal code (illustrated), codice_1, received a three-digit suffix codice_2, but this suffix is not directly related to the administrative district hierarchy. The suffix was created only for logistic reasons.


title: Postal code

text: The postal code assignment can be assigned to individual land lots in some special cases — in Brazil they are named "large receivers" and receive suffixes 900–959. In any other case it is an error to associate the postal code with the whole land lot area (illustrated).


title: Postal code

text: A postal code is often related to a land lot, but this is not always the case. Postal codes are usually related to access points on streets. Small or middle-sized houses, in general, only have a single main gate which is the delivery point. Parks, large businesses such as shopping centers, and big houses, may have more than one entrance and more than one delivery point. So the semantic of an address and its postal code can vary, and one land lot may have more than one postal code.


title: Postal code

text: Czechoslovakia introduced Postal Routing Numbers (PSČ - poštovní směrovací čísla) in 1973. The code consists of 5 digits formatted into two groups: NNN NN. Originally, the first group marked a district transport centre, the second group represented the order of post offices on the collection route. In the first group, the first digit corresponds partly with the region, the second digit meant a collection transport node (sběrný přepravní uzel, SPU) and the third digit a "district transport node" (okresní přepravní uzel). However, processing was later centralized and mechanized while codes remained the same. After separation Slovakia and the Czech Republic kept the system. Codes with an initial digit of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7 are used in the Czech Republic, while codes with an initial digit of 8, 9, or 0 are used in Slovakia


title: Postal code

text: A code corresponds to a local postal office. However, some larger companies or organizations have their own post codes. In 2004–2006 there were some efforts in Slovakia to reform the system, to get separate post codes for every district of single postmen, but the change was not realized.


title: Postal code

text: Postal codes are known as Postal Index Numbers (PINs; sometimes as PIN codes) in India. The PIN system was introduced on 15 August 1972 by India Post. India uses a unique six-digit code as a geographical number to identify locations in India. The format of the PIN is ZSDPPP defined as follows:


title: Postal code

text: There are nine total zones consisting of eight regional zones and a functional zone which are represented by the first digit.


title: Postal code

text: In Ireland, the new postal code system launched in 2015, known as Eircode provides a unique 7-character alphanumerical code for each individual address. The first three digits are the routing key, which is a postal district and the last four characters are a unique identifier that relates to an individual address (business, house or apartment). A fully developed API is also available for integrating the Eircode database into business databases and logistics systems.


title: Postal code

text: The single exception is the Dublin D6W postal district. It is the only routing key area in the country that takes the format ANA instead of ANN:


title: Postal code

text: While it is not intended to replace addresses, in theory simply providing a seven-character Eircode would locate any Irish delivery address. For example, the Irish Parliament Dáil Éireann is: D02 A272


title: Postal code

text: Postal codes in the Netherlands, known as postcodes, are alphanumeric, consisting of four digits followed by a space and two letters (NNNN AA). Adding the house number to the postcode will identify the address, making the street name and town name redundant. For example: 2597 GV 75 will direct a postal delivery to Theo Mann-Bouwmeesterlaan 75, 's-Gravenhage (the International School of The Hague).


title: Postal code

text: For domestic properties, an individual postcode may cover up to 100 properties in contiguous proximity (e.g. a short section of a populous road, or a group of less populous neighbouring roads). The postcode together with the number or name of a property is not always unique, particularly in rural areas. For example, GL20 8NX/1 might refer to either 1 Frampton Cottages or 1 Frampton Farm Cottages, roughly a quarter of a mile (400 metres) apart.


title: Postal code

text: There are always two halves: the separation between outward and inward postcodes is indicated by one space.


title: Postal code

text: The outward postcode covers a unique area and has two parts which may in total be two, three or four characters in length. A postcode area of one or two letters, followed by one or two numbers, followed in some parts of London by a letter.


title: Postal code

text: The outward postcode and the leading numeric of the inward postcode in combination forms a postal sector, and this usually corresponds to a couple of thousand properties.


title: Postal code

text: Larger businesses and isolated properties such as farms may have a unique postcode. Extremely large organisations such as larger government offices or bank headquarters may have multiple postcodes for different departments.


title: Postal code

text: There are about 100 postcode areas, ranging widely in size from BT which covers the whole of Northern Ireland to WC for a small part of Central London. Postcode areas occasionally cross national boundaries, such as SY which covers a large, predominantly rural area from Shrewsbury and Ludlow in Shropshire, England, through to the seaside town of Aberystwyth, Ceredigion on Wales' west coast.


title: Postal code

text: In the United States, the basic ZIP Code is composed of five numbers. The first three numbers identify a specific sectional center facility—or central sorting facility—that serves a geographic region (typically a large part of a state). The next two numbers identify a specific post office either serving an area of a city (if in an urban area or large suburban area) or an entire village, town, or small city and its surrounding area (if in a small suburban or rural area).


title: Postal code

text: There is an extended format of the ZIP Code known as the ZIP+4, which contains the basic five-digit ZIP Code, followed by a hyphen and four additional digits. These digits identify a specific delivery route, such as one side of a building, a group of apartments, or several floors of a large office building. Although using the ZIP+4 offers higher accuracy, addressing redundancy, and sorting efficiency within the USPS, it is optional and not widely used by the general public. It is primarily only used by business mailers.


title: Postal code

text: For high volume business mailers using automated mailing machines, the USPS has promulgated the Intelligent Mail barcode standard, which is a barcode containing the ZIP+4 code plus a two digit delivery point. This 11-digit number is theoretically a unique identifier for every address in the country.


title: Postal code

text: French overseas departments and territories use the five-digit French postal code system, each code starting with the three-digit department identifier. Monaco is also integrated in the French system and has no system of its own.


title: Postal code

text: The British Crown Dependencies of Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man are part of the UK postcode system. They use the schemes AAN NAA and AANN NAA, in which the first two letters are a unique code (GY, JE and IM respectively).


title: Postal code

text: Most of the Overseas Territories have UK-style postcodes, with a single postcode for each territory or dependency, although they are still treated as international destinations by Royal Mail in the UK, and charged at international rather than UK inland rates. The four other Overseas Territories Anguilla, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands and Cayman Islands have their own separate systems and formats.


title: Postal code

text: The Pacific island states of Palau, Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia remain part of the US ZIP code system, despite having become independent states.


title: Postal code

text: San Marino and the Vatican City are part of the Italian postcode system, while Liechtenstein similarly uses the Swiss system, as do the Italian exclave of Campione d'Italia and the German exclave of Büsingen am Hochrhein, although they also form part of their respective countries' postal code systems.


title: Postal code

text: The Czech Republic and Slovakia still use the codes of the former Czechoslovakia, their ranges not overlapping. In 2004–2006, Slovakia prepared a reform of the system but the plan was postponed and maybe abandoned. In the Czech Republic, there was no significant effort to modify the system.


title: Postal code

text: In the United Kingdom, the non-conforming postal code GIR 0AA was used for the National Girobank until its closure in 2003. A non-geographic series of postcodes, starting with BX, is used by some banks and government departments.


title: Postal code

text: A fictional address is also used by Royal Mail for letters to Santa Claus, more commonly known as Santa or Father Christmas:


title: Postal code

text: In Finland, the special postal code 99999 is for Korvatunturi, the place where Santa Claus ("Joulupukki" in Finnish) is said to live, although mail is delivered to the Santa Claus Village in Rovaniemi.


title: Postal code

text: In Canada, the amount of mail sent to Santa Claus increased every Christmas, up to the point that Canada Post decided to start an official Santa Claus letter-response program in 1983. Approximately one million letters come in to Santa Claus each Christmas, including from outside of Canada, and all of them are answered in the same languages in which they are written. Canada Post introduced a special address for mail to Santa Claus, complete with its own postal code:


title: Postal code

text: In Belgium bpost sends a small present to children who have written a letter to Sinterklaas. They can use the non-geographic postal code 0612, which refers to the date Sinterklaas is celebrated (6 December), although a fictional town, street and house number are also used. In Dutch, the address is


title: Postal code

text: While postal codes were introduced to expedite the delivery of mail, they are very useful tools for several other purposes, particularly in countries where codes are very fine-grained and identify just a few addresses. Among uses are:


title: Postal code

text: The availability of postal code information has significant economic advantages. In some countries, the postal authorities charge for access to the code database. , the United Kingdom Government is consulting on whether to waive licensing fees for some geographical data sets (to be determined) related to UK postcodes.


title: April Fools' Day

text: April Fools' Day or All Fools' Day is an annual custom on 1 April consisting of practical jokes and hoaxes. Jokesters often expose their actions by shouting "April Fools!" at the recipient. Mass media can be involved in these pranks, which may be revealed as such the following day. The custom of setting aside a day for playing harmless pranks upon one's neighbour has been relatively common in the world historically.


title: April Fools' Day

text: A disputed association between 1 April and foolishness is in Geoffrey Chaucer's "The Canterbury Tales" (1392). In the "Nun's Priest's Tale", a vain cock Chauntecleer is tricked by a fox on "Since March began thirty days and two," i.e. 32 days since March began, which is 1 April. However, it is not clear that Chaucer was referencing 1 April since the text of the "Nun's Priest's Tale" also states that the story takes place on the day when the sun is "in the sign of Taurus had y-rune Twenty degrees and one," which would not be 1 April. Modern scholars believe that there is a copying error in the extant manuscripts and that Chaucer actually wrote, ""Syn March was gon"". If so, the passage would have originally meant 32 days after March, i.e. 2 May, the anniversary of the engagement of King Richard II of England to Anne of Bohemia, which took place in 1381.


