Category Archives: Meta

WhatsApp says journalists and civil society members were targets of Israeli spyware

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Messaging app said it had ‘high confidence’ some users were targeted and ‘possibly compromised’ by Paragon Solutions spyware

Nearly 100 journalists and other members of civil society using WhatsApp, the popular messaging app owned by Meta, were targeted by spyware owned by Paragon Solutions, an Israeli maker of hacking software, the company alleged today.

The journalists and other civil society members were being alerted of a possible breach of their devices, with WhatsApp telling the Guardian it had “high confidence” that the users in question had been targeted and “possibly compromised”.

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Meta to report fourth-quarter earnings amid DeepSeek mania and ballooning AI investments

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Zuckerberg likely to be asked about plans to spend $60-65bn on AI in 2025 as tech giant faces increased competition

Meta will report earnings for the fourth quarter of 2024 after US stock markets close on Wednesday.

Analysts will probably ask about Mark Zuckerberg’s plans to spend between $60bn and $65bn on AI infrastructure in 2025. That is up from the $50bn the CEO said he expected to spend at the end of last quarter. But as Meta faces increased competition, especially from new player DeepSeek AI, the company is ramping up its AI efforts.

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Steve Bannon says inauguration marks ‘official surrender’ of tech titans to Trump

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Former Trump White House adviser says supplication akin to Japanese surrender to allied forces in September 1945

Steve Bannon, the former Trump White House chief strategist, has described the tech titans gathering at Monday’s inauguration as “supplicants” to Donald Trump making “an official surrender”, akin to the Japanese surrender to allied forces on the deck of the USS Missouri in September 1945.

Bannon, who served as architect of Trump’s 2016 presidential win but later fell out with the president-elect after he criticized his intellect and members of his family, told ABC News in an interview airing Sunday that Trump “broke the oligarchs” who had previously been aligned against him.

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Sadiq Khan warns western democracy at risk from ‘resurgent fascism’ ahead of Trump inauguration

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London mayor calls for stricter laws on harmful online content and takes aim at Elon Musk

The west must face up to a century-defining battle against a resurgent far right that is on the march across the developed world, Sadiq Khan warns today, as he calls on ministers to take on extremism ahead of Donald Trump’s second inauguration as US president.

In the most strident rallying call of any senior British politician against the march of the right in the US, France and Germany, the London mayor warns of a “resurgent fascism” online and says that stricter laws on harmful content will be needed to stem the tide.

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Fears for UK boomer radicalisation on Facebook after Meta drops factcheckers

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For middle-aged users, it will be ‘even harder to discern the truth’ among extremist content, expert says

Experts fear the decision by Meta to drop professional factcheckers from Facebook will exacerbate so-called boomer radicalisation in the UK.

Even before what Keir Starmer described as “far-right riots” in England last summer, alarm bells were ringing amid fears older people were even more susceptible to misinformation and radicalisation than younger “digital natives”.

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Molly Russell’s father tells Starmer UK ‘going backwards’ on online safety

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Ian Russell, whose daughter died viewing harmful content, says Online Safety Act a ‘disaster’

The father of a 14-year-old girl who died after viewing harmful content on social media has told Keir Starmer that the UK is “going backwards” on online safety.

Ian Russell, chair of the Molly Rose Foundation set up in memory of Molly, who took her own life in 2017, said the regulator Ofcom’s implementation of the Online Safety Act has been a “disaster” in a letter to the prime minister on Saturday.

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UK can be ‘AI sweet spot’: Starmer’s tech minister on regulation, Musk, and free speech

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Technology secretary Peter Kyle has the task of making Britain a leading player in the AI revolution, but says economic growth will not come at the cost of online safety

With the NHS still struggling, a prisons crisis still teetering and Britain’s borrowing costs soaring, there are few easy jobs going in Keir Starmer’s cabinet at present.

But even in such difficult times, the task of convincing Silicon Valley’s finest to help make Britain a leader in the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution – all while one leading tech boss uses the Labour government as a regular punching bag and others ostentatiously move closer to Donald Trump – is among the most challenging.

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Tech giants told UK online safety laws ‘not up for negotiation’

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Senior cabinet minister promises not to dilute new measures despite Zuckerberg’s attacks on countries ‘censoring’ content

Britain’s new laws to boost safety and tackle hate speech online are “not up for negotiation”, a senior government minister has warned, after Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg vowed to join Donald Trump to pressure countries they regard as “censoring” content.

In an interview with the Observer, Peter Kyle, the technology secretary, said that the recent laws designed to make online platforms safer for children and vulnerable people would never be diluted to help the government woo big tech companies to the UK in its defining pursuit for economic growth.

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Brazil says Meta getting rid of factcheckers is ‘bad for democracy’

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Brazilian officials also ask tech giant to clarify whether it intends to implement changes in country within 30 days

The decision by the social media giant Meta to end factchecking in the United States is “bad for democracy”, Brazil’s newly appointed communication minister, Sidonio Palmeira, said on Wednesday.

Meta’s founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, stunned many with his announcement on Tuesday that he was pulling the plug on factchecking at Facebook and Instagram in the US, citing concerns about political bias.

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Meta is killing off its own AI-powered Instagram and Facebook profiles

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Instagram profile of ‘proud Black queer momma’, created by Meta, said her development team included no Black people

Meta is deleting Facebook and Instagram profiles of AI characters the company created over a year ago after users rediscovered some of the profiles and engaged them in conversations, screenshots of which went viral.

