‘Reckless’: Fury among rights groups as Facebook lifts Trump ban

Civil rights groups voice anger at ‘unethical’ decision, while others say the public has an interest in hearing directly from candidates for political office

The news that Meta will allow Donald Trump back on Facebook and Instagram following a two-year ban has been met with fury and indignation among civil rights and online safety advocates.

The former US president will be allowed to return to the platforms “in coming weeks” but “with new guardrails in place to deter repeat offences”, Meta’s president of global affairs, Nick Clegg, wrote in a blogpost explaining the decision on Wednesday.

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

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.

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Trump pleads with Meta to restore Facebook account

Former president’s lawyers petition company to allow access following ban from platform in wake of 2021 Capitol attack

Donald Trump has petitioned Meta to restore his access to Facebook, as he reportedly looks to shift his 2024 presidential campaign into a higher gear.

The former president was banned from Facebook more than two years ago, after his followers attacked the US Capitol in an unsuccessful attempt to stop certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election.

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Saudi prosecutors seek death penalty for academic over social media use

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.

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Seattle public schools sue social media platforms for youth ‘mental health crisis’

Lawsuit accuses companies behind TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube of harming young people’s mental health

Seattle’s public schools district has filed a lawsuit in the US against multiple major social media companies, accusing them of harming young people’s mental health across the country.

The lawsuit which was filed on Friday with a US district court accused the social media companies behind TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube of creating a “mental health crisis among America’s youth”.

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Voice to parliament: no campaign targets older Australians as yes group goes after young

Facebook defends decision to delete a small number of advertisements from the no side that independent fact-checkers deemed ‘false’

A stark schism is already emerging in the voice to parliament referendum in how the respective sides are campaigning for support, with the leading yes group overwhelmingly appealing to younger voters while the main no organisation is strongly targeting older Australians.

It comes as Facebook defends its decision to delete a small number of advertisements from the no side that independent fact-checkers deemed “false”. The social media giant maintains it will reject other referendum ads that breach policies – except those from politicians.

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

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.

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Meta faces $1.6bn lawsuit over Facebook posts inciting violence in Tigray war

Legal action backed by Amnesty alleges hateful posts inflaming war in northern Ethiopia were allowed to flourish on platform

Meta has been accused in a lawsuit of letting posts that inflamed the war in Tigray flourish on Facebook, after an Observer investigation in February revealed repeated inaction on posts that incited violence.

The lawsuit, filed in the high court of Kenya, where Meta’s sub-Saharan African operations are based, alleges that Facebook’s recommendations systems amplified hateful and violent posts in the context of the war in northern Ethiopia, which raged for two years until a ceasefire was agreed in early November. The lawsuit seeks the creation of a $1.6bn (£1.3bn) fund for victims of hate speech.

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Defamation reforms: Australian media may not be liable for Facebook comments in future

Attorneys general give in-principle support to changes including new innocent dissemination defence for intermediaries

Australian media companies may avoid liability for defamatory third-party comments on their social media posts if reforms supported by the nation’s attorneys general become law.

The Standing Council of Attorneys General has given in-principle support to reforms to modernise the nation’s defamation laws relating to search engines and social media platforms.

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Twitter and TikTok could be called to negotiate under Australia’s news media code

Review of Google and Meta agreements suggests ACCC look at what other social media platforms should be brought to table with publishers

Social media sites like TikTok and Twitter could be assessed for whether they should pay news companies for content, under recommendations from the Treasury’s review of the news media bargaining code.

In its first year of operation, the code was a success, facilitating 23 agreements between Google and news publishers, and 13 agreements between Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, and news publishers, according to a Treasury report released on Thursday.

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Facebook reinstates Victorian Labor’s ‘Matthew Guy’ page used for ad attacks after marking it as satire

Labor spent more than $116,000 boosting attack ads using page before Facebook took it down due to alleged breach of policies

Facebook removed a Facebook page titled “Matthew Guy– The Liberal Cuts Guy” operated by the Victorian Labor party because it allegedly breached the platform’s integrity and identity policy, and has only reinstated the page once it was clearly marked as satire.

Labor spent more than $116,000 boosting attack ads using the page, criticising the Liberal leader’s record in government and his election policies. It is now showering key electorates in anti-Greens ads via another dedicated Facebook page ahead of Saturday’s Victorian election.