title: April Fools' Day

text: In 1508, French poet Eloy d'Amerval referred to a "poisson d'avril" (April fool, literally "April's fish"), possibly the first reference to the celebration in France. Some historians suggest that April Fools' originated because, in the Middle Ages, New Year's Day was celebrated on 25 March in most European towns, with a holiday that in some areas of France, specifically, ended on 1 April, and those who celebrated New Year's Eve on 1 January made fun of those who celebrated on other dates by the invention of April Fools' Day. The use of 1 January as New Year's Day became common in France only in the mid-16th century, and that date was not adopted officially until 1564, by the Edict of Roussillon, as called for during the Council of Trent in 1563. However, there are issues with this theory because there is an unambiguous reference to April Fools' Day in a 1561 poem by Flemish poet Eduard de Dene of a nobleman who sends his servants on foolish errands on 1 April, predating the change. April Fools' Day was also an established tradition in Great Britain before 1 January was established as the start of the calendar year.


title: April Fools' Day

text: In the Netherlands, the origin of April Fools' Day is often attributed to the Dutch victory in 1572 in the Capture of Brielle, where the Spanish Duke Álvarez de Toledo was defeated. ""Op 1 april verloor Alva zijn bril"" is a Dutch proverb, which can be translated as: "On the first of April, Alva lost his glasses". In this case, "bril" ("glasses" in Dutch) serves as a homonym for Brielle (the town where it happened). This theory, however, provides no explanation for the international celebration of April Fools' Day.


title: April Fools' Day

text: In 1686, John Aubrey referred to the celebration as "Fooles holy day", the first British reference. On 1 April 1698, several people were tricked into going to the Tower of London to "see the Lions washed".


title: April Fools' Day

text: Although no biblical scholar or historian is known to have mentioned a relationship, some have expressed the belief that the origins of April Fools' Day may go back to the Genesis flood narrative. In a 1908 edition of the "Harper's Weekly" cartoonist Bertha R. McDonald wrote:


title: April Fools' Day

text: In the UK, an April Fool prank is sometimes later revealed by shouting "April fool!" at the recipient, who becomes the "April fool". A study in the 1950s, by folklorists Iona and Peter Opie, found that in the UK, and in countries whose traditions derived from the UK, this continues to be the practice, with the custom ceasing at noon, after which time it is no longer acceptable to play pranks. Thus a person playing a prank after midday is considered the "April fool" themselves.


title: April Fools' Day

text: In Scotland, April Fools' Day was originally called ""Huntigowk Day"". The name is a corruption of "hunt the "gowk"", "gowk" being Scots for a cuckoo or a foolish person; alternative terms in Gaelic would be "Là na Gocaireachd", "gowking day", or "Là Ruith na Cuthaige", "the day of running the cuckoo". The traditional prank is to ask someone to deliver a sealed message that supposedly requests help of some sort. In fact, the message reads ""Dinna laugh, dinna smile. Hunt the gowk another mile."" The recipient, upon reading it, will explain they can only help if they first contact another person, and they send the victim to this next person with an identical message, with the same result.


title: April Fools' Day

text: In England a "fool" is known by a few different names around the country, including "noodle", "gob", "gobby", or "noddy".


title: April Fools' Day

text: In Ireland, it was traditional to entrust the victim with an "important letter" to be given to a named person. That person would read the letter, then ask the victim to take it to someone else, and so on. The letter when opened contained the words "send the fool further".


title: April Fools' Day

text: In Italy, France, Belgium and French-speaking areas of Switzerland and Canada, the 1 April tradition is often known as "April fish" ("poisson d'avril" in French, "april vis" in Dutch or "pesce d'aprile" in Italian). Possible pranks include attempting to attach a paper fish to the victim's back without being noticed. This fish feature is prominently present on many late 19th- to early 20th-century French April Fools' Day postcards. Many newspapers also spread a false story on April Fish Day, and a subtle reference to a fish is sometimes given as a clue to the fact that it is an April Fools' prank.


title: April Fools' Day

text: In Germany, an April Fool prank is sometimes later revealed by shouting "April, April!" at the recipient, who becomes the "April fool".


title: April Fools' Day

text: Danes, Finns, Icelanders, Norwegians and Swedes celebrate April Fools' Day ("aprilsnar" in Danish; "aprillipäivä" in Finnish; "aprilsnarr" in Norwegian; "aprilskämt" in Swedish). Most news media outlets will publish exactly one false story on 1 April; for newspapers this will typically be a first-page article but not the top headline.


title: April Fools' Day

text: In Poland, "prima aprilis" ("First April" in Latin) as a day of pranks is a centuries-long tradition. It is a day when many pranks are played: hoaxes – sometimes very sophisticated – are prepared by people, media (which often cooperate to make the "information" more credible) and even public institutions. Serious activities are usually avoided, and generally every word said on 1 April could be untrue. The conviction for this is so strong that the Polish anti-Turkish alliance with Leopold I signed on 1 April 1683, was backdated to 31 March. However, for some in Poland "prima aprilis" ends at noon of 1 April and "prima aprilis" jokes after that hour are considered inappropriate and not classy.


title: April Fools' Day

text: April Fools' Day is widely celebrated in Odessa and has the special local name Humorina - in Ukrainian Гуморина ("Humorina"). This holiday arose in 1973. An April Fool prank is revealed by saying "Первое Апреля, никому не верю" (""Pervoye Aprelya, nikomu ne veryu"") - which means "First of April, I trust nobody" - to the recipient. The festival includes a large parade in the city centre, free concerts, street fairs and performances. Festival participants dress up in a variety of costumes and walk around the city fooling around and pranking passersby. One of the traditions on April Fools' Day is to dress up the main city monument in funny clothes. Humorina even has its own logo a cheerful sailor in a lifebelt — whose author was the artist Arkady Tsykun. During the festival, special souvenirs bearing the logo are printed and sold everywhere. Since 2010, April Fools' Day celebrations include an International Clown Festival and both celebrated as one. In 2019, the festival was dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Odessa Film Studio and all events were held with an emphasis on cinema.


title: April Fools' Day

text: In many Spanish-speaking countries (and the Philippines), ""Día de los Santos Inocentes"" (Holy Innocents Day) is a festivity which is very similar to April Fools' Day, but it is celebrated in late December (27, 28 or 29 depending on the location).


title: April Fools' Day

text: Turkey also has a custom of April Fools' pranks. Pranks and jokes are usually verbal and are revealed by shouting "Bir Nisan!" (April 1st!).


title: April Fools' Day

text: In Iran, it is called ""Dorugh-e Sizdah"" (lie of Thirteen) and people and media prank on 13 Farvardin (Sizdah bedar) that is equivalent of 1 April. It is a tradition that takes place 13 days after the Persian new year Nowruz. On this day, people go out and leave their houses and have fun outside mostly in natural parks.


title: April Fools' Day

text: In Lebanon, an April Fool prank is revealed by saying (which means "First of April Lie") to the recipient.


title: April Fools' Day

text: A common prank is to carefully remove the cream from an Oreo and replace it with toothpaste, and there are many similar pranks that replace an object (usually food) with another object that looks like the object but tastes different such as replacing sugar with salt and vanilla frosting with sour cream. As well as people playing pranks on one another on April Fools' Day, elaborate pranks have appeared on radio and television stations, newspapers, and websites, and have been performed by large corporations. In one famous prank in 1957, the BBC broadcast a film in their "Panorama" current affairs series purporting to show Swiss farmers picking freshly-grown spaghetti, in what they called the Swiss spaghetti harvest. The BBC was soon flooded with requests to purchase a spaghetti plant, forcing them to declare the film a hoax on the news the next day.


title: April Fools' Day

text: With the advent of the Internet and readily available global news services, April Fools' pranks can catch and embarrass a wider audience than ever before.


title: April Fools' Day

text: 28 December, the equivalent day in Spain and Hispanic America, is also the Christian day of celebration of the Day of the Holy Innocents. The Christian celebration is a religious holiday in its own right, but the tradition of pranks is not, though the latter is observed yearly. In some regions of Hispanic America after a prank is played, the cry is made, ""Inocente palomita que te dejaste engañar"" ("You innocent little dove that let yourself be fooled!"; not to be confused with another meaning of "palomita", which means "popcorn" in some dialects).


title: April Fools' Day

text: In Argentina, the prankster says, ""¡Que la inocencia te valga!"" which roughly translates as advice to not be as gullible as the victim of the prank. In Spain, it is common to say just ""¡Inocente!"" (which in Spanish can mean "innocent" or "gullible").


title: April Fools' Day

text: In Colombia, the term is used as ""Pásala por Inocentes"", which roughly means: "Let it go; today it's Innocent's Day."


title: April Fools' Day

text: In Belgium, this day is also known as the "Day of the Innocent Children" or "Day of the Stupid Children". It used to be a day where parents, grandparents, and teachers would fool the children in some way. But the celebration of this day has died out in favour of April Fools' Day.


title: April Fools' Day

text: Nevertheless, on the Spanish island of Menorca, "Dia d'enganyar" ("Fooling day") is celebrated on 1 April because Menorca was a British possession during part of the 18th century. In Brazil, the ""Dia da mentira"" ("Day of the lie") is also celebrated on 1 April due to the Portuguese influence.


title: April Fools' Day

text: In many English-speaking countries, mainly Britain, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, it is a custom to say "pinch and a punch for the first of the month" or an alternative, typically by children. The victim might respond with "a flick and a kick for being so quick", and the attacker might reply with "a punch in the eye for being so sly".


