Meta narrows guidance to prohibit calls for death of a head of state

Facebook owner Meta Platforms said on Sunday that it is further narrowing its content moderation policy for Ukraine to prohibit calls for the death of a head of state, according to an internal company post seen by Reuters.

The move came after Reuters reported last week that Meta was temporarily allowing some posts on Facebook and Instagram calling for the death of Russian President Vladimir Putin or Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. 

After the Reuters report, Meta said on Friday that a temporary change in its content policy, only applicable for Ukraine, was needed to let users voice opposition to Russia's attack. On the same day, Russia opened a criminal case against the social media firm. 

"We are now narrowing the focus to make it explicitly clear in the guidance that it is never to be interpreted as condoning violence against Russians in general," Meta global affairs President Nick Clegg wrote in a post on the company's internal platform on Sunday that was seen by Reuters.

"We also do not permit calls to assassinate a head of state...So, in order to remove any ambiguity about our stance, we are further narrowing our guidance to make explicit that we are not allowing calls for the death of a head of state on our platforms," Clegg said.

Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment, outside regular business hours.

"These are difficult decisions. Circumstances in Ukraine are fast moving. We try to think through all the consequences, and we keep our guidance under constant review because the context is always evolving," Clegg said.

There would be no change to policies on hate speech as far as the Russian people are concerned, he said.

"Meta stands against Russophobia. We have no tolerance for calls for genocide, ethnic cleansing, or any kind of discrimination, harassment, or violence towards Russians on our platform," he added.

Clegg wrote that Meta plans to refer the way in which it adapted the guidance it provides to content moderators to the independent oversight board, which was set up to help the platform answer some of the most difficult questions around freedom of expression.

Russia's communications regulator has imposed restrictions on Meta's Instagram, effective Monday. Meta had previously restricted access to Russian state media outlets RT and Sputnik on its platforms across the European Union.

(Reporting by Munsif Vengattil in New Delhi and Maria Ponnezhath in BengaluruEditing by Shri Navaratnam)

-reuters

Meta delays office reopening, mandates booster shots for returning workers

Facebook parent Meta Platforms has delayed its US office reopening date and mandated COVID-19 booster shots for employees returning to office, joining the growing list of companies revamping reopening plans as Omicron surges.

For employees who opt to work from office, the reopening date has been delayed to March 28 from the earlier plan of Jan. 31, the tech giant said.

All workers returning to office will have to present proof of their booster jabs, while the company closely monitors the Omicron variant situation, it said. Meta currently requires all its US employees coming to office to be vaccinated against the coronavirus.

Corporate America has doubled down on vaccination mandates and delayed back-to-office plans as the Omicron variant drives up infections to record levels across the country.

Last week, Citigroup said its US staff who have not been vaccinated against COVID-19 by Jan. 14 will be placed on unpaid leave and fired at the end of the month.

In December, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp had offered an option to defer returning to office. The company said on Monday it will let employees decide by March 14 if they want to return to office or defer again. 

-reuters

Instagram boss tells US lawmakers app ‘can help’ teens, citing own research

Instagram's boss on Wednesday pushed a rosy view of the photo-sharing app's impact on teens in testimony to US lawmakers that was at odds with damning news reports based on the firm's own research.

Adam Mosseri argued the service could help struggling young people, after documents leaked by a company insider raised worries of harms, including a 2019 study saying Instagram makes body image issues worse for one in 3 teenage girls. 

"Sometimes young people come to Instagram dealing with hard things in their lives. I believe Instagram can help many of them in those moments," Mosseri wrote.

"This is something that our research has suggested as well," he added in written testimony prepared for his appearance before a Senate commerce subcommittee.

His statement comes as the social media networks run by Facebook parent Meta battle a crisis fueled by the company's own research, and which has rekindled a years-old US push for regulation.

The documents leaked by Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen also include a 2020 report stating that 32 percent of teenage girls said that when they felt bad about their bodies, Instagram made it worse.

Facebook has pushed back fiercely against a string of Wall Street Journal reports based on the findings, and a subsequent series for a US media consortium, arguing its research was mischaracterized.

Senators Richard Blumenthal and Marsha Blackburn are leading the hearing, the latest in a series probing how social media could be making teens feel worse about themselves.

"These half-measures are not enough. Instagram must create tangible solutions to improve safety and data security," Blackburn tweeted ahead of the hearing.

- 'Never fully safe' -

Facebook has bounced back from other scandals such as the one involving Cambridge Analytica, a British consulting firm that used the personal data of millions of Facebook users to target political ads.

In that case, CEO Mark Zuckerberg went to Washington to apologize, and the company agreed to a $5 billion settlement with US regulators.

However, the leading social media network faces at least one investigation spurred by the latest crisis: a consortium of US states announced in November a probe of Meta's techniques for enticing young users and the potential resulting harms.

Facing pressure, the company announced in September a "pause" in developing a version of Instagram for kids under 13 as criticism built over the platform's impact on young people's mental health.

On the eve of Wednesday's hearing, Instagram announced new protections for young users like suggesting a break if they have been spending a lot of time on the platform.

The timing of the announcement drew a wary reception from lawmakers, who questioned whether it was an effort at distraction ahead of the hearing.

Stephen Balkam, founder and CEO of advocacy group Family Online Safety Institute, said pre-hearing announcements are a Washington tradition but noted they won't make the app's problems go away.

"Instagram is safer than it was. I think Instagram is less toxic for teens than it was. But it will never be perfect, it will never be fully safe. But then that's true of all social media," he told AFP.

 Agence France-Presse

'Metaverse' hype fuels booming digital property market

PARIS, France - The idea of spending millions on non-existent land may sound ludicrous -- but feverish predictions of a virtual reality future are pushing investors to bet big on digital real estate.

This week, New York-based company Republic Realm announced it had spent a record-breaking $4.3 million on digital land through The Sandbox, one of several "virtual world" websites where people can socialise, play games and even attend concerts.

