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Facebookâs parent company Meta has been called out over the muting of an Arabic word on its platforms.Â
An oversight board has made a recommendation to Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Threads, and Instagram to loosen their blanket restrictions on the Arabic word âshaheedâ. Meta had enacted a blanket ban on the word, reviewing it in 2020, and removing it from the posts of people on the platform that were deemed dangerous. In a statement, the âblunt methodâ was regarded as  âoverbroad and disproportionately restricts freedom of expression and civic discourse,â wrote Oversight Board member Helle Thorning-Schmidt, saying it ignored the complexities of the word and settled for one definition meaning âmartyrâ.
The groupâs findings declared the ban unnecessary given the companyâs established policies that can already address any danger posed by terrorist organizations and individuals on the platform when used properly. The board finalized their decision to make the recommendation after the beginning of the Israel-Hamas conflict on October 7, 2023, which currently has seen 32,000 Palestinians killed according to the Gaza Health Ministry after members of Hamas invaded an area of southern Gaza and killed or taken hostage 1,400 people. They had extended research on âshaheedâ but still agreed on the recommendation.
âThe term is used in many circumstances, but the vast majority of those referred to as Shaheed are civilians,â said Nadim Nashif, the executive director of The Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media. Thorning-Schmidt agreed, stating that the restriction stops legitimate usage of the word in reporting on discussions of terrorism and violence. âIt can even lead to those speaking about deceased loved ones having their content taken down in error,â he said.
Jewish advocacy groups have come out against any potential change, claiming that softening the restrictions would enable more antisemitism on the platforms. âThese calls to terror and violence will be normalized and, more importantly, more people will be exposed to them, possibly leading to additional violence at a time there is already a lot of violence and targeted antisemitic attacks,â said Tal-Or Cohen Montemayor, the founder of CyberWell, an Israeli nonprofit group that tracks antisemitism online. Montemayor said that it flagged over 300 usages of âshaheedâ in antisemitic posts on Facebook since October 7.
âWe want people to be able to use our platforms to share their views, and we have a set of policies to help them do so safely,â Meta said in a statement. They also said that they would review the feedback theyâve collected and make a decision in 60 days.
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As Carlee Russell recovers after going missing last week and being found in Alabama, her boyfriend expressed how she spent two days fighting for her life.
The country was riveted as word spread of the disappearance of Alabama nursing student Carlee Russell after she made an emergency call to help a toddler on the side of a highway. Many social media users, eager to help find the missing young Black woman, helped to spur the search for her afterward until late Saturday night when Russell arrived back at her home. Her boyfriend, Thomar Latrell Simmons, wrote a Facebook post shortly after expressing his relief and also shedding some light on the ordeal.
âShe was literally fighting for her life for 48 hours, so until sheâs physically & mentally stable again she is not able to give any updates or whereabouts on her kidnapper at this very moment,â he wrote.
The post created Sunday (July 16) contains pictures of Simmons and Russell together. He continued: âI have been going nonstop since I received the call that she was missing on Thursday night. I know she wouldâve done the same for me, so I wasnât going to give up until I saw her face again!â
Simmons expressed his thanks to all of those concerned including family and friends who helped with the search and even addressed those skeptical of Russellâs disappearance or speculating he had a hand in it. âI was straight tunnel vision, even when I would get on social media on my downtime & see some of the false allegations & assumptions about me having something to do with her abduction would have me discouraged at times I didnât give up & kept my faith!â he wrote.
Carlee Russell was taken to UAB Hospital from her home in Hoover after she arrived for a medical examination. Authorities say that the investigation will be a âtedious process,â and Russellâs parents have declined to talk about where she was for those 48 hours. Talitha Russell, Carleeâs mother, did express annoyance over those skeptical of her daughterâs disappearance and return in an interview with the Today show. âI just didnât know people could be so evil,â she said. âSheâs having to deal with the trauma of people making completely false allegations about her.â
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The European Union slapped Meta with a record $1.3 billion privacy fine Monday and ordered it to stop transferring users personal information across the Atlantic by October, the latest salvo in a decadelong case sparked by U.S. cybersnooping fears.
The penalty of 1.2 billion euros is the biggest since the EUâs strict data privacy regime took effect five years ago, surpassing Amazonâs 746 million euro fine in 2021 for data protection violations.
Meta, which had previously warned that services for its users in Europe could be cut off, vowed to appeal and ask courts to immediately put the decision on hold.
The company said âthere is no immediate disruption to Facebook in Europe.â The decision applies to user data like names, email and IP addresses, messages, viewing history, geolocation data and other information that Meta â and other tech giants like Google â use for targeted online ads.