title: April Fools' Day

text: Another custom in Britain and North America is to say "rabbit rabbit" upon waking on the first day of a month, for good luck.


title: April Fools' Day

text: The practice of April Fool pranks and hoaxes is controversial. The mixed opinions of critics are epitomized in the reception to the 1957 BBC "spaghetti-tree hoax", in reference to which, newspapers were split over whether it was "a great joke or a terrible hoax on the public".


title: April Fools' Day

text: The positive view is that April Fools' can be good for one's health because it encourages "jokes, hoaxes ... pranks, [and] belly laughs", and brings all the benefits of laughter including stress relief and reducing strain on the heart. There are many "best of" April Fools' Day lists that are compiled in order to showcase the best examples of how the day is celebrated. Various April Fools' campaigns have been praised for their innovation, creativity, writing, and general effort.


title: April Fools' Day

text: The negative view describes April Fools' hoaxes as "creepy and manipulative", "rude" and "a little bit nasty", as well as based on "Schadenfreude" and deceit. When genuine news or a genuine important order or warning is issued on April Fools' Day, there is risk that it will be misinterpreted as a joke and ignored – for example, when Google, known to play elaborate April Fools' Day hoaxes, announced the launch of Gmail with 1-gigabyte inboxes in 2004, an era when competing webmail services offered 4-megabytes or less, many dismissed it as a joke outright. On the other hand, sometimes stories intended as jokes are taken seriously. Either way, there can be adverse effects, such as confusion, misinformation, waste of resources (especially when the hoax concerns people in danger) and even legal or commercial consequences.


title: April Fools' Day

text: In March 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, various organizations and people cancelled their April Fools' Day celebrations, or advocated against observing April Fools' Day, as a mark of respect due to the large amount of tragic deaths that COVID-19 had caused up to that point, the wish to provide truthful information to counter the misinformation about the virus, and to pre-empt any attempts to incorporate the virus into any potential pranks. For example, Google decided not to continue "its infamous April Fools’ jokes" tradition for that year. Because the pandemic was still ongoing a year later in 2021, they also decided not to do pranks that year.


title: April Fools' Day

text: In Thailand, the police warned ahead of April Fools' in 2021 that posting or sharing fake news online could lead to maximum of five years imprisonment.


title: April Fools' Day

text: Books, films, telemovies and television episodes have used April Fools' Day as their title or inspiration. Examples include Bryce Courtenay's novel "April Fool's Day" (1993), whose title refers to the day Courtenay's son died. The 1990s sitcom "Roseanne" featured an episode titled "April Fools' Day". This turned out to be intentionally misleading, as the episode was about Tax Day in the United States on 15 April – the last day to submit the previous year's tax information. Although Tax Day is usually 15 April as depicted in the episode, it can be moved back a few days if that day is on a weekend or a holiday in Washington, D.C. or some states, or due to natural disasters when it can occur as late as 15 July.


title: Lee Strasberg

text: Lee Strasberg (born Israel Strassberg; November 17, 1901 – February 17, 1982) was an American theatre director, actor and acting teacher. He co-founded, with theatre directors Harold Clurman and Cheryl Crawford, the Group Theatre in 1931, which was hailed as "America's first true theatrical collective". In 1951, he became director of the nonprofit Actors Studio in New York City, considered "the nation's most prestigious acting school," and, in 1966, was involved in the creation of Actors Studio West in Los Angeles.


title: Lee Strasberg

text: Although other highly regarded teachers also developed versions of "The Method," Lee Strasberg is considered to be the "father of method acting in America," according to author Mel Gussow. From the 1920s until his death in 1982, "he revolutionized the art of acting by having a profound influence on performance in American theater and film." From his base in New York, Strasberg trained several generations of theatre and film notables, including Anne Bancroft, Dustin Hoffman, Montgomery Clift, James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Jane Fonda, Julie Harris, Paul Newman, Ellen Burstyn, Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, Geraldine Page and Eli Wallach, and directors Andreas Voutsinas, Frank Perry and Elia Kazan.


title: Lee Strasberg

text: By 1970, Strasberg had become less involved with the Actors Studio and, with his third wife, Anna, opened the Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute with branches in New York City and in Hollywood, to continue teaching the 'system' of Konstantin Stanislavski, which he had interpreted and developed, particularly in light of the ideas of Yevgeny Vakhtangov, for contemporary actors. The Institute's primary stated goal was "to reach a larger audience of eager and emerging talent" than was served by the Actors Studio's notoriously selective admission process and, as teachers of the Method, introduced their own personal interpretations of the discipline, "to dispel growing confusion and misrepresentation of the method, preserving what had by now become fundamental discoveries in actor training." The Lee Strasberg Theatre & Film Institute has its own rigorous sets of entrance criteria required for admission into their program.


title: Lee Strasberg

text: Former student Elia Kazan directed James Dean in "East of Eden" (1955), for which Kazan and Dean were nominated for Academy Awards. As a student, Dean wrote that Actors Studio was "the greatest school of the theater [and] the best thing that can happen to an actor." Playwright Tennessee Williams, writer of "A Streetcar Named Desire", said of Strasberg's actors, "They act from the inside out. They communicate emotions they really feel. They give you a sense of life." Directors such as Sidney Lumet, a former student, have intentionally used actors skilled in Strasberg's "method".


title: Lee Strasberg

text: Kazan, in his autobiography, wrote, "[Lee] carried with him the aura of a prophet, a magician, a witch doctor, a psychoanalyst, and a feared father of a Jewish home... He was the force that held the 30-odd members of the theatre together, and made them 'permanent'." Today, Ellen Burstyn, Al Pacino, and Harvey Keitel lead this non-profit studio dedicated to the development of actors, playwrights, and directors.


title: Lee Strasberg

text: As an actor, Strasberg is best known for his portrayal of the primary antagonist, the gangster Hyman Roth, alongside his former student Al Pacino in "The Godfather Part II" (1974), a role he took at Pacino's suggestion after Kazan turned down the role, and which earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He also appeared in "Going in Style" (1979) and "... And Justice for All" (1979).


title: Lee Strasberg

text: Strasberg's personal papers, including photos, are archived at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C.


title: Lee Strasberg

text: Lee Strasberg was born Israel Strassberg in Budzanów in Austrian Poland (part of Austria-Hungary, now in Ukraine), to Jewish parents, Baruch Meyer Strassberg and his wife, Ida (born Chaia), née Diner, and was the youngest of three sons. His father emigrated to New York while his family remained in their home village with an uncle, a rabbinical teacher. His father, who worked as a presser in the garment industry, sent first for his eldest son and his daughter. Finally, enough money was saved to bring over his wife and his two remaining sons. In 1909 the family was reunited on Manhattan's Lower East Side, where they lived until the early 1920s. Young Strasberg took refuge in voracious reading and the companionship of his older brother, Zalmon, whose death in the 1918 influenza pandemic was so traumatic for the young Strasberg that, despite being a straight-A student, he dropped out of high school.


title: Lee Strasberg

text: A relative introduced him to the theatre by giving him a small part in a Yiddish-language production being performed by the Progressive Drama Club. He later joined the Chrystie Street Settlement House's drama club. Philip Loeb, casting director of the Theater Guild, sensed that Strasberg could act, although he was not yet thinking of a full-time acting career and was still working as a shipping clerk and bookkeeper for a wig company. When he was 23 years old, he enrolled in the Clare Tree Major School of the Theater. He became a naturalized United States citizen on January 16, 1939, in New York City at the New York Southern District Court.


title: Lee Strasberg

text: Strasberg eventually left the Clare Tree Major School to study with students of Stanislavski — Maria Ouspenskaya and Richard Boleslawski — at the American Laboratory Theatre. In 1925, Strasberg had his first professional appearance in "Processional", a play produced by the Theater Guild.


title: Lee Strasberg

text: He gained a reputation with the Theater Guild of New York and helped form the Group Theater in New York in 1931. There, he created a technique that became known as "The Method" or "Method Acting". His teaching style owed much to the Russian practitioner, Konstantin Stanislavski, whose book, "An Actor Prepares" (published in English in 1936), dealt with the psychology of acting. He began by directing, but his time was gradually taken up by the training of actors. Called "America's first true theatrical collective," the Group Theater immediately offered a few tuition-free scholarships for its three-year program to "promising students."


title: Lee Strasberg

text: "Publishers Weekly" wrote, "The Group Theatre ... with its self-defined mission to reconnect theater to the world of ideas and actions, staged plays that confronted social and moral issues ... with members Harold Clurman, Lee Strasberg, Stella, and Luther Adler, Clifford Odets, Elia Kazan, and an ill-assorted band of idealistic actors living hand to mouth are seen welded in a collective of creativity that was also a tangle of jealousies, love affairs, and explosive feuds." Playwright Arthur Miller said, "the Group Theatre was unique and probably will never be repeated. For a while it was literally the voice of Depression America." Co-founder Harold Clurman, in describing what Strasberg brought to the Group Theater, wrote:


title: Lee Strasberg

text: Strasberg, Kazan, Clurman, and others with the Group Theater spent the summer of 1936 at Pine Brook Country Club, located in the countryside of Nichols, Connecticut. They spent previous summers at various places in upstate New York and near Danbury, Connecticut.