The company had first introduced these AI-powered profiles in September 2023 but killed off most of them by summer 2024. However, a few characters remained and garnered new interest after the Meta executive Connor Hayes told the Financial Times late last week that the company had plans to roll out more AI character profiles.

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US business leaders set to break record on donations to Trump inaugural fund

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Donations, not restricted by campaign finance laws, come as industries seek favor with incoming administration

US business leaders are spending big on Donald Trump’s second inaugural fund, which is predicted to exceed even the record-setting $107m raised in 2017.

The donations, which are not restricted by campaign finance laws, come as industries and business leaders seek to curry favor with the incoming administration after the president-elect decisively won a second, non-consecutive term in November.

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Celebrity scam ads still targeting Australians despite tech giants’ crackdowns

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Scammers developing sophisticated new methods will always find loopholes to access lucrative markets, experts say

Scammers are finding loopholes in restrictions brought in by Google and Meta to combat fake celebrity scam ads and experts warn they will be hard to stop while Australia remains a lucrative target for cybercriminals.

On Monday, Meta announced it would require businesses targeting financial advertising at Australians to verify themselves, including through the Australian Securities Investment Commission (Asic), to check they hold an Australian financial services licence.

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Guardian Essential poll: election warning signs for Labor as voters flunk government on housing costs and wages

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But survey finds strong support for under-16s social media ban, despite concerns about how to enforce it

Voters have given the Albanese government an F on containing housing costs and surprisingly little credit for increasing wages in two troubling signs for Labor heading into a cost-of-living election.

Those are the results of the latest Guardian Essential poll of 1,123 voters, which found strong support for social media regulation, including two-thirds in favour of the under-16 age ban.

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Instagram actively helping spread of self-harm among teenagers, study finds

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Researchers say parent company Meta is failing to remove explicit images on the social media site

Meta is actively helping self-harm content to flourish on Instagram by failing to remove explicit images and encouraging those engaging with such content to befriend one another, according to a damning new study that found its moderation “extremely inadequate”.

Danish researchers created a private self-harm network on the social media platform, including fake profiles of people as young as 13 years old, in which they shared 85 pieces of self-harm-related content gradually increasing in severity, including blood, razor blades and encouragement of self-harm.

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Australian-style social media ban for under-16s ‘a retrograde step’, say UK charities

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Child safety experts say similar move in Britain would penalise young people for the failings of tech companies

Child safety experts have warned the UK government against enacting an Australian-style social media ban for children under 16, which they called a “retrograde step” that would “do more harm than good”.

On Thursday, Australia became the first country in the world to ban under-16s from using social media platforms. The move was supported by a large majority of the Australian public – but academics, politicians and child rights groups said it could backfire, driving teenagers to the dark web, or make them feel more isolated.

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Meta accuses Australian government of failing to consider young people’s voices with world-first social media ban

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One independent MP calls bill – which passed on Thursday – a ‘1970 solution for a 2024 problem’

Social media company Meta has accused the Australian government of rushing to introduce an under-16 social media ban without properly considering the evidence and voices of young people.

But Australian politicians who supported the world-first legislation argue it is necessary to ensure another generation of teenagers do not experience “as much damaging content” in years to come.

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Mark Zuckerberg dines with Trump at Mar-a-Lago despite former feud

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Meta CEO reportedly wants to support president-elect after previously banning him from Instagram and Facebook

Mark Zuckerberg has become the latest former Donald Trump critic to make his way Mar-a-Lago to break bread with the incoming US president.

The tech mogul had banned Trump from the social media sites Instagram and Facebook, which he owns, following the January 6 riot that the president-elect egged on in an attempt to overthrow the results of the 2020 election.

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Meta is ‘reckless’ in ‘need-to-know situations’, Canada warns Australia as it braces for early bushfire season

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Heritage minister says Facebook made ‘room for misinformation’ after turning news off in 2023 as Australia mulls actions that could lead to Meta doing the same

Twelve months on from Canada’s worst-ever wildfire season unfolding during a news blackout on Facebook, the nation has warned Australia about Meta’s “reckless” behaviour during “need-to-know situations”.

An early start to Australia’s bushfire season is looming for swaths of the country, with large parts of Queensland and the Northern Territory, the south-west of Victoria and south-east corner of South Australia facing higher risk, according to an official assessment in September.

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Ireland orders X, TikTok and Instagram to curb terrorist content

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Regulator issues online safety ruling after finding weak processes leave networks ‘exposed to terrorist content’

Elon Musk’s X, TikTok and Meta’s Instagram have been ordered by Irish media regulators to take “necessary measures” to prevent terrorist content being platformed in order to comply with sweeping new online safety legislation.

The Irish media regulator, Coimisiún na Meán, said it issued the ruling after its investigations determined that the social media networks were “exposed to terrorist content” due to weak processes.

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Australia’s gambling giants spent $240,000 on Facebook ads for US election bets

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Guessing the colour of Trump’s tie among bets promoted by TAB, Ladbrokes, Sportsbet and Neds in the week leading up to the election

Australia’s big online gambling operators poured at least $240,000 into Facebook ads promoting novelty bets on the US election last week, including whether Donald Trump’s speech would mention fraud or what colour his tie would be, just weeks before the government is expected to announce its long-awaited plans to restrict wagering ads.

Between 31 October and 6 November – the day of the US election in Australia – TAB, Ladbrokes, Sportsbet and Neds were the top four Facebook advertisers in the country on Meta’s ad library tool, spending a combined $229,789 on politics-related ads.

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