Category Archives: Meta

‘Double standards’: Instagram removes Erin O’Connor’s pregnancy photos again

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Model posted pictures of herself naked and ‘in her full power’ to celebrate Mother’s Day, before Meta took them down for breaching nudity guidelines

The model Erin O’Connor has spoken out about the need for social media platforms to apply “clearer, more context-sensitive guidelines” after Instagram repeatedly removed two nude photographs she had posted on Mother’s Day, celebrating her heavily pregnant body.

The photos – which were removed, reinstated and then removed again by the platform – were taken in 2014 when O’Connor, who is 48, was eight and half months’ pregnant with her son Albert.

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Meta ordered to pay $375m after being found liable in child exploitation case

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New Mexico hails ‘historic’ win after jury finds firm misled consumers over safety and enabled harm against users

A New Mexico jury on Tuesday ordered Meta to pay $375m in civil penalties after it found the company misled consumers about the safety of its platforms and enabled harm, including child sexual exploitation, against its users.

This is the first bench trial to find Meta liable for acts committed on its platform.

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Meta reportedly plans sweeping layoffs as AI costs increase

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Sources tell Reuters layoffs could affect 20% or more of company as plans reflect broader tensions within big tech

Meta is planning sweeping layoffs that could affect 20% or more of the company, three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters, as Meta seeks to offset costly artificial intelligence infrastructure bets and prepare for greater efficiency brought about by AI-assisted workers.

No date has been set for the cuts and the magnitude has not been finalized, the people said.

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Meta disables more than 150,000 accounts in crackdown on south-east Asian scam networks

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Company also launches tools to spot scammers as Thai police arrest 21 people

Meta disabled more than 150,000 accounts and Thai police arrested 21 people in a sweeping international crackdown on south-east Asian criminal scam centers that targeted people around the world, the social media company said on Wednesday.

The operation was led by Thailand’s Royal Thai police anti-cyber scam center, alongside the FBI and the US justice department’s scam center strike force, with Meta investigators acting on intelligence shared in real time by law enforcement.

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EU could water down AI Act amid pressure from Trump and big tech

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European Commission confirms reports it is looking at postponing parts of landmark legislation

The European Commission is considering plans to delay parts of the EU’s Artificial Intelligence Act, after intense pressure from businesses and Donald Trump’s administration.

The commission confirmed that “a reflection” was “still ongoing” on delaying aspects of the regulation, after media reports that Brussels was weighing up changes with the aim of easing demands on big tech companies.

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Facebook’s job ads algorithm is sexist, French equality watchdog rules

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Regulator found ads for mechanics skewed towards men while those for preschool teachers targeted women

The French equalities regulator has ruled that Facebook’s algorithm for placing job adverts is sexist, after an investigation found that adverts for mechanic roles skewed towards men while those for preschool teachers were targeted at women.

The Défenseur des Droits watchdog said the Facebook system for targeted job ads treated users differently based on their sex, and constituted indirect discrimination. The regulator recommended that Facebook and its parent company, Meta, took measures to ensure adverts were non-discriminatory, giving the company three months to inform the French body of the measures.

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Meta reports mixed financial results amid spree of AI hiring and spending

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Tech company brings in record quarterly revenue but major tax bill dampens earnings per share

Meta reported mixed financial results for the third quarter of 2025. The company brought in record quarterly revenue but reported a major tax bill that dampened earnings per share, the company announced on Wednesday. The financial results come as Meta ends a multibillion-dollar hiring spree focused on artificial intelligence talent.

The tech giant earned $51.24bn in quarterly revenue, beating Wall Street expectations and the company’s own projections for third-quarter sales. However, it reported earnings per share (EPS) of $1.05, far below Wall Street expectations of $6.70 in EPS. The major drop was due to a one-time non-cash income tax charge of $15.93bn. The EPS would have been $7.25 without this one-time charge, the company said.

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At least 19 killed in ‘gen Z’ protests against Nepal’s social media ban

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Many demonstrators say they are also on the streets over corruption and nepotism they allege is rampant

At least 19 people have been killed during protests in Nepal over a government ban on dozens of online platforms including Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and X.

The government has faced mounting criticism after imposing a ban on 26 prominent social media platforms and messaging apps last week because they had missed a deadline to register under new regulations.

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Trump hosts US tech leaders at White House dinner – minus Elon Musk

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Tesla CEO’s absence is marked departure from his constant presence at the White House in early days of Trump 2.0

As Donald Trump hosted leaders from the biggest US tech companies at a lavish White House state dining room dinner on Thursday night, there was one notable absence. Elon Musk, once inseparable from Trump and a constant, contentious presence in the White House, was not in attendance.

The dinner, which included Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg, Microsoft’s Bill Gates, Apple’s Tim Cook and OpenAI’s Sam Altman, was exactly the type of event where Musk would have sat at Trump’s right hand only a few months ago. Instead, the Tesla CEO stated on his social media platform X that he had been invited but could not make it. He said he planned to send a representative and spent the day on X posting a familiar stream of attacks on immigration and trans people.

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OpenAI takes on Meta and DeepSeek with free and customisable AI models

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Developer of ChatGPT says new tools will be ‘for wide benefit’, echoing announcement by Mark Zuckerberg

OpenAI is taking on Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta and Chinese rival DeepSeek by launching its own freely available artificial intelligence models.

The ChatGPT developer has announced two “open weight” large language models, which are free to download and can be customised by developers.

