Tag Archives: Instagram

Axios reports: The Federal Trade Commission and Meta will square off in a long-awaited antitrust trial on Monday over the tech giant’s past acquisitions of WhatsApp and Instagram. The trial will be a major test of the FTC’s ability to take on tech behemoths for allegedly breaking antitrust law and comes as Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg tries to cozy up …

The New York Times reports: Instagram and Facebook have recently blurred, blocked or removed posts from two abortion pill providers. Instagram also suspended the accounts of several abortion pill providers and hid the providers from appearing in search and recommendations. The actions ramped up in the last two weeks, and were especially noticeable in the last two days, abortion pill …

The Intercept reports: Meta is now granting its users new freedom to post a wide array of derogatory remarks about races, nationalities, ethnic groups, sexual orientations, and gender identities, training materials obtained by The Intercept reveal. Examples of newly permissible speech include: “Immigrants are grubby, filthy pieces of shit.” “Gays are freaks.” “Look at that tranny (beneath photo of 17 …

User Mag reports: For months, Meta has been restricting content with LGBTQ-related hashtags from search and discovery under its “sensitive content” policy aimed at restricting “sexually suggestive content.” Posts with LGBTQ+ hashtags including #lesbian, #bisexual, #gay, #trans, #queer, #nonbinary, #pansexual and dozens of others were hidden for any users who had their sensitive content filter turned on. Teenagers have the …

ABC News reports: Facebook and Instagram parent Meta Platforms has shut down CrowdTangle, a tool widely used by researchers, watchdog organizations and journalists to monitor social media posts, notably to track how misinformation spreads on the company’s platforms. Wednesday’s shutdown, which Meta announced earlier this year, has been protested by researchers and nonprofits. In May, dozens of groups, including the …

Axios reports: Democrats will stream their convention next week on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, committee staffers told Axios. The party hopes making the stream available via vertical video apps will draw in younger viewers who get most of their news on their phones. Roughly one-third of Americans ages 18 to 29 say they get news regularly on TikTok, which only …

Bloomberg News reports: Meta Platforms Inc. removed 63,000 Instagram accounts in Nigeria linked to scammers who were using its social media services to blackmail targets after soliciting intimate photos, the company said Wednesday. Meta, which also owns Facebook and WhatsApp, added that it had deleted thousands of additional Facebook accounts, pages and groups that were sharing scripts on how to …

Reuters reports: Meta’s Facebook and Instagram have failed to tackle deceptive advertising and disinformation in the run-up to European Parliament elections, the European Commission said on Tuesday as it opened an investigation into suspected breaches of EU online content rules. The move by EU tech regulators came amid concerns about Russia, China and Iran as potential sources of disinformation, but …

The Daily Mail reports: Meta’s Facebook, Threads, Messenger and Instagram are down worldwide, leaving thousands of users unable to access the social media platforms. The issues appeared around 10:20am ET and are impacting both social media sites’ apps and website. Rather than showing a skeleton version of the site, Facebook will automatically kick you out. An error message saying that …

Variety reports: In a blog post Friday, Instagram, the popular photo and video app owned by Meta, said it will no longer “proactively recommend” political content from accounts that users do not already follow. The same policy applies to Threads, the Twitter-copycat app launched last summer under the Instagram brand. “We want Instagram and Threads to be a great experience …

The New York Post reports: Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s love of “high-risk activities” pose a “risk of serious injury and death,” the company warned investors in its latest Securities and Exchange Commission filing. The warning was included for the first time under “risk factors” in Meta’s 10-K filing — a comprehensive report on the tech behemoth’s activities throughout 2023 — …

The New York Times reports: Meta has received more than 1.1 million reports of users under the age of 13 on its Instagram platform since early 2019 yet it “disabled only a fraction” of those accounts, according to a newly unsealed legal complaint against the company brought by the attorneys general of 33 states. Instead, the social media giant “routinely …

Reuters reports: Meta Platforms is exploring options to introduce ad-free subscription plans for Instagram and Facebook users in Europe, a person familiar with the matter said on Tuesday. The proposal is an attempt by Meta to circumvent European Union regulations that threaten to curb its ability to personalize ads for users without their consent and hurt its major revenue source. …

The Washington Post reports: Instagram on Sunday lifted its suspension against the account of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an outspoken anti-vaccine activist and nephew of the late president John F. Kennedy, who is running for president as a long shot Democratic challenger to President Biden. The platform removed Kennedy’s account in 2021 for “repeatedly sharing debunked claims about the coronavirus …

The Tennessean reports: Tennessee Lt. Gov. Randy McNally prevailed in a Republican caucus confidence vote, indicating state senators aren’t yet willing to publicly break with the Senate speaker over a controversy sparked by McNally’s repeated comments on a young man’s suggestive Instagram photos. Republican senators voted 19-7 in favor of McNally’s continued leadership, per a statement released by his office. …

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 …

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: Just over two years after Donald J. Trump’s accounts were suspended from Facebook and Instagram, Meta, the owner of the platforms, said on Wednesday that it would reinstate the former president’s access to the social media services. Mr. Trump, who had the most followed account on Facebook when he was barred, will in the coming …