âThis decision is flawed, unjustified and sets a dangerous precedent for the countless other companies transferring data between the EU and U.S.,â Nick Clegg, Metaâs president of global affairs, and chief legal officer Jennifer Newstead said in a statement.
Itâs yet another twist in a legal battle that began in 2013 when Austrian lawyer and privacy activist Max Schrems filed a complaint about Facebookâs handling of his data following former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowdenâs revelations of electronic surveillance by U.S. security agencies. That included the disclosure that Facebook gave the agencies access to the personal data of Europeans.
The saga has highlighted the clash between Washington and Brussels over the differences between Europeâs strict view on data privacy and the comparatively lax regime in the U.S., which lacks a federal privacy law. The EU has been a global leader in reining in the power of Big Tech with a series of regulations forcing them police their platforms more strictly and protect usersâ personal information.
An agreement covering EU-U.S. data transfers known as the Privacy Shield was struck down in 2020 by the EUâs top court, which said it didnât do enough to protect residents from the U.S. governmentâs electronic prying. Mondayâs decision confirmed that another tool to govern data transfers â stock legal contracts â was also invalid.
Brussels and Washington signed a deal last year on a reworked Privacy Shield that Meta could use, but the pact is awaiting a decision from European officials on whether it adequately protects data privacy.
EU institutions have been reviewing the agreement, and the blocâs lawmakers this month called for improvements, saying the safeguards arenât strong enough.
The Irelandâs Data Protection Commission handed down the fine as Metaâs lead privacy regulator in the 27-nation bloc because the Silicon Valley tech giantâs European headquarters is based in Dublin.
The Irish watchdog said it gave Meta five months to stop sending European user data to the U.S. and six months to bring its data operations into compliance âby ceasing the unlawful processing, including storage, in the U.S.â of European usersâ personal data transferred in violation of the blocâs privacy rules.
If the new transatlantic privacy agreement takes effect before these deadlines, âour services can continue as they do today without any disruption or impact on users,â Meta said.
Schrems predicted that Meta has âno real chanceâ of getting the decision materially overturned. And a new privacy pact might not mean the end of Metaâs troubles, because thereâs a good chance it could be tossed out by the EUâs top court, he said.
âMeta plans to rely on the new deal for transfers going forward, but this is likely not a permanent fix,â Schrems said in a statement. âUnless U.S. surveillance laws gets fixed, Meta will likely have to keep EU data in the EU.â
Meta warned in its latest earnings report that without a legal basis for data transfers, it will be forced to stop offering its products and services in Europe, âwhich would materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.â
The social media company might have to carry out a costly and complex revamp of its operations if itâs forced to stop shipping user data across the Atlantic. Meta has a fleet of 21 data centers, according to its website, but 17 of them are in the United States. Three others are in the European nations of Denmark, Ireland and Sweden. Another is in Singapore.
Other social media giants are facing pressure over their data practices. TikTok has tried to soothe Western fears about the Chinese-owned short video sharing appâs potential cybersecurity risks with a $1.5 billion project to store U.S. user data on Oracle servers.
Facebook parent Meta is slashing 10,000 jobs, about as many as the social media company announced late last year in its first round of cuts, as uncertainly about the global economy hits the technology sector particularly hard.
The company announced 11,000 job cuts in November, about 13% of its workforce at the time. In addition to the layoffs, Meta said Tuesday that it would not fill 5,000 open positions.
âThis will be tough and thereâs no way around that,â said CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
Meta and other tech companies have been hiring aggressively for at least two years and in recent months have begun to let some of those workers go. Hiring in the U.S. is still strong, but layoffs have hit hard in some sectors.
Early last month, Meta posted falling profits and its third consecutive quarter of declining revenue. On the same day, the company said that it would buy back as much as $40 billion of its own stock.
The Menlo Park, company said Tuesday it will reduce the size of its recruiting team and make further cuts in its tech groups in late April, and then its business groups in late May.
Zuckerberg has invested tens of billions of dollars building out its metaverse, its virutal reality concept, and renamed the company Meta, signaling a new focus for Facebook.
âAs Iâve talked about efficiency this year, Iâve said that part of our work will involve removing jobs â and that will be in service of both building a leaner, more technical company and improving our business performance to enable our long term vision,â said Zuckerberg.
The biggest tech companies in the U.S. are cutting costs elsewhere, too.
This month, Amazon paused construction on its second headquarters in Virginia following the biggest round of layoffs in the companyâs history and its shifting plans around remote work.
Global inflation has remained stubborn and its made for more difficult decisions for both households and businesses in the U.S.
Fast growth companies, including many in the technology sector, are hunkering down for what may be an extended period of adverse economic conditions.
âAt this point, I think we should prepare ourselves for the possibility that this new economic reality will continue for many years,â Zuckerberg said in a message to employees.