That came hot on the heels of a $2.4-million land purchase in late November on a rival platform, Decentraland, by Canadian crypto company Tokens.com. And days before that, Barbados announced plans to open a "metaverse embassy" in Decentraland. 

Such websites bill themselves as a prototype of the metaverse, a future internet where online experiences like chatting to a friend would eventually feel face-to-face thanks to virtual reality (VR) headsets. 

"Metaverse" has been a Silicon Valley buzzword for months, but interest soared in October after Facebook's parent company renamed itself "Meta" as it shifts its focus towards VR. 

The Facebook rebrand "introduced the term 'metaverse' to millions of people a lot faster than I would have ever imagined," said Cathy Hackl, a tech consultant who advises companies on entering the metaverse. 

According to crypto data site Dapp, land worth more than $100 million has sold in the past week across the four largest metaverse sites, The Sandbox, Decentraland, CryptoVoxels, and Somnium Space.

For Hackl, it's unsurprising that the market is booming, spawning an entire ecosystem around virtual real estate, from rents to land developers. 

"We're trying to translate the way we understand physical goods into the virtual world," she told AFP. 

And while it may be some time before these sites operate as true metaverses, transporting us elsewhere with VR goggles, digital land is already functioning as an asset just like real land, said Hackl.

"They can build on it, they can rent it out, they can sell it," she said.

'Fifth Avenue of the metaverse' 

Tokens.com has bought a prime patch in Decentraland's Fashion Street district, which the platform hopes to develop as a home for luxury brands' virtual stores.

"If I hadn't done the research and understood that this is valuable property, it would seem absolutely crazy," admitted Tokens.com CEO Andrew Kiguel.

Kiguel spent 20 years as an investment banker focused on real estate. He insists the Decentraland plot makes exactly the same kind of business sense as it would in the real world: it's in a trendy area with high footfall.

"That is advertising and event space where people are going to congregate," he explained, pointing to a recent virtual musical festival in Decentraland which attracted 50,000 visitors.

Luxury brands are already venturing into the metaverse -- a Gucci handbag sold on the Roblox platform in May for more than the real version -- and Kiguel hopes Fashion Street will become a shopping destination akin to New York's Fifth Avenue.

As for how the land could be used to make money, "it can be as simple as having a billboard, or it can be as complex as having a storefront with an actual employee," he said.

"You could walk in with your avatar and have 3D digital representations of a shoe that you can hold, and ask questions."

Second Life, rebooted 

As far back as 2006, a real estate developer made headlines after making $1 million from land sold on the virtual world site Second Life.

While Second Life remains active, proponents of its next-generation rivals point out a key difference.

In Decentraland, everything from land to virtual artwork comes in the form of a non-fungible token, or NFT. 

Some people have spent tens of thousands of dollars on these digital items, and the concept has generated scepticism as well as excitement. 

But Kiguel predicts this form of digital ownership will become widespread in the coming years, because the blockchain technology behind it creates trust and transparency when making transactions.

"I can see the ownership history, what's been paid for it and how it's been transferred around," he said. 

But the investment is not without its risks -- particularly given the volatility of the cryptocurrencies used to buy NFTs. 

And while virtual concerts on sites like Roblox and Fortnite have drawn tens of millions of viewers, the sparse data available suggests traffic on metaverses like Decentraland lags far behind that of established social media sites like Facebook and Instagram.

Ultimately the value of the land investments depends on whether people start flocking to these sites. 

"I know it all sounds quite ludicrous," said Kiguel. "But there's a vision behind it."

Agence France-Presse

Facebook rebrand reflects a dangerous trend in growing power of tech monopolies

Facebook’s rebranding as Meta has been seen by many as the company’s latest attempt at corporate crisis control. The social media giant has been publicly attacked for creating an environment that fosters far-right extremism and violating individuals’ data privacy.

Yet it also represents an attempt to rebrand the growing power of tech monopolies to shape all areas of our lives through social expansion. 

It points to a troubling new era of “metacapitalism” – or “capitalism on steroids” as Forbes called it in 2000. It reflects a disturbing trend of massively expanding tech conglomerates and the dangerous privatisation of technological knowledge.

Technology is rapidly transforming our world – from instantaneous digital communication to AI decision-making to virtual and augmented reality. 

The driving force behind these changes has been private technology firms, whether global start-ups or famous Silicon Valley conglomerates. But this combination of massive corporate profits and exciting technological innovation is the biggest myth of 21st-century progress.

The truth is much more complicated. Huge technology firms such as Google and Facebook are increasingly criticized for unethical data collection and the use of algorithms which encourage hateful beliefs and viral misinformation.

Their technology has also encouraged unjust labor practices including hi-tech digital surveillance to monitor workers, as happened in Amazon warehouses, and facilitated digital platforms such as Uber, which refuse to provide basic worker rights.

Longer term, the mining of rare earth metals and the massive amounts of energy required for data processing are major contributors to climate change.

These problems point to the threat of capitalist tech monopolies where, according to theorist Neil Postman, the culture “seeks its authorization in technology, finds its satisfactions in technology, and takes its orders from technology”. Microsoft and Google have already been accused of monopolistic practices.

These “bit tyrants” are troubling “technopolies” which actually use their power and influence to stifle innovation and competition using – ironically – traditional practices of the old economy.

Perhaps even more troubling is how these companies channel innovation away from its potential for social good. Beneath the myth of Silicon Valley prosperity are big tech’s seeming attempts to promote corporate oligarchies and even authoritarian regimes to extend their economic reach and political power.

The highly publicized renaming of these conglomerates is part of a wider rebranding of this technopoly. As one commentator recently observed, “Facebook’s new name is ‘Meta’, and its new mission is to invent a ‘metaverse’ that will make us all forget what it’s done to our existing reality.” It may be a different name, but it is the same economic, political and social corporate threat.

