Meta
FB gives non-US users less protection from harmful content: Haugen
Speaking to Australia's Select Committee on Social Media and Online Safety on Thursday morning, Haugen testified that Facebook takes down the "bare minimum" when it comes to harmful content, reports ZDNet. It is especially when content comes in languages that are not spoken prominently in developed countries as there is minimal criticism from these underrepresented users, the report said.
Facebook loses daily users for 1st time, ad growth slows
The massive stock drop instantly wiped out roughly $200 billion in its market value. The Meta-owned Facebook platform registered 1.929 billion daily users in the fourth quarter of 2021 -- from 1.93 billion in the previous quarter. The company confirmed late on Wednesday that it is the first sequential decline in its history.
WhatsApp banned over 2 mn bad accounts in India in Dec
The company said that it also received 528 grievance reports in the same month from the country and took action on 24 of those. "In accordance with the IT Rules 2021, we have published our seventh monthly report for the month of December," a WhatsApp spokesperson said in a statement. "As captured in the latest monthly report, WhatsApp banned over 2 million accounts in the month of December," the spokesperson added.
Meta winding down its low-cost 'Express WiFi' programme
Launched in 2016, it was not free like Meta-owned Facebook's failed Free Basics programme, struck down by Indian courts for violating net neutrality, reports Engadget. Instead, it was designed to be inexpensive, starting at around 15 cents for 100MB or $5 for 20GB, the report said. Facebook partnered with satellite companies, internet service providers (ISPs) and others in places like India, South Africa and the Philippines.
Meta took down 22mn pieces of bad content in India on FB, Insta in De
Meta also received 534 reports for Facebook through the Indian grievance mechanism from December 1-December 31, and responded to all of these reports, spanning from fake profiles to harassment/abusive content and hacked accounts. Of the other 95 reports where specialised review was needed on Facebook, Meta took action on 28 of those.
Messenger's end-to-end encrypted chats, calls available to everyone
According to The Verge, Messenger added E2EE chatting in 2016 when it was still called Facebook Messenger, and Meta was still Facebook. Now many things have changed, but the optional feature is fully rolled out to everyone, with toggles to encrypt text messages as well as group chats and calls, the report said. Meta has discussed switching to E2EE as a default, but that may not happen until next year at the earliest, as some regulators claim this would harm public safety.
Meta charged users for free Internet in developing countries: Report
Meta (formerly Facebook) reportedly charged its Internet users in developing countries like Pakistan, Indonesia and the Philippines, in the name of offering them free access to the Web. Meta's Internet service, called Free Basics, is offered via Meta Connectivity (formerly Facebook Connectivity) and is supposed to provide users with "access to communication tools, health information, education resources and other low-bandwidth services" at no charge.
Meta winding up its ambitious cryptocurrency project: Report
Facing regulatory hurdles, Meta (formerly Facebook) is reportedly winding up its ambitious yet controversial cryptocurrency project that its CEO Mark Zuckerberg once defended in front of the US Congress. Originally launched as Libra and later renamed as the Diem Association, the cryptocurrency initiative "is weighing a sale of its assets as a way to return capital to its investor members," Fortune reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter.
Our AI supercomputer will be world's fastest this year: Meta
Called the AI Research SuperCluster (RSC), the machine is already being used by Meta researchers to train large models in natural language processing (NLP) and computer vision for research, with the aim of training models with trillions of parameters in the near future.
WhatsApp to allow transfer of chats from Android to iPhone
According to WABetaInfo, WhatsApp is working on an "import chat history" feature that will let Android users move their chats to an iPhone device. The feature was spotted in development in the latest WhatsApp beta for iOS v22.2.74. Currently, it is not available to everyone at the moment. The voice note that users are listening to will not be dismissed when they swipe back or open a different chat.
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