Meta shares rose nearly 7% Tuesday.
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Source: Anadolu Agency / Getty / Meta Verified
Desperate times call for desperate measures. Mark Zuckerberg has been catching nothing but Ls since he announced he was changing the name of Facebook to Meta and was going all in on the VR market. Now heâs taking a page out of Elon Muskâs book with his latest move.
Rumors began circulating on Elon Muskâs Twitter and BeyoncĂŠâs internet that Mark Zuckerbergâs Meta would unveil its own Twitter Blue clone to give Facebook and Instagram users verification badges for a price.
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That rumor was accurate, and the new subscription service is called Meta Verified Engadget reports. Mark Zuckerberg announced his new broadcast channel (Instagramâs latest feature) that Meta Verified is coming whether we care for it or not.
According to Zuckerberg, those who cough up the money will get a verification badge, increased profile visibility, additional impersonation protection, and direct access to customer support.
âThis feature is about increasing authenticity and security across our services,â Zuck said in his post. He also revealed that Meta Verified would be tested in Australia and New Zealand before the company rolls it out to other countries.
The service will also cost iOS and Android users $15 and $12 on the web minus the app store commission fees.
Unlike Twitter Blueâs sloppy rollout, Meta hopes to curb people from making fake accounts for notable companies. Potential Meta Verified users must be 18 or older and present a valid government-issued ID matching their name and profile photo on their Facebook and Instagram accounts.
Once you get verified, you canât change your profile name, username, date of birth, or photo and must repeat the verification process.
Already verified accounts before the announcement will keep their status due to their notability.
Some Other Ridiculous Meta Verified Perks
Engadget also reports subscribers will receive 100 free stars, a digital currency we have never heard of, to tip content creators on Facebook.
Meta Verified subscribers could access exclusive stickers and reels for their Instagram Stories and Reels.
Will you sign up? Or is this a hard pass?
It sounds like another bad idea from the mind of Mark Zuckerberg.
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Photo: Anadolu Agency / Getty
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Former President Donald Trump will be allowed back on Facebook and Instagram, after a ruling by their parent company Meta to reinstate his accounts after two years.
The decision was announced Wednesday (Jan. 25) in a statement posted to Metaâs website. Trump was banned from the social media platforms Jan. 7, 2021âthe day after a mob of his supporters had stormed the U.S. Capitol causing a riot. That decision was made due to high concerns that his posts could run the risk of inciting more violence. Twitter and YouTube also suspended his accounts that week.
âThe public should be able to hear what their politicians are saying â the good, the bad, and the ugly â so that they can make informed choices at the ballot box,â said Nick Clegg, Metaâs president of global affairs in the statement.
âBut that does not mean there are no limits to what people can say on our platform.â The statement goes on to say that Trump faces sterner penalties for any future violations, which would result in another suspension of up to two years depending on how severe the infraction is.
The move comes as Twitter reinstated Trumpâs account late last year after tech billionaire Elon Musk acquired the platform. American Civil Liberties Union Executive Director Anthony D. Romero said that the decision was âthe right callâ given Trumpâs position as a political figure.
âWhile the government cannot force platforms to carry certain speech, that doesnât mean the largest platforms should engage in political censorship,â he remarked. In a post to the right-wing social media platform Truth Social, Trump wrote that the âde-platformingâ he experienced should ânever again happen to a sitting President, or anybody else who is not deserving retribution!â
But there are many more who criticized Metaâs decision, claiming that it illustrates a double standard when it comes to high-profile people. Democratic lawmakers and disinformation experts cite that Trump still presents a danger with his rhetoric, especially as he campaigns for the White House in 2024.
âThe Capitol community is still picking up the pieces from the Jan. 6 insurrection that Trump ignited, and now he is returning to the virtual scene of the crime,â said Illinois congresswoman Jan Schakowsky in a statement.
Facebook parent Meta is laying off 11,000 people, about 13% of its workforce, as it contends with faltering revenue and broader tech industry woes, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a letter to employees Wednesday.
The job cuts come just a week after widespread layoffs at Twitter under its new owner, billionaire Elon Musk. There have been numerous job cuts at other tech companies that hired rapidly during the pandemic.
Zuckerberg as well said that he had made the decision to hire aggressively, anticipating rapid growth even after the pandemic ended.
âUnfortunately, this did not play out the way I expected,â Zuckerberg said in a prepared statement. âNot only has online commerce returned to prior trends, but the macroeconomic downturn, increased competition, and ads signal loss have caused our revenue to be much lower than Iâd expected. I got this wrong, and I take responsibility for that.â
Meta, like other social media companies, enjoyed a financial boost during the pandemic lockdown era because more people stayed home and scrolled on their phones and computers. But as the lockdowns ended and people started going outside again, revenue growth began to falter.