In his video announcement, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg proclaimed this dawning of the metaverse as signalling a new technological age, providing viewers with a glimpse of it in a virtual world where people could use avatars to live out their wildest imagination in real-time with others around the world.

The backlash has ranged from moral outrage over Facebook itself, to ridiculing Zuckerberg’s new vision for technology. What is overlooked is how this represents the desire to create metacapitalism – which uses technology to shape, exploit and profit from human interaction. It is a completely marketised virtual reality world fuelled by the unsustainable exploitation of natural resources, unjust global working conditions and the constant invasion of users’ data privacy for private financial gain.

Corporate and social rebranding are fundamental to the spread of metacapitalism. Google’s 2015 name change to “Alphabet” reflected its desire to be more than just a search engine and expand into other areas such as driverless cars, medical devices, smart home appliances and drone delivery. Introducing the metaverse, Zuckerberg said:

Think about how many physical things you have today that could just be holograms in the future. Your TV, your perfect work set-up with multiple monitors, your board games and more – instead of physical things assembled in factories, they’ll be holograms designed by creators around the world.

He insisted, once again, that “we don’t build services to make money; we make money to build better services”.

These moves play into a broader strategy to socially rebrand metacapitalism positively. The introduction of the metaverse is part of a new trend of what business ethics academic Carl Rhodes has referred to it as “woke capitalism”, noting in a recent article that “progressive gestures from big business aren’t just useless – they’re dangerous”.

Whether it is the Gates Foundation initially opposing the spread of global vaccines in order to protect patent rights, or Elon Musk promising to create an “multi-planet civilization” – while avoiding paying much-needed taxes here on Earth – corporations are now increasingly using philanthropy and utopian visions to hide their present day misdeeds.

The irony is that technology could actually become a real force for radical social and economic transformation if it was freed from the narrow limits imposed on it by metacapitalism.

Digital platforms are already enabling greater cooperative ownership and direct democratic participation. Big data could be deployed to allow for efficient energy use through better tracking of energy consumption. It also allows for the community ownership of our information and the economy generally. 3D printers have the potential to revolutionise manufacturing so that we can easily and sustainably produce all that we require.

Crucially, open-source technologies which allow for their information to be freely available to use, modify and redistribute, could foster international collaboration and innovation on a scale previously unimaginable. They point to a realistic and utopian “post-capitalist” future that could transcend the need for exploitation based on principles of shared development and collective prosperity.

The rebranding of technology companies is not merely cosmetic, it represents a dangerous attempt to monopolize all forms of technology development linked to a metaverse and the spread of metacapitalism. What is needed instead is a real discussion about fostering open-source culture, data rights and ownership, and the use of technology for positive social transformation – not simply selling more products.

-reuters

Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram suffer worldwide outage

Facebook and its Instagram and WhatsApp platforms were down across wide swathes of the world Monday. Facebook’s internal systems used by employees also went down.

The company said it was aware that “some people are having trouble accessing (the) Facebook app” and it was working on restoring access. Regarding the internal failures, Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, tweeted that it feels like a “snow day.”

The company did not say what might be causing the outage, which began around 11:45 ET. It is normal for websites and apps to suffer outages, though one on a global scale is rare. Users reported being unable to access Facebook in California, New York and Europe.

Doug Madory, director of internet analysis for Kentik Inc., said it appears that the routes Facebook advertises online that tell the entire internet how to reach its properties are not available.

Madory said it looks like the DNS routes that Facebook makes available to the networking world have been withdrawn. The Domain Name System is an integral element of how traffic on the internet is routed. DNS translates an address like “facebook.com” to an IP address like 123.45.67.890. If Facebook’s DNS records have disappeared, no one could find it.

Facebook is going through a separate major crisis after whistleblower Frances Haugen, a former Facebook product manager, provided The Wall Street Journal with internal documents that exposed the company’s awareness of harms caused by of its products and decisions. Haugen went public on “60 Minutes” on Sunday.

Haugen also anonymously filed complaints with federal law enforcement alleging that Facebook’s own research shows how it magnifies hate and misinformation, leads to increased polarization and that Instagram, specifically, can harm teenage girls’ mental health.

The Journal’s stories, called “The Facebook Files,” painted a picture of a company focused on growth and its own interests over the public good. Facebook has tried to play down the research. Nick Clegg, the company’s vice president of policy and public affairs, wrote to Facebook employees in a memo Friday that “social media has had a big impact on society in recent years, and Facebook is often a place where much of this debate plays out.”

Twitter, meanwhile, chimed in from the company’s main Twitter account, posting “hello literally everyone” as jokes and memes about the Facebook outage flooded the platform.

-Associated Press

TikTok ramps up privacy protection for teens

SAN FRANCISCO – TikTok became the latest tech company Thursday to announce tighter protections for teenagers as social media platforms come under increased scrutiny over their privacy safeguards.

The short video-sharing app will roll out a number of features in the coming months, including a default curb for 16 and 17-year-olds on in-app messaging unless it is switched to a different setting.

Under 16s will see a pop-up message when they publish their first video, asking them to choose who can watch.

And users aged 16 and 17 will be able to receive a pop-up asking them to confirm who can download their videos. Downloads are already disabled on content posted by under 16s.

The Chinese-owned platform will also stop sending push notifications to users aged 13 to 16 from 9pm — and an hour later for 16 to 17-year-olds — with the aim of reducing their screen time at night.

The moves announced by head of child safety public policy Alexandra Evans and global head of privacy Aruna Sharma build on previous measures to protect young users from predators, bullies and other online dangers.

“It’s important to ensure even stronger proactive protections to help keep teens safe, and we’ve continually introduced changes to support age-appropriate experiences on our platform,” Evans and Sharma said.

“We want to help our younger teens in particular develop positive digital habits early on.”

Google, YouTube and Facebook-Instagram have all recently bolstered defenses for teen users, while critics have been urging Facebook to abandon plans for a children’s version of Instagram.