title: Lee Strasberg

text: In 1947, Elia Kazan, Robert Lewis, and Cheryl Crawford, also members of the Group Theatre, started the Actors Studio as a nonprofit workshop for professional and aspiring actors to concentrate on their craft away from the pressures of the commercial theatre. Strasberg assumed leadership of the studio in 1951 as its artistic director. "As a teacher and acting theorist, he revolutionized American actor training and engaged such remarkable performers as Kim Hunter, Marilyn Monroe, Julie Harris, Paul Newman, Geraldine Page, Ellen Burstyn, and Al Pacino." Since its inception, the Studio has been a nonprofit educational corporation chartered by the state of New York, and has been supported entirely by contributions and benefits. "We have here the possibility of creating a kind of theatre that would be a shining medal for our country," Strasberg said in 1959. UCLA acting teacher Robert Hethmon writes, "The Actors Studio is a refuge. Its privacy is guarded ferociously against the casual intruder, the seeker of curiousities, and the exploiter... The Studio helps actors to meet the enemy within... and contributes greatly to Strasberg's utterly pragmatic views on training the actor and solving his problems... [The Studio] is kept deliberately modest in its circumstances, its essence being the private room where Lee Strasberg and some talented actors can work."


title: Lee Strasberg

text: Strasberg wrote, "At the studio, we do not sit around and feed each other's egos. People are shocked how severe we are on each other." Admission to the Actors Studio was usually by audition with more than a thousand actors auditioning each year and the directors usually conferring membership on only five or six. "The Studio was, and is "sui generis"," said Elia Kazan, proudly. Beginning in a small, private way, with a strictly off-limits-to-outsiders policy, the Studio quickly earned a high reputation in theatre circles. "It became the place to be, the forum where all the most promising and unconventional young actors were being cultivated by sharp young directors." Actors who have worked at the studio include Julie Harris, Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Geraldine Page, Maureen Stapleton, Anne Bancroft, Dustin Hoffman, Patricia Neal, Rod Steiger, Mildred Dunnock, Eva Marie Saint, Eli Wallach, Anne Jackson, Ben Gazzara, Sidney Poitier, Karl Malden, Gene Wilder, Shelley Winters, Dennis Hopper, and Sally Field.


title: Lee Strasberg

text: The Emmy Award-winning author of "Inside Inside", James Lipton, writes that the Actors Studio became "one of the most prestigious institutions in the world" as a result of its desire to set a higher "standard" in acting. The founders, including Strasberg, demanded total commitment and extreme talent from aspiring students. Jack Nicholson auditioned five times before he was accepted; Dustin Hoffman, six times; and Harvey Keitel, 11 times. After each rejection, a candidate had to wait as long as a year to try again. Martin Landau and Steve McQueen were the only two students admitted one year, out of 2000 candidates who auditioned.


title: Lee Strasberg

text: In Brando's autobiography, "Songs My Mother Taught Me", the actor claimed he learned nothing from Strasberg: "After I had some success, Lee Strasberg tried to take credit for teaching me how to act. He never taught me anything. He would have claimed credit for the sun and the moon if he believed he could get away with it. He tried to project himself as an acting oracle and guru. Some people worshiped him, and I never knew why. I sometimes went to the Actors Studio on Saturday mornings because Elia Kazan was teaching, and there were usually a lot of good-looking girls there, but Strasberg never taught me acting. Stella did—and later Kazan."


title: Lee Strasberg

text: In describing his teaching philosophy, Strasberg wrote, "The two areas of discovery that were of primary importance in my work at the Actors Studio and in my private classes were improvisation and affective memory. It is finally by using these techniques that the actor can express the appropriate emotions demanded of the character." Strasberg demanded great discipline of his actors, as well as great depths of psychological truthfulness. He once explained his approach in this way:


title: Lee Strasberg

text: According to film critic and author Mel Gussow, Strasberg required that an actor, when preparing for a role, delve not only into the character's life in the play but also, "Far more importantly, into the character's life before the curtain rises. In rehearsal, the character's prehistory, perhaps going back to childhood, is discussed and even acted out. The play became the climax of the character's existence."


title: Lee Strasberg

text: In Elia Kazan's autobiography, the Academy Award–winning director wrote about his earliest memories of Strasberg as teacher:


title: Lee Strasberg

text: In 1955 Strasberg student James Dean died in a car accident, at age 24. Strasberg, during a regular lecture shortly after this accident, discussed Dean. The following are excerpts from a transcription of his recorded lecture:


title: Lee Strasberg

text: In 1962, Marilyn Monroe died at age 36. At the time of her death, she was at the height of her career. In 1999, she was ranked the sixth-greatest female star of classic Hollywood cinema by the American Film Institute. Lee Strasberg gave the eulogy at her funeral.


title: Lee Strasberg

text: Lee Strasberg's first marriage was to Nora Krecaum from October 29, 1926, until her death three years later in 1929. In 1934, he married actress and drama coach Paula Miller (1909–1966) until her death from cancer in 1966. Lee and Paula were the parents of actress Susan Strasberg (1938–1999) and acting teacher John Strasberg (born 1941). His third wife was the former Anna Mizrahi (born April 16, 1939) and the mother of his two youngest children, Adam Lee Strasberg (born July 29, 1969) and David Lee Israel Strasberg (born January 30, 1971).


title: Lee Strasberg

text: Lee Strasberg suffered a fatal heart attack and died on February 17, 1982, in New York City, aged 80. With him at the time of his death at the hospital were his third wife, Anna, and their two sons. He was interred at Westchester Hills Cemetery in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York. A day before his unexpected death, he was officially notified that he had been elected to the American Theater Hall of Fame. His last public appearance was on February 14, 1982, at "Night of 100 Stars" in the Radio City Music Hall, a benefit for the Actors Fund of America. Along with Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, he danced in the chorus line with The Rockettes.


title: Lee Strasberg

text: In an 80th birthday interview, he said that he was looking forward to his next 20 years in the theater. According to friends, he was healthy until the day he died. "It was so unexpected," Al Pacino said. "What stood out was how youthful he was. He never seemed as old as his years. He was an inspiration." Actress Jane Fonda said after hearing of his death, "I'm not sure I even would have become an actress were it not for him. He will be missed, but he leaves behind a great legacy."


title: Lee Strasberg

text: "Whether directly influenced by Strasberg or not," wrote acting author Pamela Wojcik, "the new male stars all to some degree or other adapted method techniques to support their identification as rebels... He recreates romance as a drama of male neuroticism and also invests his characterization 'with an unprecedented aura of verisimilitude.'" Acting teacher and author Alison Hodge explains, "Seemingly spontaneous, intuitive, brooding, 'private,' lit with potent vibrations from an inner life of conflict and contradiction, their work exemplified the style of heightened naturalism which (whether Brando agrees or not) Lee Strasberg devoted his life to exploring and promoting." Pamela Wojcik adds:


title: Lee Strasberg

text: In 2012, Strasberg's family donated his library of personal papers to the Library of Congress. The papers include 240 boxes containing correspondence, rehearsal notes, photographs, theatrical drawings and posters, sketches of stage designs, and more.


title: Lee Strasberg

text: Lee Strasberg, his wife Paula, his daughter Susan, and his son John, all appear as characters in Robert Brustein's 1998 play "Nobody Dies on Friday", which one critic called a "scathing portrait of Strasberg," but one that "can by no means be dismissed as a simple act of character assassination." Brustein, a critic, director, and producer, had previously made public his dislike of the method as a philosophy of acting. The play was produced by Brustein's American Repertory Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and was later presented in Singapore.


title: Lee Strasberg

text: In 2020, Google Arts & Culture, together with Giovanni Morassutti, an Italian actor who has deepened the study of The Method and long-time collaborator of John Strasberg, have created an online exhibition named "Strasberg Legacy" tracing the history of the realistic school of acting.


title: Jeff Perry (American actor)

text: Jeffrey Perry (born August 16, 1955) is an American actor of stage, television, and film. He is known for his role as Richard Katimski on the teen drama "My So-Called Life", Thatcher Grey on the medical drama series "Grey's Anatomy", Cyrus Beene on the political drama series "Scandal", all for ABC, and as Inspector Harvey Leek on the CBS crime drama "Nash Bridges".


title: Jeff Perry (American actor)

text: Perry is a co-founder of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago. He and schoolmates Gary Sinise and Terry Kinney started the company in one end of the cafeteria at Highland Park High School and later moved it to a small space in the Immaculate Conception Church in Highland Park. It has since grown into a notable national theater company whose alumni include John Malkovich, John Mahoney, and Joan Allen. Perry remains an executive artistic director along with co-founders Kinney and Sinise.


title: Jeff Perry (American actor)

text: After spending nearly two decades with Steppenwolf, Perry moved to Los Angeles in 1987 to pursue film and television work. Perry perhaps is best known as San Francisco Police Department inspector Harvey Leek (a diehard Grateful Dead fan) on the CBS police drama series "Nash Bridges". He was a tough superior to Kevin Bacon's detective in the thriller "Wild Things" (1998). His many television and film credits include "The Human Stain" (2003), "Hard Promises" (1991) and "The Grifters" (1990) as well as appearances on "My So-Called Life" (1994), "The West Wing" (2003), "The Practice" (2003), "Lost" (2005), "Cold Case" (2006), "Raines" (2007), and several episodes of "Grey's Anatomy" (2005) as Meredith Grey's father, Thatcher Grey. He replaced John Billingsley in the role of Terrence Steadman in the critically acclaimed TV show "Prison Break".


title: Jeff Perry (American actor)

text: Perry also has been in multiple stage productions. These include "Time of your Life" (in San Francisco and Seattle), "Grapes of Wrath" (Broadway and London), and "The Caretaker" (Broadway). He starred in the Tracy Letts play "" on Broadway, which originated at Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago. In 2012, he appeared Off Broadway playing Christopher, the aggressive father in "Tribes" by Nina Raine.


