Trump’s Facebook and Instagram ban to be lifted, Meta announces

Posted on January 25, 2023 by Admin

Ex-president to be allowed back ‘in coming weeks … with new guardrails in place’ after ban that followed January 6 attack

In a highly anticipated decision, Meta has said it will allow Donald Trump back on Facebook and Instagram following a two-year ban from the platforms over his online behavior during the 6 January insurrection.

Meta will allow Trump to return “in coming weeks” but “with new guardrails in place to deter repeat offenses”, Meta’s president of global affairs Nick Clegg wrote in a blogpost explaining the decision.

Saudi prosecutors seek death penalty for academic over social media use

Posted on January 15, 2023 by Admin

Court documents reveal reasons for Awad Al-Qarni’s arrest – even though rulers are major investors in social media platforms

A prominent pro-reform law professor in Saudi Arabia is facing the death penalty for alleged crimes including having a Twitter account and using WhatsApp to share news considered “hostile” to the kingdom, according to court documents seen by the Guardian.

The arrest of Awad Al-Qarni, 65, in September 2017 represented the start of a crackdown against dissent by the then newly named crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman.

Meta dealt blow by EU ruling that could result in data use ‘opt-in’

Posted on January 4, 2023 by Admin

Irish regulator fines Facebook owner €390m after EU rejects argument for use of data to drive personalised ads

The business model of Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta empire has been dealt a blow following a ruling that its legal justification for targeting users with personalised ads broke EU data laws.

Campaigners said the move could force the Facebook and Instagram owner to ask users to “opt in” to having their data used for targeted ads.

Nick Clegg to decide on Trump’s 2023 return to Instagram and Facebook

Posted on September 23, 2022 by Admin

Meta’s president of global affairs said it would be a decision ‘I oversee’ after the ex-president’s accounts were suspended in 2021

Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, is charged with deciding whether Donald Trump will be allowed to return to Facebook and Instagram in 2023, Clegg said on Thursday.

Speaking at an event held in Washington by news organization Semafor, Clegg said the company was seriously debating whether Trump’s accounts should be reinstated and said it was a decision that “I oversee and I drive”.

Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data breach lawsuit ends in 11th hour settlement

Posted on August 27, 2022 by Admin

Dramatic move shows Mark Zuckerberg ‘desperate to avoid being questioned over cover-up’, says Observer journalist who exposed scandal

Facebook has dramatically agreed to settle a lawsuit seeking damages for allowing Cambridge Analytica access to the private data of tens of millions of users, four years after the Observer exposed the scandal that mired the tech giant in repeated controversy.

A court filing reveals that Meta, Facebook’s parent company, has in principle settled for an undisclosed sum a long-running lawsuit that claimed Facebook illegally shared user data with the UK analysis firm.

Priti Patel urges Meta to give up on end-to-end encryption plans

Posted on August 22, 2022 by Admin

UK home secretary hits out at Facebook’s owner over move that could hinder child abuse investigations

Priti Patel has hit out at Facebook’s plans to encrypt direct messages, even as the company is facing criticism in the US for failing to protect the privacy of women seeking abortions.

The UK home secretary has urged Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, as well as WhatsApp, to give up on its intentions to apply “end-to-end encryption” to direct messages sent from Messenger and Instagram.

US supreme court blocks Texas law targeting social media rules

Posted on May 31, 2022 by Admin

Measure passed by Republican-led legislature seeks to bar platforms from removing user posts based on ‘viewpoint’

The US supreme court temporarily blocked a Texas law that would bar social media companies from removing user posts based on their “viewpoint”, as lower courts battle over whether it would violate first amendment rights.

In a 5-4 decision, the justices granted a request from two technology industry groups that have argued the Republican-backed measure would turn platforms into “havens of the vilest expression imaginable”.

Facebook moderators call on firm to do more about posts praising Bucha atrocities

Posted on April 29, 2022 by Admin

Company insists any content glorifying violence against Ukrainians not allowed, but moderators say lack of guidance means they feel forced to leave up some content

Russia-Ukraine war: latest updates

Facebook moderators have called on the company to let them take action against users who praise or support the Russian military’s atrocities in Bucha and across Ukraine.

Almost a month after evidence of widespread murder and mass graves was uncovered by Ukrainian forces taking the suburb of Kyiv, the social network still has not flagged the atrocity as an “internally designated” incident, the moderators say.

Digital code of conduct fails to stop all harms of misinformation, Acma warns

Posted on March 21, 2022 by Admin

Need for damage to be serious and imminent before Facebook and Google take action means ‘chronic’ problems build, watchdog says – citing mistrust of vaccines

The code of conduct adopted by digital platforms, including Facebook and Google, is “too narrow” to prevent all the harms of misinformation and disinformation, Australia’s media regulator has warned.

The requirement that harm from social media posts must be both “serious” and “imminent” before tech companies take action has allowed longer term “chronic harms” including vaccine misinformation and the erosion of democracy, according to the Australian Communication and Media Authority.

Disinformation for profit: scammers cash in on conspiracy theories

Posted on February 21, 2022 by Admin

Some accounts claiming to support the Canada trucker protests are run by con artists abroad

When Facebook removed dozens of groups dedicated to Canada’s anti-government “Freedom Convoy” protests earlier this month, it didn’t do so because of extremism or conspiracies rife within the protests. It was because the groups were being run by scam artists.

Networks of spammers and profiteers, some based as far afield as Vietnam or Romania, had set up the groups using fake or hacked Facebook accounts in an attempt to make money off of the political turmoil.

‘Every move scrutinized’: Facebook’s rocky road to the metaverse

Posted on February 13, 2022 by Admin

The CEO has changed the world – but he faces regulatory, technological and branding troubles in his push to do it again

It would hardly be hyperbole to say that since its founding in 2004, Facebook has taken over the world – counting more than 50% of the global population as its user base. But after years of domination built on advertising revenue, the company has nearly overnight tried to knock down that empire and build anew.

In October 2021, more than 15 years and 2.8 billion users after the then student Mark Zuckerberg launched the social media platform from his college dorm, Facebook announced it had become “Meta” and was refocusing on the company’s virtual reality endeavors.