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Australia’s consumer watchdog calls for new laws to stop scams and rein in anti-competitive behaviour online

ACCC report says digital platforms expose users and businesses to ‘harms’ as it pushes for overhaul

Australia’s competition regulator has run out of patience with digital platforms such as Google and Facebook and has recommended new laws to clamp down on scams, address consumer complaints and rein in anti-competitive behaviour.

Releasing its fifth progress report on digital platforms since it began an inquiry in 2017, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has called for industry-specific legislation, saying it has identified “widespread, entrenched and systematic” consumer and competition “harms”.

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Meta shares plummet alongside billion-dollar losses in metaverse division

Latest in a series of difficult quarterly earnings reports forced Mark Zuckerberg to defend his virtual reality project

Shares of Meta plummeted on Wednesday after the company announced mixed results in its third-quarter earnings report, alongside billion-dollar losses in the division devoted to its ambitious “metaverse” project.

The Facebook parent company beat analyst predictions for revenue but offered a weak forecast for the upcoming quarter. It posted $27.7bn in revenue for the third quarter, higher than the $27.4bn predicted but 4% less than the same period last year. Its earnings a share, which accounts for expenses, was $1.64 – lower than the $1.89 predicted.

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Federal election advertising blackout period should be changed or abolished, inquiry hears

As number of prepoll votes rise, rule has become redundant and may also encourage misinformation, TV broadcasters and social media groups say

Groups representing TV broadcasters and social media companies have called to change or abolish the advertising “blackout period” before federal elections, claiming the measure is outdated and could even allow for harmful political misinformation to flourish.

Free TV Australia, the peak body for commercial free-to-air-broadcasters, told a parliamentary inquiry into the May election on Tuesday that the blackout period, which prevents radio and TV stations from broadcasting election ads from the Wednesday night before the election, was outdated.

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Migrants targeted in Canadian immigration scam on Facebook

Scammers posing as immigration lawyers targeted Facebook groups with tens of thousands of users, new report reveals

Scammers posing as Canadian immigration lawyers have targeted Facebook groups with tens of thousands of users, a new report reveals.

The posts, documented in a new report by the Tech Transparency Project (TTP), the research arm of watchdog group the Campaign for Accountability, have been flagged as potentially fraudulent by Latin American and Canadian authorities but continue to proliferate.

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Fears of layoffs as Facebook parent Meta announces hiring freeze

Chief executive Mark Zuckerberg says tech company aims to ‘plan somewhat conservatively’ and will ‘further restructure’

Meta employees have been warned of potential layoffs after the Facebook parent company announced on Thursday it would freeze hiring and “further restructure”, Bloomberg News has reported.

In company communication with employees, chief executive Mark Zuckerberg cited the uncertain macroeconomic environment for the changes. The announcement comes after several tech companies have been forced to slash headcount in recent months, as advertisers trim spending in anticipation of a recession.

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

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”.

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Woman fatally shoots three male relatives before killing herself

Facebook post accused father, brother-in-law and his father, of either physically abusing woman’s sister or ignoring it

A Massachusetts woman shot her brother-in-law, his father, her own dad and herself to death after she publicly accused the first man of physically abusing her sister for years while the other two – along with additional relatives – stood idly by, according to authorities and a chilling social media post that offers an apparent motive for the violence.

The gruesome saga began with a Facebook post published on the afternoon of 23 August in which Khosay Sharifi recounted how her sister has been choked, slapped, kicked, punched in the face and cursed out by her husband of 14 years.

In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is at 800-273-8255 and online chat is also available. You can also text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis text line counselor. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org or jo@samaritans.ie. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at www.befrienders.org

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

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.

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Facebook agrees to settle Cambridge Analytica data privacy lawsuit

The four-year-old case alleged that the company had violated consumer privacy laws by sharing users’ personal data with third parties

Meta’s Facebook has in-principle agreed to settle a lawsuit in the San Francisco federal court seeking damages for letting third parties, including Cambridge Analytica, access the private data of users, a court filing showed.

The financial terms were not disclosed in the filing on Friday that asked the judge to put the class action suit on hold for 60 days until the lawyers for both plaintiffs and Facebook finalize a written settlement.

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