title: Jeff Perry (American actor)

text: In 2015, Perry performed alongside his daughter Zoe Perry and actor Kevin McKidd in Eugene O'Neill's Pulitzer Prize-winning drama "Anna Christie" at the Odyssey Theatre Ensemble in West Los Angeles. During the production, he said "During "Anna Christie" the biggest challenge I had was working with my daughter and sort of not stopping and asking an audience member for a camera to record the moment."


title: Jeff Perry (American actor)

text: Perry was born in Highland Park, Illinois, where his father was a teacher at Highland Park High School. He graduated from Illinois State University in 1978. In 2011, Perry received an honorary doctorate from Illinois State University in recognition of his extraordinary contributions to the field of theatre.


title: Jeff Perry (American actor)

text: Perry was married to actress Laurie Metcalf from 1983 until 1986. They had a child, actress Zoe Perry, together in 1983, but they subsequently divorced. In 1989, he married Linda Lowy, "Grey's Anatomy"s casting director, with whom he has a daughter, Leah Perry.


title: Steve Lukather

text: Steven Lee Lukather (born October 21, 1957) is an American guitarist, singer, songwriter, arranger and record producer, best known as the sole continuous founding member of the rock band Toto. His reputation as a skilled guitarist led to a steady flow of session work beginning in the 1970s that has since established him as a prolific session musician, recording guitar tracks for more than 1,500 albums spanning a broad array of artists and genres. He has also contributed to albums and hit singles as a songwriter, arranger and producer. Notably, Lukather played guitar on Boz Scaggs' albums "Down Two Then Left" (1977) and "Middle Man" (1980), and was a prominent contributor to several studio albums by Michael Jackson, including "Thriller" (1982). Lukather has released eight solo albums, the latest of which, "I Found the Sun Again", was released in February 2021.


title: Steve Lukather

text: Influenced by such blues-rock guitarists as Jimi Hendrix and Jimmy Page, and such jazz fusion players as Al Di Meola and John McLaughlin, Lukather is known for a "melodic and intense" playing style. He is also recognized for his efficiency in the studio, often recording tracks in one take using minimal sound processing. While he once used many guitar effects in the studio and on stage, he now frequently disparages such practice, and instead advocates cleaner tones and minimal studio processing. Lukather plays primarily a signature electric guitar manufactured by Ernie Ball Music Man bearing his nickname, Luke. He also plays Yamaha and Ovation Adamas series acoustic–electric guitars.


title: Steve Lukather

text: Steven Lee Lukather was born on October 21, 1957, in the San Fernando Valley, California. He first played keyboards and drums, and then taught himself how to play the guitar starting at age seven, when his father bought him a Kay acoustic guitar and a copy of the Beatles album "Meet the Beatles". Lukather has said that the album "changed his life" and that he was greatly influenced by the guitar playing of George Harrison in particular.


title: Steve Lukather

text: At Grant High School, Lukather met David Paich and the Porcaro brothers (Jeff, Steve, and Mike), all of whom eventually became members of Toto. Lukather, who had been a self-taught musician, began taking guitar lessons from Jimmy Wyble. With Wyble, Lukather expanded his knowledge of wider aspects of music, including orchestration. It was during this period in the early 1970s that Lukather became interested in the idea of becoming a session musician, a vocation that provided opportunities to play with a variety of famous musicians.


title: Steve Lukather

text: Jeff Porcaro, who had been playing drums with Steely Dan since 1973, became a mentor to Lukather and nurtured his interest in session work. Lukather's first job in the music industry was studio work with Boz Scaggs, after which Paich and Jeff Porcaro—who had become prominent session musicians in their own right—asked Lukather to join them in forming Toto in 1976 along with Bobby Kimball, David Hungate, and Steve Porcaro.


title: Steve Lukather

text: Lukather is the original lead guitarist for Toto, serving in that capacity for the band's entire history, as well as composer and lead and backing vocalist. Lukather won three of his five Grammy Awards for work with Toto, twice as an artist and once as a producer. David Paich led the band's songwriting efforts during the development of 1978's "Toto"—he penned all but two of the album's tracks, including all four of its singles. Lukather also credits Jeff Porcaro for his leadership within the band during that period. However, Lukather's role in Toto evolved over time owing to the changing needs of the band. In August 1992, Jeff Porcaro collapsed while doing yard work at home and subsequently died of heart failure. The death profoundly affected Toto and Lukather in particular, who felt that he needed to step up and make sure the band kept going. Thus, he began taking more of a leadership role.


title: Steve Lukather

text: Toto went through several lead vocalists over the years, including Bobby Kimball, Fergie Frederiksen, and Joseph Williams. After the 1990 dismissal of their fourth vocalist, Jean-Michel Byron, Toto was without a lead singer until around 1997; Lukather assumed most of the vocal duties for the band during that time. He performed lead vocals for every track on 1992's "Kingdom of Desire" and 1995's "Tambu" except for two instrumental tracks. The "Tambu" single "I Will Remember", co-written by Lukather and Stan Lynch, reached number 64 on UK charts. Some "Tambu" reviewers contrasted Lukather's vocals with those of former singers Kimball and Williams (and indeed, heavily criticized the entire album), some concert reviewers noted that he struggled vocally on certain songs, and a number of backup singers and guest vocalists accompanied the band's live shows during that period. It was not until Toto brought back Williams and Kimball to collaborate on 1998's "Toto XX" that Lukather returned primarily to the role of backup vocalist.


title: Steve Lukather

text: Lukather's songwriting contributions grew from a few tracks on early Toto albums to co-writing almost every track starting in the late 1980s. Lukather admitted that the reason why he has no songwriting contributions on the first two Toto albums was that he wasn't writing many songs at the time, being intimidated by the talent of the band's chief songwriter, David Paich. He credits Paich with encouraging him to contribute more songs to the band. He wrote very few of Toto's songs by himself, an exception being the hit single "I Won't Hold You Back" from "Toto IV". Lukather has said that writing lyrics is not one of his strengths. Thus, he collaborated with other band members to complete song ideas and make them into viable album tracks. Lukather's official site claims he contributed to writing all the songs on Toto's 2006 album "Falling in Between", even though "Spiritual Man" officially credits Paich as the sole writer.


title: Steve Lukather

text: By 2008, Lukather was the only original Toto member still performing with the band: Bobby Kimball was also in the band at the time, but had been absent from it for some time – whereas Lukather has been with Toto since its formation. However, in June of the same year, Lukather decided to leave Toto. This decision directly led to the official dissolution of the band. In a 2011 interview discussing his career with Toto, Lukather indicated that the band had evolved too far from its original incarnation and that he was dealing with the physical and mental toll of recording and performing. In February 2010, the band announced that they would reunite to support Toto bassist Mike Porcaro, who was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease. They continued to tour on a limited basis in 2011 and 2012.


title: Steve Lukather

text: Although Lukather indicated in April 2011 that the band would not record any further material, Toto announced an international tour schedule and new studio album in March 2014. In March 2015 "Toto XIV" was released. The band toured in celebration of its 40th anniversary from 2016 to 2019, when Lukather announced an indefinite hiatus. A new Toto lineup converged in 2020 to resume performances, featuring Lukather and Williams as the only members persisting from previous lineups, though Paich would still make guest appearances and is considered an official member. The group has virtual livestream performances and eventual live concerts planned for 2020 and 2021, with John Pierce on bass guitar, Robert "Sput" Searight on drums, Steve Maggiora on keyboards, Dominique "Xavier" Taplin on keyboards, and Warren Ham providing additional vocals.


title: Steve Lukather

text: Lukather achieved notability in the 1970s and 1980s as one of the most sought-after session guitarists in Los Angeles, playing with a wide range of artists from Aretha Franklin to Warren Zevon. He has performed on over 1,500 records spanning 36 years. Music journalist Jude Gold noted, "It's hard to name a guitarist who has had a more prolific and fulfilling career than Steve Lukather." Lukather credits fellow Toto members David Paich and Jeff Porcaro for getting him exposure in the industry—although he lamented in an April 2011 interview that opportunities for session musicians have curtailed in recent years: "There is no 'session guy' thing any more—not like it was. It's not like the old days when I was doing 25 sessions a week. All the studios are gone. The budgets are gone. The record companies are all gone." His own output as a session musician has slowed along with the rest of the industry—as of 2009, Lukather stated he was doing only a few sessions a year.


title: Steve Lukather

text: Named by Gibson Guitar Corporation as one of the Top 10 session guitarists of all time, Lukather has performed on many notable tracks, including Earth, Wind & Fire's "Faces" album, soloing on the tracks "Back on the Road" and "You Went Away", two tracks from the Lionel Richie album "Can't Slow Down", and the Richard Marx album "Repeat Offender". Lukather and Jeff Porcaro were heavily involved in the recording of virtually all of Michael Jackson's "Thriller". In addition to recording guitar tracks, Lukather has also written or produced music for Lionel Richie, Richard Marx, Chicago, Donna Summer, and The Tubes. He won a Grammy award in 1982 for the George Benson song "Turn Your Love Around" (co-written with Jay Graydon and Bill Champlin).


title: Steve Lukather

text: Lukather has released eight solo studio albums: "Lukather" (1989), "Candyman" (1994), "Luke" (1997), "Santamental" (2003), "Ever Changing Times" (2008), "All's Well That Ends Well" (2010), "Transition" (2013) and "I Found the Sun Again" (2021).