TikTok was the world’s most downloaded app last year, overtaking Facebook and its messaging platforms, according to market tracker App Annie.

The video app surged in popularity, according to market tracker App Annie, despite efforts by former president Donald Trump to ban it or force a sale to US-based investors.

Agence France-Presse

Facebook shuts down anti-vaccine influencer campaign

SAN FRANCISCO - Facebook on Tuesday said it shut down a disinformation operation which sought to spread Covid-19 vaccine hoaxes by duping social media influencers into backing false claims.

The leading social network labeled the operation a "disinformation laundromat" which sought to legitimize false claims by pushing them through people with clean reputations.

Influencers who caught onto the sham turned out to be the undoing of a deceitful influence campaign orchestrated by marketing firm Fazze in Russia, according to Facebook.

"The assumption was the influencers wouldn't do any of their own homework, but two did," Facebook global threat intelligence lead Ben Nimmo said while briefing journalists.

"It's really a warning -- be careful when someone is trying to spoon feed you a story. Do your own research."

Facebook said that in July it removed 65 accounts at the leading social network and 243 accounts at photo-centric Instagram that were linked to the campaign, and banned Fazze from its platform.

Fazze is a subsidiary of a AdNow, an advertising company registered in Britain, according to media reports.

The operation targeted primarily India and Latin America, but also took aim at the United States, as governments debated approving vaccines to fight the pandemic, according to Nimmo.

Late last year, the network of fake accounts tried to fuel a false meme that the AstraZeneca vaccine against Covid-19 would turn people into chimpanzees, Facebook reported.

After going quiet for five months, the organizers attacked the safety of the Pfizer vaccine and leaked what it billed as an AstraZeneca document stolen by hacking, Facebook said.

The campaign took advantage of online platforms including Reddit, Medium, Change.org, and Facebook, creating misleading articles and petitions then providing "influencers" with links, hashtags and more to spread vaccine misinformation, according to Nimmo.

"In effect, this campaign functioned as a cross-platform disinformation laundromat," Nimmo said.

CAMPAIGN FELL FLAT

The operation was exposed by influencers in France and Germany who questioned claims made in email pitches from Fazze, prompting journalists to dig into the matter, according to Facebook.

Facebook does not know who hired Fazze for the anti-vaccine campaign, but has shared its findings with regulators, police, and internet industry peers, according to head of security policy Nathaniel Gleicher.

The campaign appeared to fall flat, with almost none of the Instagram posts receiving "likes," and English and Hindi language petitions at Change.org each getting fewer than 1,000 signatures, Facebook said.

The security team at the social network has seen a trend of deceptive influence operations targeting multiple social media platforms and trying to recruit established personalities with followings to spread false messages, according to Gleicher.

"When these operations turn to influencers, they often don't give them full context on who is behind it," Gleicher said during the briefing.

"And when influencers find out, they are eager to blow the whistle."

The news comes amid a spat between Facebook and the US administration over reining in virus misinformation, and government efforts to enlist popular social media characters to promote vaccinations.

Agence France-Presse 

Big Tech booms even as lockdown living wanes

SAN FRANCISCO, United States - Big Tech goliaths like Facebook and Amazon unveiled whopping profits this week, showing their dominance in lockdown lifestyles is on course to grow well beyond the pandemic.

"Tech wins the day, the week, and seemingly the year," Futurum Research analysts said of the surging revenues, driven by digital advertising, cloud computing, gaming and booming use of smartphones and e-commerce.

"The strength of tech is clearly untethered from Covid," they added.

Powerhouses Facebook, Apple, Microsoft and Google parent Alphabet all reported higher revenues even as they face heightened scrutiny from antitrust regulators for their growing dominance of key economic sectors.

Amazon said Thursday that second-quarter profit jumped 48 percent from a year ago to $7.8 billion, even if that showing was below high Wall Street forecasts.

A growing number of consumers turned to Amazon during the pandemic to get everything from tofu to toilet paper, and its cloud computing division also grew to help businesses and consumers stay connected.

The Amazon results capped a series of earnings from the major tech firms that benefited from successive lockdowns, but also the gradual lifting of restrictions.

Earlier in the week, Apple said its profit in the just-ended quarter nearly doubled amid improving consumer spending and a "growing sense of optimism" as pandemic lockdowns eased.

Revenue from iPhone sales jumped some 50 percent and Apple posted increases for its services such as digital payments, music, streaming television and gaming.

Facebook reported its profit doubled in the recently ended quarter as digital advertising surged, but warned of cooler growth in the months ahead in an update which sent its shares sinking.

Google parent Alphabet reported quarterly profit that had nearly tripled, as money poured in from ads on its search engine and YouTube video platform.

'Not going away'

Revenue at the global video-sharing platform topped $7 billion, a leap from the $3.8 billion brought in during the same period a year earlier, according to Alphabet.

Techsponential analyst Avi Greengart told AFP that hybrid work, online entertainment and internet shopping are now facts of life.

"Those are overarching trends that got accelerated by the pandemic but aren't going away," he added.

However, a gradual resumption of in-person activities will require adjustments from Big Tech.

Amazon chief financial officer Brian Olsavsky said on an earnings call that a reason for missing revenue expectations appeared to be vaccines giving people the confidence to leave home.

"Not only shopping offline but also living life and getting out," Olsavsky said. "It takes away from shopping time. It's a good phenomenon and it's great."

Regulators' wary gaze

Alphabet chief executive Sundar Pichai credited long-term investments in artificial intelligence and cloud computing as powering the internet giant's performance.

Google's cloud computing business competes with powerhouses Amazon and Microsoft, poising them to vie for virtual terrain in an immersive online world.

Microsoft this week reported a jump in profits in the recently ended quarter, keeping strong momentum from accelerated gains in cloud computing during the pandemic.

Transition to relying on computing power and services in the internet cloud as well as working remotely are likely to last, playing to the strength of tech giants powering such platforms, according to Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives.