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Meta allows ads crowdfunding for IDF drones, consumer watchdog finds

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Paid ads hosted on Facebook, Instagram and Threads seem to violate Meta’s stated policies yet remain active

Meta is hosting ads on Facebook, Instagram and Threads from pro-Israel entities that are raising money for military equipment including drones and tactical gear for Israeli Defense Force battalions, seemingly a violation of the company’s stated advertising policies, new research shows.

“We are the sniper team of Unit Shaked, stationed in Gaza, and we urgently need shooting tripods to complete our mission in Jabalia,” one ad on Facebook read, first published on 11 June and still active on 17 July.

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Houthi-linked dealers sell arms on X and WhatsApp, report says

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Traders affiliated to Iran-backed rebel group found to have been running weapon stores on social media for years

Arms dealers affiliated with Houthi militants in Yemen are using X and Meta platforms to traffic weapons – some US-made – in apparent violation of the social media firms’ policies, a report has revealed.

The Houthis, an Iran-backed group of rebels who have controlled swathes of Yemen since 2014, are designated as a terrorist organisation by the US, Canada and other countries.

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Mark Zuckerberg’s secret list of top AI talent to poach has tech world atwitter

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Meta CEO reportedly to offer pay packages worth up to $100m, a gambit OpenAI’s Sam Altman calls ‘crazy’

Mark Zuckerberg reportedly spent months putting together a list of the top AI engineers and researchers across the globe, preparing to offer potential recruits lucrative compensation packages in Meta’s attempt to poach AI talent from key competitors.

Silicon Valley has been talking for weeks about the Meta CEO’s quest to attract top AI talent, including by offering pay packages worth up to $100m.

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Meta signs deal with nuclear plant to power AI and datacenters for 20 years

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Facebook and Instagram parent’s deal follows other big tech companies signing agreements with power companies

Meta on Tuesday said it had struck an agreement to keep one nuclear reactor of a US utility company in Illinois operating for 20 years.

Meta’s deal with Constellation Energy is the social networking company’s first with a nuclear power plant. Other large tech companies are looking to secure electricity as US power demand rises significantly in part due to the needs of artificial intelligence and datacenters. Google has reached agreements to supply its datacenters with nuclear power via a half-dozen small reactors built by a California utility company. Microsoft’s similar contract will restart the Three Mile Island nuclear plant, the site of the most serious nuclear accident and radiation leak in US history.

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Swinney demands Meta remove ‘racist’ Reform UK ad attacking Labour’s Sarwar

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Scotland’s first minister criticises byelection campaign video that claims his rival ‘will prioritise Pakistani community’

The SNP leader John Swinney has demanded that the owner of Facebook act on Reform UK’s “racist” byelection advert that attacks the Scottish Labour leader, Anas Sarwar.

The Facebook video, which incorrectly claims Sarwar has promised to prioritise Pakistani communities, is now subject to formal complaints from Scotland’s two main political parties. Scottish Labour contacted Meta, Facebook’s parent company, about the video two weeks ago and has yet to receive a reply.

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Meta blocks major Muslim Instagram page in India amid rising conflict

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Company referred to policy for restricting content when governments say material goes ‘against local law’

Meta has banned a prominent Muslim news page on Instagram in India at the government’s request, the account’s founder said on Wednesday, denouncing the move as “censorship” as hostilities escalate between India and Pakistan.

Instagram users in India trying to access posts from the handle @Muslim – a page with 6.7 million followers – were met with a message stating: “Account not available in India. This is because we complied with a legal request to restrict this content.”

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Labor far outspends Coalition and Clive Palmer on Google and Meta ads amid calls for change to blackout laws

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Analysis of online ad data shows parties and affiliated groups spent more than $39m for political ads across Facebook, YouTube and Google search since 28 March

Labor splurged more than $11m across Google and Meta platforms to win votes, far surpassing its opponents – including billionaire Clive Palmer – and outstripping political foes in key seats in the lead-up to polling day.

New data showed the major parties have poured cash into boosting targeted messages to social media users in tightly contested electorates, including marginal seats in Bennelong, Brisbane, Boothby, Blair and Bullwinkel.

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Meta to report quarterly earnings amid tariff uncertainty and AI investment

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Wall Street is projecting the company will post $41.36bn in revenue on $5.21 in earnings per share

Meta is set to report its first quarter earnings on Wednesday after the bell, and investors will be looking for news on whether the company met its quarterly revenue goals of somewhere between $39.5bn and $41.8bn.

Wall Street is projecting the company will post $41.36bn in revenue on $5.21 in earnings per share.

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Dramatic rise in fake political content on social media as Canada prepares to vote

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Report finds over a quarter of Canadians exposed to ‘more sophisticated and more politically polarizing’ fake content

More than a quarter of Canadians have been exposed to fake political content on social media that is “more sophisticated and more politically polarizing” as the country prepares to vote in a federal election, researchers have found, warning that platforms must increase protections amid a “dramatic acceleration” of online disinformation in the final weeks of the campaign.

In a new report released on Friday, Canada’s Media Ecosystem Observatory found a growing number of Facebook ads impersonating legitimate news sources were instead promoting fraudulent investment schemes, often involving cryptocurrency.

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‘Silicon Six’ accused of avoiding almost $278bn in US corporation taxes over 10 years

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Analysis finds Amazon, Meta, Alphabet, Netflix, Apple and Microsoft averaged 18.8%, compared with 29.7% US average

The big American tech firms known as the “Silicon Six” have been accused of paying almost $278bn (£211bn) less corporate income tax in the past decade compared with the statutory rate for US companies making the same profits.

Amazon, Meta, Alphabet, Netflix, Apple and Microsoft generated $11tn of revenue and $2.5tn of profits over the past 10 years.

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