title: Steve Lukather

text: The 1989 album "Lukather" came about after Toto had been recording and playing for 11 years, and the consensus among the band members was to take a break. As Lukather had written a number of songs that did not appear on Toto albums, he decided to pursue a solo album, with the intention of presenting a dimension of his music that fans would be unfamiliar with. He collaborated with many notable musicians, including Eddie Van Halen, Richard Marx, Jan Hammer, Steve Stevens, and fellow Toto members Jeff Porcaro and David Paich. Lukather has said that the album was produced very simply, and that a lot of ambient studio noise—counting off on various tracks, for instance—is audible on it. He also credits bands Pink Floyd, Cream, Led Zeppelin, and guitarists Jimi Hendrix, David Gilmour, Jeff Beck, and Eric Clapton as influences on the album. The single "Swear Your Love" came from the album.


title: Steve Lukather

text: "Candyman", recorded and mastered from March 1993 through November 1993, was a collaboration of musicians who were for the most part also in Lukather's band Los Lobotomys. Toto familiars Simon Phillips and David Paich participated as well as David Garfield, John Peña, Chris Trujillo, Lenny Castro, Larry Klimas, Fee Waybill, Richard Page, and Paul Rodgers. Lukather recorded the album in mostly live takes with little overdubbing. Some international fans were confused about whether "Candyman" was a Steve Lukather album or a Los Lobotomys album. The Japanese and US releases of "Candyman" were under the Los Lobotomys name rather than Lukather's; the Japanese release also featured a version of the Hendrix song "Red House". The European release of "Candyman" was credited to Lukather alone. Additionally, the touring band for the album was sometimes introduced as "Steve Lukather and Los Lobotomys" and sometimes as just "Los Lobotomys". The song "Borrowed Time" was released as a single in Europe and included "Red House" as a B-side.


title: Steve Lukather

text: Lukather describes 1997's "Luke" as a much different and more "introspective" album than his previous two solo efforts. The album is a concentrated collection of many of Lukather's musical influences, and he deliberately let those influences come out on the album. "Luke" is an experimental album, and like "Candyman" it was recorded mostly in live sessions with minimal overdubbing and processing afterwards. "Luke" also features instrumentation not heard on previous Lukather albums: pedal steel, harmonicas, Mellotrons, and experimental guitar, bass, and drum sounds. The US version of "Luke" includes a version of the Jeff Beck song "The Pump". The song "Hate Everything About U" was released as a single.


title: Steve Lukather

text: "Santamental", released in October 2003, is a collaborative project featuring several prominent musicians such as guitarists Eddie Van Halen, Slash, Steve Vai, and drummer Gregg Bissonette. When Lukather's record company, Bop City Records, approached him about recording a Christmas album, he responded with a quip about his suitability for the project. The company wanted him to do the record knowing he would approach the project with a unique angle and produce something different from the typical Christmas album. Lukather recruited keyboardist Jeff Babko and guitarist Larry Carlton, who Lukather had worked with previously, to help arrange the songs. The project was a challenge to Lukather, who had to be creative to turn the traditionally simple songs into something interesting for listeners without altering the fundamental structures. He said of the album, "But I never dreamt in a million years that I'd do a Christmas record."


title: Steve Lukather

text: The musicians Lukather chose for "Santamental", most of whom were involved in the hard-rock genre, lent a heavy feel to the album. Van Halen recorded guitar tracks for "Joy to the World" after not having been in the studio for some time but immediately made an impression on Lukather with his level of playing. Vai provided guitar work for "Carol of the Bells" along with Lukather's son Trevor, then 14 years old. Slash, who recorded his part in one take, played on the Lukather/Stan Lynch composition "Broken Heart for Christmas". Lukather spoke highly of Slash after the project, calling him the "Keith Richards of our generation". Well-known session guitarist Michael Landau played on the song "Look Out For Angels", and there is a version of "Jingle Bells" featuring a big band and sung by Sammy Davis, Jr. "Santamental" was recorded in six days, after which Lukather proclaimed it "his first and last Christmas album".


title: Steve Lukather

text: "Ever Changing Times", released on February 22, 2008, is a collection of songs Lukather recorded in 2007 between Toto tours. The album contains contributions from fellow session musicians Bill Champlin, Abe Laboriel, Jr., Leland Sklar, Steve Porcaro, and many others. Lukather's son Trevor contributed as well. Joseph Williams provides backing vocals on five of the tracks. Lukather wrote the songs for the album in a hotel room with his son and a handful of other musicians, using basic equipment. His song-writing philosophy is that if a song sounds good with only guitars and vocals, it will likely sound good after a full production. Lukather collaborated with Grammy Award-winning engineer and producer Steve MacMillan on the project, with the goal of introducing some new methods and techniques into the recording process. Lukather described the final tracks as "perfectly imperfect", preferring to record with the five-piece backing band in one room and in one take. MacMillan encouraged Lukather to use "organic, vintage tones". As a result, Lukather eschewed effects and played the guitar parts directly through tube amplifiers manufactured by Marshall, Vox, and some boutique brands. Lukather commented that MacMillan served as a valuable "second set of ears" in the studio, often encouraging him to keep parts that he normally would have discarded. As Toto had recently disbanded when "Ever Changing Times" was released, Lukather embarked on a solo tour to promote the album. The shows featured a mixture of songs from the album, songs written for other side projects, and "a few Toto obscurities".


title: Steve Lukather

text: Lukather's sixth studio album, "All's Well That Ends Well", was released on October 11, 2010, in Europe and Japan, and November 16 as a digital download worldwide. The material was written predominantly in collaboration with longtime associate C. J. Vanston, and the album features stalwart musicians from Lukather's touring band. Songwriter Randy Goodrum, who has collaborated with Lukather many times over the years including on the 1986 Toto single "I'll Be over You", contributes to the track "Brody's". "All's Well That Ends Well" draws from Lukather's personal experiences in the two years since "Ever Changing Times". Critic Arlene Weiss noted that the album features three distinct flavors of music: one that "bares [Lukather's] soul and emotional heartache", one that pans elements of popular culture like TMZ.com, and one that expresses optimism and enthusiasm about the future. While Lukather focused on instrumental writing and production on previous albums but collaborated with lyricists, he wrote much of the lyrics for "All's Well That Ends Well" himself. Lukather describes the album as being a "real" and "honest" reflection of the period between 2008 and 2010, when he experienced difficulties within his private life.


title: Steve Lukather

text: In December 2011, Lukather announced the beginning of work on "Transition". The album was produced with songwriter and record producer C.J. Vanston and involved musicians Chad Smith, Gregg Bissonette, Leland Sklar, Steve Weingart, and others. Throughout 2012, Lukather released notes and news of the album development through his web site. The title was announced on October 12, 2012. The album was released January 21, 2013.


title: Steve Lukather

text: After seven years without the release of any solo material, Lukather released a single entitled "Run to Me" on August 19, 2020. Two months later, he announced that he would release solo albums simultaneously with longtime Toto collaborator Joseph Williams. Lukather's and Williams' albums, on which they mutually contributed, are entitled "I Found the Sun Again" and "Denizen Tenant", respectively, and released on February 26, 2021.


title: Steve Lukather

text: When not working with Toto, Lukather has participated in numerous side projects including playing with jazz fusion band Los Lobotomys and with other session musicians, and touring with Larry Carlton, Joe Satriani, Steve Vai, and others.


title: Steve Lukather

text: Lukather was a long-time member of the band Los Lobotomys, a collaboration of session musicians including jazz and be-bop player David "Creatchy" Garfield and Toto drummer Jeff Porcaro, replaced after his death by Simon Phillips, who also replaced Porcaro in Toto. Los Lobotomys formed in the mid-1980s and played regular shows in the Los Angeles area, often inviting whatever session musicians happened to be available and in the area. They recorded an album under the Los Lobotomys name in 1989, and the band was heavily involved in the recording of Lukather's "Candyman". Los Lobotomys recorded a live album in 2004 comprising several tracks from "Candyman" and from the 1989 album.


title: Steve Lukather

text: In 1998, Lukather received an invitation to tour Japan with fellow guitarist Larry Carlton after Japanese promoters requested that Carlton's annual tours each be different from the last. Lukather and Carlton exchanged some recorded material and decided that a collaboration would be interesting. Lukather was flattered by the invitation to tour with Carlton, citing him as his favorite guitarist. Lukather speaks highly of their stage efforts, although the two were admittedly outside their normal realm of work. He stated in an interview that "you can hear us having fun on the record—you can hear the smiles on our faces." After several shows, the duo realized that they should record their collaboration even if just for their own use. Guitarist and producer Steve Vai heard one of the subsequent recordings and expressed interest in releasing it under his Favored Nations label, also home to such artists as Eric Johnson and Dweezil Zappa. Vai and Lukather mixed and produced the recording, which is said to be a mixture of jazz, blues, and fusion music. The resulting album, "", won a 2001 Grammy award for Best Pop Instrumental Album. Album reviewers described Lukather as having a heavier style than Carlton. Lukather and Carlton later did an international tour in support of the album.


title: Steve Lukather

text: In 2005, Lukather won critical praise for his rendition of the Jimi Hendrix song "Little Wing" at a gala 90th birthday celebration for jazz guitarist Les Paul. Returning after a five-year absence, the 2012 G3 Tour featured Lukather alongside Joe Satriani and Steve Vai.


title: Steve Lukather

text: In the autumn of 2006, Lukather contributed his cover-version of the Michael Landau-song "I'm Buzzed" (originally from Landau's "Tales From The Bulge" album) from a live recording of his side band project, El Grupo, to the album project Artists for Charity – Guitarists 4the Kids, produced by Slang Productions, to assist World Vision Canada in helping underprivileged kids in need.


title: Steve Lukather

text: In February 2012, Ringo Starr announced that Lukather would be the guitarist in his All Starr Band for their summer tour. Lukather has been touring with that ensemble since that time, performing three Toto songs ("Hold the Line," "Rosanna," and "Africa") nightly.