However, a global chip shortage has hobbled production of the wide range of devices enhanced with computing and internet capabilities, from cars to video game consoles.

And, as US tech titans gain clout and wealth, they are increasingly in the crosshairs of government regulators wary of monopolistic abuses and sidestepped taxes.

Despite political pressure, the tech companies continue to spend on bolstering and expanding their offerings.

Amazon made a deal early this year to buy iconic Hollywood studio Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for $8.45 billion in a move aimed at strengthening its Amazon Prime television streaming service.

Apple is working on self-driving car technology, while Alphabet is already testing a "robo-taxi" service in the United States with its Waymo unit.

Agence France-Presse

Can Facebook's $1 billion gamble help it regain lost cool?

Like internet personalities the world over, Kenyan TikTok comedian Mark Mwas was intrigued when Facebook announced a $1 billion plan to pay content creators like him. 

But the 25-year-old, whose following surged past 160,000 as entertainment-starved Kenyans flocked to the app during the pandemic, is sceptical that fans would follow him to the older social network. 

"In our market, Facebook is kinda old-fashioned," said Mwas, who posts skits about campus life in a mixture of Swahili, English, and Sheng slang. 

"Like, Mom is on Facebook and doesn't know what TikTok is," he told AFP in an email. "My content is suited for the millennials, who prefer other platforms." 

Announced last week, Facebook's $1 billion will pay the creators of popular posts, from fashionistas to comedians and video gamers, through 2022.

It is the strongest signal yet that the US social media giant now recognises the strategic importance of the "creator economy". 

YouTube, TikTok and Snapchat have waged an increasingly fierce battle to attract figures with big followings that can in turn attract serious advertising revenues. 

Last November, photo and video app Snapchat began paying $1 million a day to top creators, although the payments have since tapered off. Popular YouTubers have been receiving a slice of the site's billions in ad revenues since 2007. 

Facebook has been comparatively slow on the uptake. While the site began paying popular video-makers in 2017, most vloggers have found YouTube to be far more lucrative. 

Facebook-owned Instagram has meanwhile launched the careers of many a food blogger and fashion influencer, but the app only began sharing its advertising income directly with them last year.

Traditionally, the bulk of Insta-celebrities' earnings has come through product endorsement deals negotiated directly with brands. 

- Late to the influencer party - 

Joe Gagliese, co-founder of international influencer agency Viral Nation, said it was not surprising that Facebook's efforts had lagged behind competitors'.

Founded in 2004, Facebook had already built a hugely lucrative advertising business by the time the phenomenon of full-time internet celebrities emerged at the end of the decade. Courting influencers wasn't crucial to its "primary business", Gagliese said. 

But as creators have headed elsewhere, their predominantly young followings have followed -- contributing to a sense that Facebook, in the eyes of Gen Z, has become an irredeemably uncool website where their parents hang out. 

Facebook's user base is indeed ageing. The proportion of over-65s has shot up roughly a quarter over the past year -- almost double the average, according to the Digital 2021 report from media companies We Are Social and Hootsuite. 

In the meantime, Chinese-owned TikTok was the world's most downloaded app in the first half of 2021.

It has largely replaced Facebook as the driver of international social media crazes -- not least during the pandemic, as bored millions have turned to its dance videos and cooking trends for light relief. 

In this context, Facebook's $1 billion gambit is being seen partly as an attempt to regain cultural relevance and stem the youth exodus. 

"The only way for these platforms to keep their relevance with younger generations is to understand what resonates with them and keep up with the pace of innovation," said Claudia Cameron, head of marketing and insights at Amsterdam-based influencer agency IMA.

"Creators are a very important part of this equation, as they set the tone for what's cool."

- A drop in the ocean? - 

While young users from Iran to Brazil have been flocking elsewhere, industry insiders say it is far too early to regard Facebook as doomed. 

"You can't underestimate them, because they are so powerful when it comes to the tech," said Gagliese. 

Facebook's vast income -- it raked in $84.2 billion in advertising revenues last year, more than the GDP of some countries -- gives it huge funds with which to innovate. 

It is also, despite its relative loss of street cred, still growing, with 2.8 billion monthly users worldwide. 

Gagliese suggested Facebook should be spending far more on its efforts to lure internet stars from other platforms. 

"Unless Facebook leans in really hard -- I'm talking, 'way more than a billion dollars' hard -- it's going to be very hard for them to attract all these new creators," he said. 

Facebook has yet to outline detailed plans for the $1 billion, but Cameron pointed out that a large chunk will likely be distributed via Instagram, which still enjoys a "cool" factor.

That would be good news for TikTok comedian Mwas, who also has a sizeable following there. 

"I'm taking a wait-and-see approach," he said.

Agence France-Presse

WhatsApp tests breaking free from smartphones

SAN FRANCISCO, United States - Facebook-owned messaging service WhatsApp has announced the launch of a trial aimed at freeing its users from smartphones.

In a blog post on, Facebook engineers said the new feature would allow for the hugely popular service be used on multiple "non-phone" devices without needing to connect to the smartphone app. 

"With this new capability, you can now use WhatsApp on your phone and up to four other non-phone devices simultaneously - even if your phone battery is dead," the blog post said.

Since its launch in 2009 as a smartphone messaging app, WhatsApp has amassed more than two billion users around the world and been acquired by Facebook.

WhatsApp can already be used on "companion devices," such as computers, but exchanges are routed in such a way that if a person's smartphone is offline or has zero battery, it won't work.

Other issues can arise as well, such as frequent disconnection. 

"The new WhatsApp multi-device architecture removes these hurdles" by no longer requiring a smartphone to perform every operation, the company said. 

The new capability will be expanded more broadly as it is refined, Facebook added.

It also made assurances that WhatsApp's security measures will still work under the new system. 

"Each companion device will connect to your WhatsApp independently while maintaining the same level of privacy and security through end-to-end encryption that people who use WhatsApp have come to expect."

