Meta has begun the process to end access to news on Facebook and Instagram for all users in Canada, the company said on Tuesday. The move comes in response to legislation in the country requiring internet giants to pay news publishers. Meta’s communications director, Andy Stone, said the changes will roll out in the coming weeks.
Here’s what to know about Instagram’s new app for public conversations and how it differs from Twitter.
On Wednesday, the Canadian government announced that it will cease all ad spending — about $7.5 million per year — on Facebook and Instagram. The decision comes after Meta and Google blocked Canadian news in opposition to a law requiring technology platforms to compensate publishers for linking to their content.
After the nation’s senate passed the Online News Act yesterday, Meta confirmed it will remove news content from Facebook and Instagram for all Canadian users, but it remained unclear whether Google would follow suit for its platforms.
Instagram, the popular social-media site owned by Meta Platforms, helps connect and promote a vast network of accounts openly devoted to the commission and purchase of underage-sex content, according to investigations by The Wall Street Journal and researchers at Stanford University and the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The company says it is improving internal controls.
Exclusives
Meta is preparing to block news for some Canadians on Facebook and Instagram in a temporary test that is expected to last the majority of the month. The Silicon Valley tech giant is following in the steps of Google, which blocked news links for about five weeks earlier this year for some of its Canadian users in response to a controversial Liberal government bill. Bill C-18, which is currently being studied in the Senate, will require tech giants to pay publishers for linking to or otherwise repurposing their content online.
Streaming technology company Brightcove has introduced new integrations with Shopify, Instagram and Salesforce Sales Cloud to its video cloud platform. The integrations are designed to enable companies to reach, engage […]
Facebook parent Meta is sparring with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission in federal court over its pending acquisition of a virtual reality fitness company Within Unlimited.
The parent of Facebook and Instagram said that it had taken down what was the first targeted Chinese campaign to interfere in U.S. politics and that the effort was limited.
Meta is getting backlash for changes that make some of its platforms act more like TikTok.
The official series’ YouTube page, Instagram account and website have seemingly been deleted following the syndicated show’s cancellation. Eagle-eyed fans noticed the pages being down over the weekend. On Instagram, the handle’s feed showed a “Sorry, this page isn’t available” message. The show’s website and the video channel are also both nowhere to be found.
Over the last day, several Instagram accounts run by abortion rights advocacy groups have found their posts or stories hidden with a warning that described the posts as “sensitive content.” Instagram said it was working to fix the problem Tuesday, describing it as a “bug.”
Meta this week was hit with several lawsuits claiming that it designed Facebook and Instagram in a way that posed a risk to the health of young users. The cases, filed in nine states, all essentially claim that Facebook and Instagram designed their services to be addictive, and served potentially harmful content to teens and children.
Facebook parent Meta, which also owns Instagram, said it will start releasing details in July about the demographics and interests of audiences who are targeted with ads that run on its two primary social networks. The company will also share how much advertisers spent in an effort to target people in certain states.
Free Press, Common Cause and a number of other progressive groups and civil rights advocates have called on the biggest social media companies to combat disinformation in the run-up to the midterm elections, the first national election since the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, saying if they don’t, they are “the dominant threat” to the democratic process. That came in the form of letters to the CEOs of Meta, Twitter, YouTube, Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok, and Alphabet from more than 100 groups.
Instagram boss Adam Mosseri vowed Tuesday that the social app will “rethink what Instagram is” in 2022. In a video posted to Twitter, Mosseri said Instagram will focus on greater transparency in the New Year, among other goals. He didn’t directly address any of the past year’s scandals that rocked Instagram and parent company Meta (formerly known as Facebook).
Lawmakers of both parties came out swinging in a hearing on Wednesday with Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, expressing deep skepticism and anger toward the company for not doing enough to protect young users.
A bipartisan group of at least 10 state attorneys general is investigating how Instagram may harm children and teens. The group, which includes AGs from California, Florida, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, Tennessee, Texas and Vermont, will investigate the methods used by Instagram to attract and encourage engagement among young people, and whether parent company Meta — née Facebook —has violated consumer protection laws and put the public at risk.
Integral Ad Science (IAS) this morning announced it has been accredited by the Media Rating Council for impression and viewability measurement and reporting of display and video ads across Facebook and Instagram.
Security experts tracking the Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp outages say they could have been triggered by a configuration error or could be the result of an internal mistake. An outside hack is viewed as less likely.
Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram Suffer Worldwide Outage
Facebook said late Monday that “the root cause of this outage was a faulty configuration change” and that there is “no evidence that user data was compromised as a result” of the outage. The company apologized and said it is working to understand more about the cause, which began around 11:40 a.m. ET Monday.
Government regulation will never fix everything wrong with online discourse. The industry needs to develop professional norms—just as journalism once did.
The survey found that “a sizable portion” of U.S. adults (48%) say they get news “sometimes” or “often” from social media sites.
In a bid to go head-on against TikTok and YouTube, Facebook’s Instagram will soon begin showing full-screen recommended videos in users’ feeds. “We’re no longer a photo-sharing app or a square photo-sharing app,” declared Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram (above), in a video posted to Twitter on Wednesday.
The tiny red hearts that appear under Instagram photos of kids, kittens and sandwiches can be a source of stress for many users, an insidious way of measuring self worth […]
TVN Focus On Digital | Facebook Remains TV Stations’ Most Important Social Platform
Facebook overwhelmingly is the most important social media platform for TV stations, say executives for CBS stations, E.W. Scripps, Nexstar, NBCU stations, Fox stations and Meredith. Broadcasters’ relationship with the platform once widely viewed as a “frenemy” continues to evolve, though the opacity of its all-important algorithm still frustrates. Note: This story is available to TVNewsCheck Premium members only. If you would like to upgrade your free TVNewsCheck membership to Premium now, you can visit your Member Home Page, available when you log in at the very top right corner of the site or in the Stay Connected Box that appears in the right column of virtually every page on the site. If you don’t see Member Home, you will need to click Log In or Subscribe.
Instagram is mulling plans to pay publishers on its platform as it grows as a news and information source for users, sources tell Axios. The app has brokered some select partnerships with publishers in one-off cases where content is paid for.
Hubbard Broadcasting has sued Facebook and its subsidiary Instagram, accusing the social media giants of trademark infringement and unfair competition that could lead to “irreparable harm” unless the court stops them. The suit claims that Instagram’s new video file-sharing service, Reels, infringes on and dilutes the trademark of Hubbard’s long-established REELZ digital cable and satellite TV network, which reaches more than 50 million U.S. homes.
Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, rolled out a new product to compete with TikTok that lets people create 15-second videos and share them.
Escalating a battle between Madison Avenue and the social media industry, Unilever is suspending all U.S. advertising on Twitter, as well as Facebook Inc.’s Facebook and Instagram, for the rest of the year. “Given our responsibility framework and the polarized atmosphere in the U.S., we have decided that starting now through at least the end of the year, we will not run brand advertising in social-media newsfeed platforms Facebook, Instagram and Twitter in the U.S.,” the consumer goods giant stated.
Though July is typically a busy season for Ben & Jerry’s and Eddie Bauer, consumers won’t find the brands on Facebook that month. On Tuesday, both companies said they were joining the boycott against Facebook and Instagram, voicing their support for the “Stop the Hate for Profit” campaign.