title: Steve Lukather

text: Lukather contributes material and expertise to instructional and educational enterprises. In 1985, he released the instructional "Star Licks" guitar video featuring many of the guitar parts from the first five Toto studio albums. It was released on DVD in 2005. The guitarist has also been participating in the Fermatta Master Class Series project, an educational cooperative organized by the Fermatta Music Academy in Mexico.


title: Steve Lukather

text: Lukather has periodically performed with a side band named Nerve Bundle at The Baked Potato in Studio City, CA around Christmas time. The band features Toss Panos on drums, Jeff Babko on keyboards, and Jorgen Carlsson on bass.


title: Steve Lukather

text: Influenced by such blues-rock guitarists as Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Jimi Hendrix, and Jimmy Page, and such jazz fusion players as John McLaughlin, and Al Di Meola, Lukather is known for a "melodic and intense" playing style. He has also cited Steely Dan as a major long-time influence—one that emerges prominently in later solo work such as "All's Well That Ends Well". Journalist Jude Gold notes that his vibrato is very pronounced and his "exaggerated wide bends" are distinctive and quickly recognizable. Well-versed in music theory, Lukather can follow chord charts and changes in a way typical of jazz musicians—this ability enhances his value as a session musician. In interviews, he has explained how he thinks of the guitar in a "chordal cluster" format, and not the typical "linear scale" format.


title: Steve Lukather

text: Lukather's approach to engineering his sound in the studio is usually simple. He is not known for doing a large number of takes or for incorporating much overdubbing—rather, he has a reputation for doing only single takes for many parts. He has said about this approach: "If a solo didn't work—either because I didn't have the right sound, or because I wasn't inspired at that moment—I'd just move on. A part either works or it doesn't. You can't batter it into submission, or force inspiration to save you. It's always better to just surrender, and then come back later to give it a go with fresh ears." Although he enjoys the technical mastery that is possible in the studio, Lukather prefers the dynamic of performing live on stage. He has stated that dynamics are the most important element of producing a recording with good sound quality.


title: Steve Lukather

text: Despite being known in the past for having an intricate set of effects units, Lukather now says he plays mostly free of such modifications after seeing some overdone commercial unit configurations named after him. Other than some delay, he has not used many effects in recent years. He has held a long association with Bob Bradshaw of Custom Audio Electronics, who designed and manufactured key elements of Lukather's effects rack. Lukather was one of the few official endorsers of EMG pickups, having collaborated on his own Lukather signature "SL20" pickup system, which is in essence a "loaded pickguard" system incorporating two single-coil EMG SLV pickups and an EMG 85 humbucker. The system also has single master volume and tone knobs. In December 2012, Lukather collaborated with DiMarzio pickups on a new set of signature pickups called "Transition". He has been using these pickups in his Music-Man Luke3 guitar.


title: Steve Lukather

text: Lukather endorses Music Man guitars and has a signature model named "Luke" that incorporated his signature EMG pickup system. The guitar started out with only MusicMan specifications (including a Floyd Rose locking vibrato, later replaced with a vintage-style fulcrum bridge), but in 1998, the manufacturer made several customizations to the model to better fit Lukather's playing style. Music Man also produces a Ball Family Reserve Steve Lukather Model that features an alder body with a mahogany "tone block" inlaid under the pickups, capped with a figured maple top and transparent finish. In 2012 a new version of the guitar called the LIII was introduced with a 3% larger but similarly contoured body, all-rosewood neck and passive pickup options (dual humbucker or single-single-humbucker) combined with an active preamp and 12-dB boost activated from a push/push tone pot. the LIII model also debuted Lukather's switch from EMG to custom DiMarzio "Transition" model pickups. In 2013 Lukather changed to a roasted maple neck with a rosewood fret board, citing the exceptional stability of roasted maple while touring as a factor in his decision. As a result, the LIII specification and production was changed to match Lukather's preference. Lukather has also been known to play Ibanez and Valley Arts guitars. His relationship with Ibanez and Valley Arts yielded an endorsement for a brief time in the 1980s with the release of the Ibanez Roadstar RS1010SL and Valley Arts Custom Pro Steve Lukather Signature guitars in 1984–85. He has played Ovation Adamas series acoustic–electric guitars. Starting before his 2010 "All's Well That Ends Well" tour, Lukather began playing and endorsing Yamaha Studio Response Technology acoustic–electric guitars.


title: Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal

text: In the 2010s, personal data belonging to millions of Facebook users was collected without their consent by British consulting firm Cambridge Analytica, predominantly to be used for political advertising.


text: The data was collected through an app called "This Is Your Digital Life", developed by data scientist Aleksandr Kogan and his company Global Science Research in 2013. The app consisted of a series of questions to build psychological profiles on users, and collected the personal data of the users’ Facebook friends via Facebook's Open Graph platform. The app harvested the data of up to 87 million Facebook profiles. Cambridge Analytica used the data to provide analytical assistance to the 2016 presidential campaigns of Ted Cruz and Donald Trump. Cambridge Analytica was also widely accused of interfering with the Brexit referendum, although the official investigation recognised that the company was not involved "beyond some initial enquiries" and that "no significant breaches" took place.


text: Information about the data misuse was disclosed in 2018 by Christopher Wylie, a former Cambridge Analytica employee, in interviews with "The Guardian" and "The New York Times". In response, Facebook apologized for their role in the data harvesting and their CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified in front of Congress. In July 2019, it was announced that Facebook was to be fined $5 billion by the Federal Trade Commission due to its privacy violations. In October 2019, Facebook agreed to pay a £500,000 fine to the UK Information Commissioner's Office for exposing the data of its users to a "serious risk of harm". In May 2018, Cambridge Analytica filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.


text: Other advertising agencies have been implementing various forms of psychological targeting for years and Facebook had patented a similar technology in 2012. Nevertheless, Cambridge Analytica’s openness about their methods and the caliber of their clients — including the Trump presidential campaign and the UK’s Vote Leave campaign — brought the challenges of psychological targeting that scholars have been warning against to public awareness. The scandal sparked an increased public interest in privacy and social media's influence on politics. The online movement #DeleteFacebook trended on Twitter.


text: Aleksandr Kogan, a data scientist at the University of Cambridge, was hired by Cambridge Analytica, an offshoot of SCL Group, to develop an app called "This Is Your Digital Life" (sometimes stylized as "thisisyourdigitallife"). Cambridge Analytica then arranged an informed consent process for research in which several hundred thousand Facebook users would agree to complete a survey for payment that was only for academic use. However, Facebook allowed this app not only to collect personal information from survey respondents but also from respondents’ Facebook friends. In this way, Cambridge Analytica acquired data from millions of Facebook users.


text: The collection of personal data by Cambridge Analytica was first reported in December 2015 by Harry Davies, a journalist for "The Guardian". He reported that Cambridge Analytica was working for United States Senator Ted Cruz using data harvested from millions of people's Facebook accounts without their consent. Further reports followed in November 2016 by McKenzie Funk for the "New York Times Sunday Review", December 2016 by Hannes Grasseger and Mikael Krogerus for the Swiss publication "Das Magazin" (later translated and published by "Vice"), in February 2017 by Carole Cadwalladr for "The Guardian" (starting in February 2017), and in March 2017 by Mattathias Schwartz for "The Intercept". According to PolitiFact, in his 2016 presidential campaign, Trump paid Cambridge Analytica in September, October, and November for data on Americans and their political preferences.


text: Information on the data breach came to a head in March 2018 with the emergence of a whistleblower, an ex-Cambridge Analytica employee Christopher Wylie. He had been an anonymous source for an article in 2017 in "The Observer" by Cadwalladr, headlined "The Great British Brexit Robbery". Cadwalladr worked with Wylie for a year to coax him to come forward as a whistleblower. She later brought in Channel 4 News in the UK and "The New York Times" due to legal threats against "The Guardian" and "The Observer" by Cambridge Analytica. Kogan's name change to Aleksandr Spectre, which resulted in the ominous "Dr. Spectre", added to the intrigue and popular appeal of the story.


text: "The Guardian" and "The New York Times" published articles simultaneously on March 17, 2018. More than $100 billion was knocked off Facebook's market capitalization in days and politicians in the US and UK demanded answers from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. The negative public response to the media coverage eventually led to him agreeing to testify in front of the United States Congress. Meghan McCain drew an equivalence between the use of data by Cambridge Analytica and Barack Obama's 2012 presidential campaign; PolitiFact, however, alleged that this data was not used in an unethical way, since Obama's campaign used this data to “have their supporters contact their most persuadable friends” rather than using this data for highly targeted digital ads on websites such as Facebook.


text: "Wired", "The New York Times", and "The Observer" reported that the data-set had included information on 50 million Facebook users. While Cambridge Analytica claimed it had only collected 30 million Facebook user profiles, Facebook later confirmed that it actually had data on potentially over 87 million users, with 70.6 million of those people from the United States. Facebook estimated that California was the most affected U.S. state, with 6.7 million impacted users, followed by Texas, with 5.6 million, and Florida, with 4.3 million. Data was collected on 87 million users while only 270,000 people downloaded the app.


text: Facebook sent a message to those users believed to be affected, saying the information likely included one's "public profile, page likes, birthday and current city". Some of the app's users gave the app permission to access their News Feed, timeline, and messages. The data was detailed enough for Cambridge Analytica to create psychographic profiles of the subjects of the data. The data also included the locations of each person. For a given political campaign, each profile's information suggested what type of advertisement would be most effective to persuade a particular person in a particular location for some political event.