Agence France-Presse

Facebook exec Fidji Simo named new chief of Instacart

SAN FRANCISCO, United States - High-ranking Facebook executive Fidji Simo put out word on Thursday that she has taken a new job as chief of Instacart grocery delivery service in the gig economy.

Instacart founder and chief Apoorva Mehta confirmed the hire, saying Simo will take the Instacart helm on August 2 as he transitions to chairman of the board.

"I'm so excited to join the Instacart team as CEO, and grateful to Apoorva for the trust he is putting in me," Simo said in a tweet.

San Francisco-based Instacart bills itself as the leading online grocery platform in North America, its shoppers picking up groceries and essentials from nearly 55,000 stores and delivering them across more than 5,500 cities.

"What started as a simple idea when I had nothing to eat but Sriracha in my apartment has transformed the grocery industry," Mehta said in a post.

"Today millions of households across North America depend on us for their weekly shopping."

He contended that Simo has been part of "every big moment" at Facebook during the past decade, leading the app at the core of the leading social network.

Simo, who was born in France, grew up in a family that made its living by fishing, giving her a strong work ethic and an appreciation for the power of food to bring people together, Mehta maintained.

"I’ve been blown away by her capabilities as a leader," Mehta.

"Fidji will simply be a better CEO than me for Instacart’s coming years."

Instacart last month announced its expansion to Quebec, operating in French there instead of English.

"We’re proud to introduce Instacart’s first-ever French-language experience in Quebec," Instacart retail vice president Chris Rogers said at the time.

Online shopping soared during the pandemic as people avoided real-world stores.

As head of Facebook app, Simo was involved in features or offerings involving games, dating, news, marketplace, groups and more.

"Instacart has transformed the way people eat and solved a truly essential need for millions of families like my own – access to food,” Simo said in a release.

"I’m excited to work with the talented teams at Instacart, as well as our retail partners, to reimagine the future of grocery, and create a world where everyone has access to the food they love and more time to enjoy it together."

Agence France-Presse

Facebook in turmoil over refusal to police Trump's posts

The clash between Twitter and Donald Trump has thrust rival Facebook into turmoil, with employees rebelling against CEO Mark Zuckerberg's refusal to sanction false or inflammatory posts by the US president.

Some Facebook employees put out word of a "virtual walkout" to take place Monday to protest, according to tweeted messages.

"As allies we must stand in the way of danger, not behind. I will be participating in today's virtual walkout in solidarity with the black community," tweeted Sara Zhang, one of the Facebook employees in the action.

Nearly all Facebook employees are working remotely due to the pandemic.

"We recognize the pain many of our people are feeling right now, especially our Black community," Facebook said in response to the AFP request for comment.

"We encourage employees to speak openly when they disagree with leadership."

Facebook was aware some workers planned the virtual walkout and did not plan to dock their pay.

"Mark is wrong, and I will endeavor in the loudest possible way to change his mind," Ryan Freitas, the design director of Facebook's News Feed, tweeted Sunday, adding that he was organizing about 50 other employees who share his view.


At the root of the discord is Twitter's unprecedented intervention last week when it tagged two Trump tweets about mail-in ballots with messages urging people to "get the facts."

Zuckerberg reacted by telling Fox News that private social media platforms "shouldn't be the arbiter of truth of everything that people say online." Trump retweeted the interview.

On Friday, Twitter responded once again to a Trump tweet, this time after he used the platform to warn protesters outraged by the death at police hands of an unarmed black man that "when the looting starts, the shooting starts."

Twitter covered up the tweet with a message warning it "violated Twitter Rules about glorifying violence." Viewers had to click on the message to see the underlying tweet.

The message also was posted on Facebook, but Zuckerberg decided to let it stand unchallenged.

"I've been struggling with how to respond to the President's tweets and posts all day," he wrote Friday in a post.

"Personally, I have a visceral negative reaction to this kind of divisive and inflammatory rhetoric."

But, Zuckerberg went on to say that "our position is that we should enable as much expression as possible unless it will cause imminent risk of specific harms or dangers spelled out in clear policies."

- Network in revolt -

Twitter and Facebook both have in place systems to combat disinformation and dangerous content -- appeals to hatred, harassment, incitement to violence and the like.

But Facebook exempts political personalities and candidates from these restrictions.

Zuckerberg's position has not gone down well with many of his employees.


"I don't know what to do, but I know doing nothing is not acceptable," Jason Stirman, a member of Facebook's research and development team, wrote on Twitter.

Other Facebook employees spoke out on Sunday.

David Gillis, a member of the design team who specializes in product safety and integrity, said he believed Trump's looting and shooting tweet "encourages extra-judicial violence and racism."

"While I understand why we chose to stay squarely within the four corners of our violence and incitement policy, I think it would have been right for us to make a 'spirit of the policy' exception that took more context into account," he wrote.

Nate Butler, a Facebook product designer, added: "I need to be clear – FB is on the wrong side of this and I can't support their stance. Doing nothing isn't Being Bold. Many of us feel this way."

- A presidential call -

To make matters worse, US media revealed Sunday that Zuckerberg and Trump spoke by telephone on Friday.

The conversation was "productive," unnamed sources told the Axios news outlet and CNBC. Facebook would neither confirm nor deny the reports.

The call "destroys" the idea that Facebook is a "neutral arbiter," said Evelyn Douek, a researcher at Harvard Law School.

Like other experts, she questioned whether Facebook's new oversight board, formed last month to render independent judgments on content, will have the clout to intervene.

On Saturday, the board offered assurances it was aware there were "many significant issues related to online content" that people want it to consider.

Facebook, meanwhile, is directly affected by Trump's counter-attack against Twitter.

The president signed a decree Thursday attacking one of the legal pillars of the US internet, Section 230, which shields digital platforms from lawsuits linked to content posted by third parties while giving them the freedom to intervene as they please to police the exchanges.

