Tag Archives: meta

The Associated Press reports: Major social media platforms such as TikTok, Instagram and X have failed to protect LGBTQ+ users from hate and harassment, in part, because they intentionally rolled back previous safety practices, the advocacy group GLAAD said Tuesday in its annual Social Media Safety Index. The report said that recent “unprecedented hate speech policy rollbacks” from Instagram and …

Politico Europe reports: The European Commission issued the first fines under its Digital Markets Act on Wednesday, slapping tech giants Apple and Meta with penalties for breaching the EU’s new digital rulebook. Apple faces a €500 million fine for breaching the regulation’s rules for app stores, while Meta drew a penalty of €200 million for its “pay or consent” advertising …

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 …

He wants to be closer to his Glorious Leader: Mark Zuckerberg is the latest billionaire to shell out tens of millions of dollars for a pricey outpost in Donald Trump’s gilded capital. For a month, neighbors in Washington’s upscale Woodland Normanstone neighborhood have speculated about the unidentified buyer who paid $23 million in cash for a 15,000-square-foot mansion. The sale …

The New York Times reports: Meta won a legal victory on Wednesday against a former employee who published an explosive, tell-all memoir, as an arbitrator temporarily prohibited the author from promoting or further distributing copies. Sarah Wynn-Williams last week released “Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism,” a book that describes a series of incendiary allegations …

Musk Watch reports: Meta removed an advertisement earlier this month criticizing Elon Musk’s use of DOGE to seize Americans’ private information. “A single individual now controls sensitive U.S. data, risking our national security. Urge Congress to enforce strict oversight,” read the rejected Facebook ad purchased by Ekō, a watchdog group that says it is committed to curbing corporate power. The …

The New York Times reports: In a wide-ranging question-and-answer session with Meta employees on Thursday, Mark Zuckerberg, the company’s chief executive, defended recent changes he had made to loosening restrictions on online speech and ending diversity initiatives, and doubled down on embracing President Trump’s new administration. “I want to be clear, after the last several years, we now have an …

The Wall Street Journal reports: President Trump has signed settlement papers that are expected to require Meta Platforms to pay roughly $25 million to resolve a 2021 lawsuit Trump brought after the company suspended his accounts following the attacks on the U.S. Capitol that year, according to people familiar with the agreement. Of that, $22 million will go to a …

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 …

TechDirt reports: Remember how Zuckerberg was “done with politics”? Remember how he promised that he was going to stop doing what politicians demanded he do? Now it turns out that he not only did his big set of moderation changes to please Trump, but did so only after he was told by the incoming administration to act. Even worse, he …

NBC News reports: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg will attend President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration on Monday, according to an official involved with the planning of the event. They will have a prominent spot at the ceremony, seated together on the platform with other notable guests including Trump’s Cabinet nominees and elected officials. In a post on his social …

Reuters reports: Brazil’s government said on Tuesday it is “seriously concerned” about Meta Platforms’ recently announced changes to its hate speech policy, adding that it believes they do not comply with the country’s legislation. The Brazilian government ordered the social media company, which also owns Instagram and Threads, to explain its plans, which President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva had …

Ars Technica reports: Mastodon announced Monday that it’s shifting its structure over the next six months to become wholly owned by a European nonprofit organization—”affirming the intent that Mastodon should not be owned or controlled by a single individual.” This takes control of the social network away from its previous “ultimate decision-maker,” Eugen Rochko [photo]. As founder, Rochko initially took …

404 Media reports: Meta deleted nonbinary and trans themes for its Messenger app this week, around the same time that the company announced it would change its rules to allow users to declare that LGBTQ+ people are “mentally ill,” 404 Media has learned. Meta’s Messenger app allows users to change the color scheme and design of their chat windows with …

Axios reports: Meta did this with a methodical striptease over nine days, capturing massive public and MAGA attention. Sources tell us Meta deliberately packaged them all up for detonation over nine days to maximize the pop for Trump. Here’s the Meta formula: Put a Trump friend on your board (UFC CEO Dana White). Promote a prominent Republican as your chief …

Axios reports: They say it’s hard to turn a battleship around, but Mark Zuckerberg just about-faced his globe-spanning, $1.5 trillion-value, 3 billion-user company — transforming Meta from a bastion of Silicon Valley’s socially progressive neoliberalism into a full-on MAGA hive. After Zuckerberg’s embrace of Trump and Trumpism, Silicon Valley is holding its breath to see whether a whole row of …

Axios reports: Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta is terminating major DEI programs, effective immediately — including for hiring, training and picking suppliers, according to a new employee memo obtained by Axios. The move is a strong signal to Meta employees that the company’s push to make inroads with the incoming Trump administration isn’t just posturing, but an ethos shift that will impact …

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 …

The Daily Beast reports: Facebook’s algorithm angered founder Mark Zuckerberg when he shared a November 2023 post about his knee surgery and it received little engagement, The Wall Street Journal reports. It was this experience that led to the Meta CEO’s Jan. 7 announcement that the platform will divest from a centralized fact-checking process, according to the newspaper. “We’re going …

NBC News reports: Meta will allow its billions of social media users to accuse people of being mentally ill based on their sexuality or gender identity, among broader changes it made to its moderation policies and practices Tuesday. The company’s new guidelines prohibit insults about someone’s intellect or mental illness on Facebook, Instagram and Threads, as have previous iterations. However, …