text: In 2016, American senator Ted Cruz hired Cambridge Analytica to aid his presidential campaign. The Federal Election Commission reported that Cruz paid the company $5.8 million in services. Although Cambridge Analytica was not well known at the time, this is when it started to create individual psychographic profiles. This data was then used to create tailored advertisements for each person to sway them into voting for Cruz.


text: Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign used the harvested data to build psychographic profiles, determining users' personality traits based on their Facebook activity. The campaign team used this information as a micro-targeting technique, displaying customized messages about Trump to different US voters on various digital platforms. Ads were segmented into different categories, mainly based on whether individuals were Trump supporters or potential swing votes. As described by Cambridge Analytica’s CEO, the key was to identify those who might be enticed to vote for their client or be discouraged to vote for their opponent. Supporters of Trump received triumphant visuals of him, as well as information regarding polling stations. Swing voters were instead often shown images of Trump’s more notable supporters and negative graphics or ideas about his opponent, Hillary Clinton. For example, the collected data was specifically used by “Make America Number 1 Super PAC” to attack Clinton through constructed advertisements that accused Clinton of corruption as a way of propping up Trump as a better candidate for the presidency.


text: However, a former Cambridge Analytica employee claims that the use of the illicitly-obtained data by the Trump campaign has not been proven. Brittany Kaiser was asked "Is it absolutely proven that the Trump campaign relied on the data that had been illicitly obtained from Facebook?" She responded: "It has not been proven, because the difficult thing about proving a situation like that is that you need to do a forensic analysis of the database".


text: In 2018, the Parliament of the United Kingdom questioned SCL Group director Alexander Nix in a hearing about Cambridge Analytica's connections with Russian oil company, Lukoil. Nix stated he had no connections to the two companies despite concerns that the oil company was interested in how the company's data was used to target American voters. Cambridge Analytica had become a point of focus in politics since its involvement in Trump's campaign at this point. Democratic officials made it a point of emphasis for improved investigation over concerns of Russian ties with Cambridge Analytica. It was later confirmed by Christopher Wylie that Lukoil was interested in the company's data regarding political targeting.


text: Cambridge Analytica was allegedly hired as a consultant company for Leave.EU and the UK Independence Party during 2016, as an effort to convince people to support Brexit. These rumors were the result of the leaked internal emails that were sent between Cambridge Analytica firm and the British parliament. Brittany Kaiser declared that the datasets that Leave.EU used to create databases were provided by Cambridge Analytica. These datasets composed of the data obtained from Facebook were said to be work done as an initial job deliverable for them. Although Arron Banks, co-founder of Leave.EU, denied any involvement with the company, he later declared “When we said we’d hired Cambridge Analytica, maybe a better choice of words could have been deployed." The official investigation by the UK Information Commissioner found that Cambridge Analytica was not involved "beyond some initial enquiries" and the regulator did not identify any "significant breaches" of data protection legislation or privacy or marketing regulations "which met the threshold for formal regulatory action".


text: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg first apologized for the situation with Cambridge Analytica on CNN, calling it an "issue", a "mistake" and a "breach of trust". He explained that he was responding to the Facebook community's concerns and that the company's initial focus on data portability had shifted to locking down data; he also reminded the platform's users of their right of access to personal data. Other Facebook officials argued against calling it a "data breach," arguing those who took the personality quiz originally consented to give away their information. Zuckerberg pledged to make changes and reforms in Facebook policy to prevent similar breaches. On March 25, 2018, Zuckerberg published a personal letter in various newspapers apologizing on behalf of Facebook. In April, Facebook decided to implement the EU's General Data Protection Regulation in all areas of operation and not just the EU.


text: In April 2018, Facebook established Social Science One as a response to the event. On April 25, 2018, Facebook released their first earnings report since the scandal was reported. Revenue fell since the last quarter, but this is usual as it followed the holiday season quote. The quarter revenue was the highest for a first quarter, and the second overall.


text: Amazon said that they suspended Cambridge Analytica from using their Amazon Web Services when they learned in 2015 that their service was collecting personal information. The Italian banking company UniCredit stopped advertising and marketing on Facebook in August 2018.


text: The governments of India and Brazil demanded that Cambridge Analytica report how anyone used data from the breach in political campaigning, and various regional governments in the United States have lawsuits in their court systems from citizens affected by the data breach.


text: In early July 2018, the United Kingdom's Information Commissioner's Office announced it intended to fine Facebook £500,000 ($663,000) over the data breach, this being the maximum fine allowed at the time of the breach, saying Facebook "contravened the law by failing to safeguard people's information".


text: In March 2019, a court filing by the U.S. Attorney General for the District of Columbia alleged that Facebook knew of Cambridge Analytica's "improper data-gathering practices" months before they were first publicly reported in December 2015.


text: In July 2019, the Federal Trade Commission voted to approve fining Facebook around $5 billion to finally settle the investigation into the data breach, with a 3–2 vote.


text: The record-breaking settlement was one of the largest penalties ever assessed by the U.S. government for any violation.


text: Again, in July 2019, Facebook has agreed to pay $100 million to settle with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission


text: The SEC's complaint alleged that Facebook did not correct its existing disclosure for more than two years despite discovering the misuse of its users’ information in 2015.


text: Since April 2018, the first full month since the breaking of the Cambridge Analytica data breach, the number of likes, posts and shares on the site had decreased by almost 20%, and has decreased ever since, with the aforementioned activity only momentarily increasing during the summer and during the 2018 US midterm elections. Despite this, user growth of the site has increased in the period since increased media coverage, increasing by 1.8% during the final quarter of 2018.


text: On March 26, 2018, a little after a week after the story was initially published, Facebook stock fell by about 24%, equivalent to $134 billion. By May 10, Wall Street reported that the company recovered their losses.


text: The public reacted to the data privacy breach by initiating the campaign #DeleteFacebook with the aim of starting a movement to boycott Facebook. The co-founder of WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, joined in on the movement by declaring it was time to delete the platform. The hashtag was tweeted almost 400,000 times on Twitter within a 30-day period after news of the data breach. 93% of the mentions of the hashtag actually appeared on Twitter, making it the main social media platform used to share the hashtag. However, a survey by investment firm Raymond James found that although approximately 84% of Facebook users were concerned about how the app used their data, about 48% of those surveyed claimed they wouldn't actually cut back on their usage of the social media network. Additionally, in 2018, Mark Zuckerberg commented that he didn't think the company had seen "a meaningful number of people act" on deleting Facebook.


text: An additional campaign and hashtag, #OwnYourData, was coined by Brittany Kaiser. The hashtag was created by Kaiser as a Facebook campaign that pushed for increased transparency on the platform. #OwnYourData was also used in Kaiser's petition for Facebook to alter their policies and give users increased power and control over their data, which she refers to as users’ assets and property. In addition to the hashtag, Kaiser also created the Own Your Data Foundation to promote increased digital intelligence education.


text: The Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal also received media coverage in the form of a 2019 Netflix documentary, "The Great Hack". This is the first feature-length media piece that ties together the various elements of the scandal through a narrative. The documentary provides information on the background information and events related to Cambridge Analytica, Facebook, and the 2016 election that resulted in the overall data scandal. "The Great Hack" communicates the experiences and personal journeys of multiple individuals that were involved in the event in different ways and through different relationships. These individuals include David Carroll, Brittany Kaiser, and more. David Carroll is a New York professor in the field of media that attempted to navigate the legal system in order to discover what data Cambridge Analytica had in possession about him. Meanwhile, Brittany Kaiser is a former Cambridge Analytica employee that ultimately became a whistleblower for the data scandal.


text: The United States Senate Judiciary Committee called witnesses to testify about the data breach and general data privacy. They held two hearings, one focusing on Facebook's role in the breach and privacy on social media, and the other on Cambridge Analytica's role and its impact in data privacy. The former was held on April 10, 2018, where Mark Zuckerberg testified and Senator Chuck Grassley and Senator Dianne Feinstein gave statements. The latter occurred on May 16, 2018, where Professor Eitan Hersh, Dr. Mark Jamison, and Christopher Wylie testified, while Senators Grassley and Feinstein again made statements.


text: During his testimony before Congress on April 10, 2018, Zuckerberg said it was his personal mistake that he did not do enough to prevent Facebook from being used for harm. "That goes for fake news, foreign interference in elections and hate speech". During the testimony, Mark Zuckerberg publicly apologized for the breach of private data: "It was my mistake, and I’m sorry. I started Facebook, I run it, and I’m responsible for what happens here".


text: Zuckerberg said that in 2013 Aleksandr Kogan had created a personality quiz app, which was installed by 300,000 people. The app was then able to retrieve Facebook information, including that of the users' friends, and this was obtained by Kogan. It was not until 2015 that Zuckerberg learned that these users' information was shared by Kogan with Cambridge Analytica. Cambridge Analytica was subsequently asked to remove all the data. It was later discovered by "The Guardian", "The New York Times" and Channel 4 that the data had in fact not been deleted.


text: In 2015, Professor Eitan Hersh published "Hacking the Electorate: How Campaigns Perceive Voters", which analyzed the databases used for campaigns between 2008 and 2014. On May 6, 2018, Eitan Hersh, a professor of political science at Tufts University testified before Congress as an expert on voter targeting.


text: Hersh claimed that the voter targeting by Cambridge Analytica did not excessively affect the outcome of the 2016 election because the techniques used by Cambridge Analytica were similar to those of presidential campaigns well before 2016. Further, he claimed that the correlation between user “likes” and personality traits were weak and thus the psychological profiling of users were also weak.