Agence France-Presse

Facebook exec says it helped put Trump in White House

LAS VEGAS, United States — A senior Facebook executive on Tuesday said the world's biggest social network unintentionally helped put Donald Trump in the White House but warned against dramatic rule changes.

The Trump campaign did effectively use Facebook to rally support for his presidential run, and the social network should be mindful of that without making moves that stifle free political discourse, Andrew Bosworth said in a lengthy post on his personal Facebook page triggered by The New York Times publishing an internal memo he wrote.

"So was Facebook responsible for Donald Trump getting elected?" Bosworth asked.

"I think the answer is yes, but not for the reasons anyone thinks."

Bosworth contended Trump was not elected because of Russia or misinformation or Cambridge Analytica, but rather because he ran "the single best digital ad campaign I've ever seen from any advertiser."

He went on to say that, since Facebook has the same ad policies in place now, the outcome of the 2020 election could be the same as it was four years ago.

"As tempting as it is to use the tools available to us to change the outcome, I am confident we must never do that or we will become that which we fear," Bosworth wrote.

That doesn't mean Facebook should not draw a line when it comes to how it is used, he reasoned. Clearly inciting violence, thwarting voting, and other blatant transgressions should be banned, but voters should be trusted to decide what kind of leaders they want to elect, according to Bosworth.

"If we don’t want hate-mongering politicians then we must not elect them," Bosworth wrote.

"If we change the outcomes without winning the minds of the people who will be ruled then we have a democracy in name only. If we limit what information people have access to and what they can say then we have no democracy at all."

source: philstar.com

US urges countries to suspend digital taxes

Washington – US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is urging countries like France to suspend taxes on global computing giants such as Google and Amazon and wait for a negotiated agreement on international taxation, according to a letter released Wednesday.

As the United States is poised to impose tariffs of up to 100 percent on $2.4 billion in French products over that country’s digital services tax, Mnuchin said talks in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development are key to resolving the issue.

“We believe that it is very important that these talks reach agreement in order to prevent the proliferation of unilateral measures, like digital services taxes, which threaten the longstanding multilateral consensus on international taxation,” Mnuchin said in a letter to OECD chief Jose Angel Gurria.


“We urge all countries to suspend digital services tax initiatives in order to allow the OECD to successfully reach a multilateral agreement,” he said in the letter, which was dated Tuesday.

US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer on Monday released a report slamming France’s tax as discriminatory and designed to target American tech giants like Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon.


He said Washington would proceed quickly with plans to impose tariffs on French products, including champagne, cosmetics, yogurt and Roquefort cheese.

The decision “sends a clear signal that the United States will take action against digital tax regimes that discriminate or otherwise impose undue burdens on US companies,” Lighthizer said in a statement on Monday.

The French tax imposes a three percent levy on the revenues earned by technology firms in France, which often come from online advertising and other digital services.


It targets revenue instead of profits, which are often reported by tech giants in low-tax jurisdictions like Ireland or Luxembourg in a practice that has enraged governments.

Lighthizer’s office said it is considering widening the investigation to look into similar taxes in Austria, Italy and Turkey.

Mnuchin said there is “broad support” for providing greater certainty on taxation.

“We look forward to working with the OECD along these lines, building on the work already done.”

A top EU official expressed concern this week that President Donald Trump’s administration was planning to pull out of the multilateral talks, so Mnuchin’s support for the talks come as a relief.

Cedric O, France’s secretary of state for the digital economy, also told AFP in Washington on Tuesday that France believed there was still time to stave off the threatened of tariffs.

“The first and foremost objective that we have is to strike a deal at the OECD,” he said, insisting that the current row was “not the end of the story.”

source: philstar.com

400 million Facebook users' phone numbers exposed in privacy lapse, reports say

WASHINGTON, United States — Phone numbers linked to more than 400 million Facebook accounts were listed online in the latest privacy lapse for the social media giant, US media reported Wednesday.

An exposed server stored 419 million records on users across several databases -- including 133 million US accounts, more than 50 million in Vietnam, and 18 million in Britain, according to technology news site TechCrunch.

The databases listed Facebook user IDs -- unique digits attached to each account -- the profiles' phone numbers, as well as the gender listed by some accounts and their geographical locations, technology website TechCrunch reported.


The server was not password protected, meaning anyone could access the databases, and remained online until late Wednesday when TechCrunch contacted the site's host.

Facebook confirmed parts of the report but downplayed the extent of the exposure, saying that the number of accounts so far confirmed was around half of the reported 419 million.

It added that many of the entries were duplicates and that the data was old.

"The dataset has been taken down and we have seen no evidence that Facebook accounts were compromised," a Facebook spokesperson told AFP.

Following the 2018 Cambridge Analytica scandal, when a firm used Facebook's lax privacy settings to access millions of users' personal details, the company disabled a feature that allowed users to search the platform by phone numbers.

The exposure of a user's phone number leaves them vulnerable to spam calls, SIM-swapping -- as recently happened to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey -- with hackers able to force-reset the passwords of the compromised accounts.

source: philstar.com

Facebook services back online after worldwide outage

SAN FRANCISCO, United States — Facebook said it was "back at 100 percent" Wednesday evening after an outage on all of its services affected users in various parts of the world.

Online monitoring service DownDetector reported earlier the outage began around 1200 GMT and affected Facebook as well as its Instagram and WhatsApp services.

"The issue has since been resolved and we should be back at 100% for everyone," the company tweeted at 0006 GMT Thursday, adding they were sorry for "any inconvenience."


A Facebook spokesperson, also speaking on behalf of Instagram and WhatsApp, explained that a "routine maintenance operation" accidentally triggered a bug that made it difficult for users to upload or send photos and videos, US media reported.

#Facebookdown and #instagramdown were trending on Twitter as users around the world reported these apps were not functioning.

According to DownDetector, thousands of users around the world were reporting outages, with Europe and North America most impacted. Both individual users as well as businesses and organizations were affected.

"Yes, we are affected by #instagramdown, too," the CIA tweeted during the outage.

