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Silicon Valley’s favorite Harvard dropout (sorry, Gates) has arrived in Panama at the same time as the “Launchpad” vessel he apparently purchased for around $300 million, after the Russian-commissioned megayacht was seized. Longer than an NFL football field, it’s still slightly smaller than Jeff Bezos’ own midlife crisis.

An unknown number of “targeted cuts” are coming to staffers who support the 22-member board that polices the world’s largest social media network. Launched in 2019, Meta has contributed $280 million to keep the board operational through 2025... which is a lot for a company that just emerged from its “year of efficiency.”

According to Financial Times, regulators are concerned that Meta isn’t doing enough to stifle disinformation being seeded by countries like Russia in order to undermine EU elections.

Alex Garland isn’t the only filmmaker thinking about the current state the US’ political system. During a recent appearance on The Ringer’s The Town podcast, Aaron Sorkin shared that he’s in the early stages of writing a new The Social Network-esque movie about January 6th and Facebook’s role in galvanizing the attempted coup.

A series of bot-filled communities on Facebook keep popping up to praise AI-generated images of Jesus Christ. The Dead Internet Theory explains why the internet might feel lonely even when there are many voices crying out “Amen 🙏.”
Well... if you can’t beat ‘em, #scarlettjohansson

404 Media reports that a parent soliciting advice in a Facebook group got something unexpected when Meta’s AI chatbot chimed in with some thoughts. The reply starts with “I have a child who is also 2e,” which refers to a child who is both academically advanced and has a disability. Let me stop you right there, AI chatbot.

That’s the question being raised by its Oversight Board, which today announced two new cases looking into how Meta handled explicit fakes of female public figures posted to Facebook and Instagram. One of which could concern the fake Taylor Swift images that circulated online earlier this year.

A bunch of places covered AI-generated images of an unholy Jesus/shrimp hybrid going viral on Facebook earlier this year, but the attention didn’t cause Zuck to take any action to slow the situation down. Here’s JC Noods laying back on a Lambo, a post which has 36,000 likes on Facebook right now. The AI internet is going great, y’all.

Facebook’s “In App Panel” program ran from 2016 to 2019 using Onavo’s technology as a man-in-the-middle attack to decrypt secured Snapchat traffic. Court documents unsealed as part of an ongoing class-action antitrust lawsuit show how the program came together.

Is it 2004 all over again? There’s been a 13x spike in poking over the last month, Facebook announced on Threads. And the culprits behind The Great Poke Surge of 2024 may surprise you. Half of them come from the 18-29 year old demographic, the company told TechCrunch.

Appearing on CNBC’s Squawk Box, Trump explained, again, why he no longer supports the push to ban TikTok. “...without TikTok, you can make Facebook bigger and I consider Facebook to be an enemy of the people along with a lot of the media.”

Reels and longer videos will be included in a new AI recommendation model that Facebook plans to build by 2026, Facebook head Tom Alison tells CNBC. Eventually, Facebook’s core feed may be included in the model as well.

41 attorneys general sent a letter to Meta’s chief legal officer Tuesday demanding the company invest more in stopping scam account takeovers that threaten users’ privacy and “drain” AG resources.

US District Judge Kevin Castel approved (PDF) a class action lawsuit by advertisers alleging that the company holds a monopoly in the ad market, Reuters reported yesterday.

Eight consumer rights groups from across the bloc filed GDPR complaints on Thursday, arguing that the ad-free subscriptions introduced for Facebook and Instagram in response to EU privacy regulations are a “consent masquerade that does not actually give consumers a free choice.”

For a few years now, Meta’s Oversight Board has had the power to (very slowly, it seems) issue decisions determining how Facebook and Instagram should be moderated, and soon, the body will also be responsible for overseeing Threads.

Meta is only rolling out the test to its Facebook iOS app, and not in the EU, the company confirmed to TechCrunch today. Threads posts already show up on Facebook, provided you don’t opt out.

“It’s not you, it’s us! And it’s an unfortunate technical error that we’re in the process of fixing,” writes Meta’s Andy Stone.

If you toggle link history to be on, Meta will be able to show you a list of links you’ve tapped and viewed in the in-app browser over the past 30 days.

The Linus Tech Tips YouTube channel hack and takeover showed what an attacker could do after stealing session tokens with a fake sponsorship offer, but this report details how a podcast invite and Facebook Live connection is another angle.