Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, counts more than 3 billion monthly users across its family of apps. Now, it’s trying to build the next generation of services in virtual reality and the metaverse through Meta Quest headsets and Horizon Worlds — all while dealing with antitrust pressures, privacy concerns, and younger users shifting to other platforms.
Patent infringement lawsuits are heating up in the world of smart glasses, with Xreal suing Viture earlier this month and Meta being sued last year over the electromyography tech in the Neural Band used to control the Meta Ray-Ban Display.
Meta has bet big on AI everything, but also has Instagram boss Adam Mosseri out there warning creators about its impact. One commenter (and occasional Verge contributor!) sums up its position nicely:
David Imel:
Meta: “We’re going to shove our AI models into everything we make so you use them as much as possible”
Meta: “AI is making it hard to tell what’s real. This is going to be a challenge for us and for you! Be careful and vigilant and try not to die”
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Ryan Payton confirmed to The Verge that he was impacted by this week’s job cuts affecting Meta’s Reality Labs division.
Aftermath previously reported that Camouflaj studio heads had been let go and that the developer is now just “a handful of employees” working on “the new user experience for upcoming hardware.”
Two individuals who were driving dump trucks to the construction site in Richland Parish, Louisiana, were arrested on Wednesday. Local law enforcement says ICE “did not enter the Meta site at any time,” but told Bloomberg that agents were sweeping for identification of workers en route to the site.
The studio, Camouflaj, hasn’t been “completely laid off,” as one Arkham series fan page reported; Camouflaj experienced layoffs but is not shutting down, Meta spokesperson Tracy Clayton tells The Verge. The team is now “just a handful of employees” working on “the new user experience for upcoming hardware,” former Meta employees tell Aftermath.
Update: Added Aftermath’s reporting.
Ahmad Al-Dahle, who previously led the team behind Meta’s Llama AI models, is now joining Airbnb as part of plans to revamp search and other features in its app, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky tells Bloomberg:
What that means is moving away from an anonymous customer just searching, and making sure everyone’s search, everyone’s conversation is unique to them and that we take into account all prior conversations we ever had with you, all information we have.
ChatGPT and Copilot will be removed from WhatsApp in Brazil because of the terms, which go into effect on January 15th. The terms will be suspended in Brazil for now, according to a machine translation of CADE’s announcement.
Meta is excluding Italy from the ban because of an order from its antitrust watchdog.
[Conselho Administrativo de Defesa Econômica]
Dina Powell McCormick, who previously worked as deputy national security advisor during Trump’s first administration, is joining Meta as president and vice chairman.
Mark Zuckerberg says she’ll “be involved in all of Meta’s work, with a particular focus on partnering with governments and sovereigns to build, deploy, invest in, and finance Meta’s AI and infrastructure.”
Following Australia’s social media ban for children under 16 taking effect last month, Meta says it has now removed almost 550,000 Instagram, Facebook, and Threads accounts that it believes were run by kids under that age threshold. Despite its compliance, Meta is still voicing opposition to the law.
Instagram head Adam Mosseri says, “People stopped sharing personal moments to feed years ago,” in a New Year’s Eve post about the future of the platform as generative AI produces more realistic-looking content.
A report from The Washington Post reveals Meta’s recent push to attract more teens to Instagram, which reportedly involved setting up a “living museum” inside its offices “to help employees internalize the lifestyles of their teenage targets:”
In at least one case it featured photos of top teen hangout places — a fast-food restaurant and a mall — and instructions on how to take wacky, teen-style selfies, according to photos of the exhibit.
[The Washington Post]
During Semafor’s Mixed Signals podcast, Instagram head Adam Mosseri said TikTok is “very much applying lessons they’ve learned in China to the rest of the world:”
Super apps, which are very popular in China, are not popular in the same way outside of China, and I think they’re turning into a Chinese super app — and that may or may not work outside of China.
Meta wants Threads to be the app you open first thing in the morning, and it sounds like some of you feel about the same way I do about that idea.
Vogon5:
Absolutely not lmao
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That’s the code-name of Meta’s new “new image and video-focused AI model,” The Wall Street Journal reports. The company is also developing an LLM code-named Avocado.
Meta had already announced the streaming service was coming to its headsets, but now it’s here.
On Threads, that is; Meta is testing “flair” labels for users in Communities that will show up on your posts to indicate what you like to talk about. Users who are “Community champions” can decide the flair options, Meta says.