"No, we didn't cause it. No, we can't fix yours. Did you try turning it off and back on again?"

Earlier this year, an outage lasting as long as 24 hours that hit Facebook services was blamed on a "server configuration change."

The March 13 outage was believed to be the worst ever for the internet giant, which reaches an estimated 2.7 billion people with its core social network, Instagram and messaging applications.

The company did not immediately respond to an AFP query on Wednesday's outage.

source: philstar.com

Netflix chief Hastings to leave Facebook board

SAN FRANCISCO, United States — Netflix chief Reed Hastings will depart Facebook's board of directors at the end of next month, according to a Friday filing with US regulators by the leading social network.

Neither Hastings nor businessman and political figure Erskine Bowles, who have been on the board since 2011, will be nominated for re-election at an annual shareholders meeting on May 30, Facebook said in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

Hastings' departure comes as the social network prioritizes services such as live streaming and on-demand video that compete with Netflix.


Facebook said it had nominated PayPal core markets senior vice president Peggy Alford to join its board, making the tech industry veteran the first African-American woman to join its ranks.

"Peggy is one of those rare people who's an expert across many different areas -- from business management to finance operations to product development," Facebook co-founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said in the filing.


"I know she will have great ideas that help us address both the opportunities and challenges facing our company."

Facebook's board members include Zuckerberg, investor Marc Andreessen, chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg, and Peter Thiel of the Founders Fund.

"What excites me about the opportunity to join Facebook's board is the company's drive and desire to face hard issues head-on while continuing to improve on the amazing connection experiences they have built over the years," Alford said in the filing.

Facebook has been grappling with questions over its handling of personal data of its more than two billion users and protects against -- as well as concerns the social network is used to spread misinformation and abuse.

source: philstar.com

FB moves vs indiscriminate sharing of intimate content

MANILA, Philippines — Facebook users sharing intimate images without the consent of owners may find their accounts disabled, the social media company said.

Antigone Davis, Facebook’s global head of safety, said they recently launched a new detection technology to strengthen efforts to remove non-consensual intimate images on their platforms, including on Messenger and Instagram.

“Finding these images goes beyond detecting nudity on our platforms. By using machine learning and artificial intelligence, we can now proactively detect near nude images or videos that are shared without permission on Facebook and Instagram,” she said.


“This means we can find this content before anyone reports it, which is important for two reasons: often victims are afraid of retribution so they are reluctant to report the content themselves or are unaware the content has been shared,” she added.

Davis said a specially-trained member of the community operations team will review the content found by their technology, resulting in its removal and disabling of the account of those who shared it if found to be in violation of community standards.


The Facebook official said the new detection technology is in addition to an existing program that allows people to securely submit a photo to Facebook that they do not want to be shared on the platform.

“We then create a digital fingerprint of that image and stop it from ever being shared on our platform in the first place. After receiving positive feedback from victims and support organizations, we will expand this pilot over the coming months so more people can benefit from this option in an emergency,” Davis said.

The social media company also launched a support hub where victims can find organizations and resources to support them, including steps they can take to remove the content from the platform and prevent it from being shared further.

“We’re also going to make it easier and more intuitive for victims to report when their intimate images were shared on Facebook. And over the coming months, we’ll build a victim support toolkit to give people around the world more information with locally and culturally relevant support,” Davis added.

Impact on victims

A research conducted by Facebook highlighted the serious emotional and physical consequences of sharing intimate images without consent to victims.

“Sometimes called ‘revenge porn,’ it’s really a form of sexual violence that can be motivated by an intent to control, shame, humiliate, extort and terrorize victims,” said Radha Iyengar and Karuna Nain, Facebook’s head of product policy research and manager for global safety policy programs, respectively.

They said the consequences that victims face vary, depending on the cultural context, although all felt violated, angry and embarrassed.

“Victims in more traditional communities may be shunned and exiled from their communities. Organizations we’ve worked with reported cases in which victims were forced to run away from home to avoid persecution and even physical harm,” they said.

“And many countries lack established support organizations, or viable law enforcement solutions,” they added.

Iyengar and Nain underscored the need to build clear and accessible tools to support victims in reporting a violation.

They also recommended the development of prevention methods such as tools to report and proactively block someone from sharing non-consensual images.

“They are scared and worried that their family, friends and co-workers will see the images. In fact, harm for the victims continues long after the images are removed,” noted the company executives.

“The mental health consequences include anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts and sometimes post-traumatic stress disorders. There can be economic and professional consequences for victims, including lost jobs, fewer professional connections and colleagues who tease or avoid them. It can also be difficult finding new employment,” they added.

source: philstar.com

Video recaps of all NBA games coming to Facebook Watch

MANILA, Philippines – The NBA, with one of the world's largest Facebook communities, will make video recaps of every league game available on Facebook Watch, according to NBA Digital.

The league, which resumes regular-season play Thursday (Friday) following a break for Sunday's NBA All-Star Game, has 400 million followers across all league, team and player Facebook accounts.

In addition to NBA video recaps, Facebook Watch will feature game recaps for all Women's NBA, developmental G League and NBA 2K League contests, including the NBA Summer League plus pre-season and playoff matchups.


The NBA also will host a weekly Watch Party on Facebook, allowing fans worldwide to watch and interact with game recaps and videos in real-time.

WNBA, G League and NBA 2K League Watch Parties will be held monthly.


"We are excited to provide our millions of followers on Facebook with recaps to every game," said Sam Farber, NBA Vice President, Digital Media.

"Basketball fans around the world can interact in real-time and share in their passion for the game."

The online community debate around NBA contests is an offering that excites Devi Mahadevia, Facebook North America Sports Programming Lead.

"The NBA boasts one of the most vibrant sports communities on our platform," Mahadevia said. "By delivering these game recaps and hosting a weekly Watch Party, the league will be able to engage with fans around the world in new and exciting ways."

source: philstar.com