The world’s largest social network has more than 2 billion daily users, and is expanding rapidly around the world. Led by CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook undergirds much of the world’s communication online, both through its flagship app and its subsidiaries Instagram, WhatsApp, and Oculus. Despite huge financial success, Facebook is also confronted with questions about data privacy, hate speech on the platform, and concerns that frequent social media use can lead to unhappiness. The Verge publishes a nightly newsletter about Facebook and democracy, subscribe here.
After the murder of a pregnant woman in Arkansas, the FBI asked Facebook for data related to a private group for local parents, according to a search warrant. The FBI believes the killer found the victim in the group.
But some admins of the group say they had no idea their data was searched by the FBI, and that Meta never notified them.
These so-called “Statement of Objections” have a habit of turning into large fines for Big Tech, but we won’t know for sure until the case runs its course:
The Commission takes issue with Meta tying its online classified ads service, Facebook Marketplace, to its personal social network, Facebook. The Commission is also concerned that Meta is imposing unfair trading conditions on Facebook Marketplace’s competitors for its own benefit.
Facebook-owner Meta has launched a new open source tool that uses image hashes to identify unwanted content like terrorist videos and child sexual exploitation material.
Software like this plays a hugely important (but mostly invisible) role in keeping social media safe, as demonstrated by Microsoft’s PhotoDNA tool.
Meta likes to boast about its fancy AI moderation, but tried-and-tested image hashing is where it’s at.
Meta is shutting down its connectivity division, which tried to give away “free” internet access around the world that zero-rated Facebook and put data caps on competitors. Makes sense, times are tight.
Anyway, one time Meta invited us to write an entire feature about the Aquila connectivity drone but did not disclose the drone had actually crashed. Memories!
Zuck is speaking at The New York Times’ DealBook conference today, and said that Reels is growing, according to Meta’s internal metrics.
It’s hard to track how we’re doing against TikTok, but metrics suggest Reels is half the time of TikTok globally, outside of China. We don’t aspire to be half of anything but that’s better than we were a year ago.
That’s quite a bit different than the picture painted by The Wall Street Journal in September: it reported on internal Meta docs that indicated Reels usage on Instagram was less than one-tenth the size of TikTok.
The Markup found services including TaxAct, TaxSlayer, and H&R Block sending sensitive data.
One company is focused on building materials for your home, the other is newly obsessed with building virtual homes in a metaverse. Guess which business model investors value more?
Facebook’s community feature is getting Reels — the pivot to video never sleeps — letting people create and post Meta’s version of TikToks straight to a Group. It’s also testing new admin features that are supposed to help keep members engaged with the group (and, of course, with Facebook).
The journalists behind a controversial series of stories tell us they haven’t been hoaxed. We’re not so sure
