Apple, Alphabet’s Google and Meta Platforms face the risk of potentially hefty fines as the European Union opened a full-blown investigation into the firms’ compliance with strict new laws reining in the power of Big Tech. The European Commission said Monday that Apple and Google’s app store rules will be targeted in the first probes under the bloc’s Digital Markets Act, how Google search results might unfairly preference its own services and how Apple may make it harder for users to choose alternatives to its Safari browser.
Meta Platforms on Monday asked a federal appeals court for an emergency injunction halting an FTC in-house hearing that could result in a ban on monetizing teens’ data. The social media platform contends that FTC in-house hearings are unconstitutional — in part, because the FTC acts as both prosecutor and judge at in-house hearings.
The e-commerce platform’s parent company spent nearly $2 billion at Meta last year and it was a top advertiser at Google.
Meta Calls for Industry Effort to Label AI-Generated Content
The social network wants to promote standardized labels to help detect artificially created photo, video and audio material across its platforms.
The Meta Oversight Board urged the social media company on Monday to reconsider its current policy on manipulated media ahead of the various elections set to be held in 2024. The board, which is run independently of Meta and funded through a grant by the company, described the policy as “incoherent, lacking in persuasive justification and inappropriately focused on how content has been created, rather than on which specific harms it aims to prevent.”
Meta Posts Sharp Profit, Revenue Increase In Q4
The Menlo Park, Calif.-based parent company of Facebook and Instagram said Thursday that it earned $14 billion, or $5.33 per share, in the October-December period. That’s up from $4.65 billion, or $1.76 per share, a year earlier.
In a heated question and answer session with Mark Zuckerberg, Republican Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley asked the Meta CEO if he has personally compensated any of the victims and their families for what they have been through. “I don’t think so,” Zuckerberg replied. “There’s families of victims here,” Hawley said. “Would you like to apologize to them?” As parents rose and held up their children’s pictures, Zuckerberg turned to face them and apologized for what they have been through.
Amazon, Google, Microsoft and other tech companies have been on a layoff spree this month, with the latest cuts differing from last year’s mass reductions.
Meta Doubles Down On AI, Fuses Efforts
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has announced the company’s next steps toward investing in artificial intelligence — highlighting plans to open-source the emerging technology; build an infrastructure; fuse the company’s two leading AI research groups; and connect Meta’s efforts to its ongoing metaverse development vision. “Our long term vision is to build general intelligence, open source it responsibly, and make it widely available so everyone can benefit,” Zuckerberg posted on Threads.
Meta Platforms is pressing a federal district court judge to stay a Federal Trade Commission administrative proceeding that could result in an order prohibiting the company from monetizing teens’ data. In papers filed late last week, Meta tells U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Kelly it will face “irreparable harm” unless he halts an administrative hearing at which the company “will be forced to litigate before its litigation adversary, and without the procedural protections inherent in federal court litigation.”
Meta Platforms on Wednesday pressed its argument that the Federal Trade Commission’s structure, including the way it conducts in-house enforcement actions, is unconstitutional. “The commission’s dual role as prosecutor and judge … is flatly inconsistent with fundamental principles of due process,” Meta argues in papers filed with U.S. District Court Judge Randolph Moss in Washington. The company is seeking an injunction to halt an in-house proceeding that could result in an FTC order banning Meta from monetizing minors’ data.
In both cases, Meta ended up reinstating the posts — one showing Palestinian casualties and the other, an Israeli hostage — on its own, although it added warning screens to both due to violent content. This means the company isn’t obligated to do anything about the board’s decision.
The program will roll out next year, according to executives.
Parents Television and Media Council (PTC) has revealed that Meta and HBO have made its annual Naughty List for targeting children with harmful content, while AppleTV+ and Bentkey were chosen for its […]
The social media company has stepped up enforcement, but its algorithms continue to promote problematic content.
Meta Platforms on Wednesday escalated its battle with the Federal Trade Commission by claiming in a new lawsuit that the agency’s structure, including its ability to conduct in-house hearings, is unconstitutional. The lawsuit — which comes as Meta and the FTC are battling over teens’ data — includes a request to prevent the agency from moving forward with a hearing that could result in an order prohibiting Meta from using teens’ data for ad targeting or algorithms.
Meta “routinely documented” children under 13 on Instagram and collected their data, according to a newly unsealed complaint.
A federal magistrate judge on Tuesday recommended that Meta Platforms be awarded a $36 million default judgment against four residents of Hanoi, Vietnam, who hijacked the accounts of advertising and marketing agency employees in order to perpetrate an ad fraud scheme.
Meta Platforms will let political ads on Facebook and Instagram question the legitimacy of the 2020 U.S. presidential election, one of several changes the social-media company and other platforms have made to loosen constraints on campaign advertising for 2024. Meta made the change last year, but it hasn’t gained wide attention. The company decided to allow political advertisers to say past elections were “rigged” or “stolen” but prevented them from questioning the legitimacy of ongoing and coming elections.
Amazon has spread its network into another platform, partnering with Meta to allow Facebook and Instagram users to purchase from their feeds the products being sold across the ecommerce giant’s network of sellers. The partnership comes with a built-in data-sharing clause for customers if the platforms are linked.
One month after rolling out various generative artificial intelligence tools to advertisers, Meta is restricting political campaigns and advertisers in other regulated industries from using these very products — due to concerns that these tools could be used to intensify the spread of election misinformation.
Meta was sued by more than three dozen states on Tuesday for knowingly using features on Instagram and Facebook to hook children to its platforms, even as the company said its social media sites were safe for young people. Colorado and Tennessee led a joint lawsuit filed by 33 states in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District Court of California.
Her exit indicates how Meta’s priorities around news and its relationships with media companies have changed.
Elon Musk, Sam Altman, Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai and others discussed artificial intelligence with lawmakers, as tech companies strive to influence potential regulations.
The parent of Facebook and Instagram wants an artificial-intelligence system to be as capable as OpenAI’s most advanced model.
Siding with Meta Platforms, a federal judge has thrown out a lawsuit alleging that the company wrongly banned ads on Facebook for the Holocaust-related movie Beautiful Blue Eyes.
A nonprofit watchdog group has found that the right-wing group PragerU has pushed out more than 100 political ads on Facebook and Instagram, flouting Meta’s policies.
The subscription plan is a response to European Union policies and court rulings to restrict Meta’s data-collection practices.
Meta’s decision to block news links in Canada this month has had almost no impact on Canadians’ usage of Facebook, data from independent tracking firms indicated on Tuesday, as the company faces scorching criticism from the Canadian government over the move.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Monday accused Facebook of putting profits over people’s safety during the emergencies created by Canada’s record wildfire season. Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, announced earlier this summer it would keep its promise to block news content from Canada on its platforms because of a new law that requires tech giants to pay publishers for linking to or otherwise repurposing their content online.
Meta is facing severe criticism for its policy of blocking news content in Canada while wildfires rage in British Columbia. “Right now, while wildfires are causing evacuations in the NWT and endangering lives, Meta is blocking news about them on Facebook and Instagram,” tweeted Chris Bittle, Liberal MP for St. Catharines, Ontario. “They did this in Australia, and it made dangerous situations worse. Meta’s actions to block news are reckless and irresponsible.”
Facebook is shunning the news business in the U.S. The Meta-owned company has quietly made changes in recent months that have dramatically reduced referral traffic to media outlets, more than half a dozen publishers say. The move has put considerable dents in the daily traffic publishers see, with the damage appearing to be more pronounced among those who publish more hard news-oriented content. “If you’re a major publisher, you’ve gotten nicked,” said an executive at a major media company, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity.