Tag Archives: meta

CNBC reports: Meta has been fined a record 1.2 billion euro ($1.3 billion) by European privacy regulators over the transfer of EU user data to the U.S. The decision links back to a case brought by Austrian privacy campaigner Max Schrems who argued that the framework for transferring EU citizen data to America did not protect Europeans from U.S. surveillance. …

The Hill reports: Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, officially launched its paid “verified” subscription service for its social media platforms in the United States on Friday, similar to Twitter’s own service. Elon Musk created a paid subscription service for Twitter users in October. He tweaked the service a few times, but the current iteration of Twitter Blue …

Reuters reports: Meta Platforms Inc is exploring plans to launch a new social media app in its bid to displace Twitter as the world’s “digital town square”. Meta’s app will be based on a decentralized framework like Mastodon, a Twitter-like service that was launched in 2016 and now has about 2 million monthly active users. “We’re exploring a standalone decentralized …

The Verge reports: Meta now has a team dedicated to building tools powered by artificial intelligence, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced in a post on Monday. This could eventually include “AI personas” designed to help people in “various ways” in addition to new AI tools across its apps and services. More specifically, Zuckerberg says the company is working on AI “experiences” …

Bloomberg News reports: The new Meta Verified service for Facebook and Instagram will allow users to join celebrities and other public figures in having a blue check that confirms their identity, starting from $11.99 per month, the company said in a statement. The Meta Verified feature may add $2 billion to $3 billion to Meta’s annual sales, Bloomberg Intelligence analyst …

Axios reports: Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, announced on Sunday that it will be testing out a monthly subscription service that allows users to verify their accounts. The move is aimed at “increasing authenticity and security across our services,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook post announcing the news. It will allow users to verify …

NBC News reports: Former President Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts have been reinstated, a company spokesperson said Thursday. The reinstatement had been expected after Nick Clegg, Facebook’s president of global affairs, announced in late January that the suspension would be lifted. Facebook first suspended Trump’s accounts in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack, initially as an indefinite ban …

The New York Times reports: In September, former President Donald J. Trump went on Truth Social, his social network, and shared an image of himself wearing a lapel pin in the form of the letter Q, along with a phrase closely associated with the QAnon conspiracy theory movement: “The storm is coming.” In doing so, Mr. Trump ensured that the …

Reuters reports: Facebook owner Meta Platforms has agreed to pay $725 million to resolve a class-action lawsuit accusing the social media giant of allowing third parties, including Cambridge Analytica, to access users’ personal information. The proposed settlement would resolve a long-running lawsuit prompted by revelations in 2018 that Facebook had allowed Cambridge Analytica to access data of as many as …

Reuters reports: A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday upheld nearly $187,000 in monetary sanctions against two lawyers who filed and lost an “utterly baseless” lawsuit challenging Democrat Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential win over his Republican rival Donald Trump. The unanimous ruling by a three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Colorado said Denver attorneys Gary Fielder …

TechCrunch reports: Facebook is notifying users that it will remove four information fields from profiles starting next month. These fields include religious views, political views, addresses and the “Interested in” field, which indicates a user’s sexual orientation. The change will go into effect on December 1. A spokesperson for the company told TechCrunch in an email that the reason behind …

The Associated Press reports: Facebook parent Meta is laying off 11,000 people, about 13% of its workforce, as it contends with faltering revenue and broader tech industry woes, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a letter to employees Wednesday. The job cuts come just a week after widespread layoffs at Twitter under its new owner, billionaire Elon Musk. There have been …

The New York Times reports: Meta plans to lay off employees this week, three people with knowledge of the situation said, adding that the job cuts were set to be the most significant at the company since it was founded in 2004. It was unclear how many people would be cut and in which departments, said the people, who declined …

Axios reports: Meta will notify at least 1 million Facebook users that their login information may have been stolen if they downloaded one of hundreds of malicious mobile apps. Meta’s security team published a report this morning detailing how more than 400 mobile apps posed as innocuous tools, such as photo editors, to get people to share their Facebook login …

Bloomberg News reports: To defend itself against the federal government, Meta Platforms Inc. says it needs its rivals to divulge some of their most closely held secrets. Facebook’s parent company has so far subpoenaed 132 companies for documents, including Snap Inc., ByteDance Ltd.’s TikTok and the audio startup Clubhouse, and has warned that it may seek information from 100 more. …

The New York Times reports: Meta was fined roughly $400 million for breaking European Union data privacy laws for its treatment of children’s data on Instagram, the latest in a series of steps by authorities in Europe and the United States to crack down on what information is collected and shared by companies about young people online. European laws give …

Bloomberg News reports: Meta Platforms Inc. settled a long-running lawsuit that claimed Facebook illegally shared user data with the research firm Cambridge Analytica. The preliminary settlement, disclosed in a court filing late Friday, follows the revelation last month that Meta Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg would have to sit for as long as six hours of questioning by plaintiffs’ lawyers. …

The Hill reports: Meta, the parent company of Facebook, asked the board tasked with overseeing policy debates on the platform to weigh in on whether it should ease its COVID misinformation policy. The company asked the Oversight Board, a task force funded by Meta that operates independently, if the company’s policy, including to remove posts with false claims, is still …

Axios reports: Facebook wants to shape your online life around the algorithmically-sorted preferences of millions of strangers around the globe. That’s how TikTok sorts the videos it shows users, and that’s largely how Facebook will now organize its home screen. The dominant player in social media is transforming itself into a kind of digital mass media, in which the reactions …

The Wall Street Journal reports: Amazon said it filed a lawsuit against the administrators of what it says are more than 10,000 Facebook groups used to coordinate fake reviews of Amazon products. Those in charge of the Facebook groups solicit the reviews for items ranging from camera tripods to car stereos in exchange for free products or money, Amazon said …