Of particular concern to investors, Meta poured over $10 billion a year into the âmetaverseâ as it shifts its focus away from social media. Zuckerberg predicts the metaverse, an immersive digital universe, will eventually replace smartphones as the primary way people use technology.
Spooked investors have sent company shares tumbling more than 71% since the beginning of the year and the stock now trades at levels last seen in 2015.
An economic slowdown and a grim outlook for online advertising â by far Metaâs biggest revenue source â have contributed to Metaâs woes as well. This summer, Meta posted its first quarterly revenue decline in history, followed by another, bigger decline in the fall.
Some of the pain is company-specific, while some is tied to broader economic and technological forces.
Last week, Twitter laid off about half of its 7,500 employees, part of a chaotic overhaul as Musk took the helm. He tweeted that there was no choice but to cut the jobs âwhen the company is losing over $4M/day,â though did not provide details about the losses.
Meta and its advertisers are bracing for a potential recession. Thereâs also the challenge of Appleâs privacy tools, which make it more difficult for social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Snap to track people without their consent and target ads to them.
Competition from TikTok is also an a growing threat as younger people flock to the video sharing app over Instagram, which Meta also owns.
âWeâve cut costs across our business, including scaling back budgets, reducing perks, and shrinking our real estate footprint,â Zuckerberg said. âWeâre restructuring teams to increase our efficiency. But these measures alone wonât bring our expenses in line with our revenue growth, so Iâve also made the hard decision to let people go.â
A hiring freeze at the company will be extended through the first quarter of 2023, Zuckerberg said. The company has also slashed its real estate footprint and he said that with so many employees working outside of the office, the company will transition to desk sharing for those that remain.
More cost cuts at Meta will be rolled out in coming months, Zuckerberg said.
Zuckerberg told employees Wednesday that they will receive an email letting them know if they are among those being let go. Access to most company systems will be cut off for people losing their jobs, he said, due to the sensitive nature of that information.
âWeâre keeping email addresses active throughout the day so everyone can say farewell,â Zuckerberg said.
Former employees will receive 16 weeks of base pay, plus two additional weeks for every year with the company, Zuckerberg said. Health insurance for those employees and their families will continue for six months.
Shares of Meta Platforms Inc. jumped almost 5% before the opening bell Wednesday.
Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, reported $27.7 billion in second-quarter revenue, down 4 percent compared to the same quarter a year ago, continuing a trend of ad-supported tech companies feeling the pain of a tougher macroeconomic environment and renewed competition from competitors like TikTok.
However, the company beat Wall Street expectations for revenue. The company had previously forecast revenue of $26 billionâ28.5 billion for the quarter, so it met its own guidance.
Going forward, however, things look tough. The company forecast Q4 revenue of $30-32.5 billion, below Wall Street expectations, sending its share price lower after hours.
Meta net income fell by 52 percent to $4.4 billion, while its daily active user base rose by 4 percent to 2.93 billion.
The company is in the midst of a strategic pivot toward the âmetaverse,â which it seems to define as being driven by virtual reality and augmented reality. However, its early efforts in the space remain niche, even as it has committed billions of dollars toward investing in the space.
In its Q3 earnings report, the company said it was making âsignificant changes across the board to operate more efficiently,â including shrinking some teams and keeping others flat, so that it is âinvesting headcount growth only in our highest priorities.â
Those priorities will include developing its AI discovery engine, its ads and business messaging platforms, and its future investment in the metaverse.
In the near-term, the company expects savings as it ârationalizesâ its office footprint.
The AI discovery engine is particularly relevant to Metaâs TikTok competitor Reels, which CEO Mark Zuckerberg says is stealing time spent from the other app. Reels is now a $3 billion annual run rate business, he added.
When the discovery engine is built out, the company will be able to ârecommend photos, text, links, communities, short and long form videos, alongside posts from family and friends,â Zuckerberg said, differentiating it from TikTok.
âWhile we face near term challenges on revenue, the fundamentals are there for a return to stronger revenue growth,â Zuckerberg added in a statement. âWeâre approaching 2023 with a focus on prioritization and efficiency that will help us navigate the current environment and emerge an even stronger company.â
Still, on the companyâs earnings call, Zuckerberg also projected some optimism, telling analysts that âour product trends look better from what I see than what some of the commentary suggests.â
On Facebook specifically, the number of people using it each day is the highest it has ever been,â he added, noting that it now has nearly 2 billion users, and that WhatsAppâs fastest-growing region is now North America.
Metaâs quarterly report follows similarly disappointing results from Snap and Alphabet, which have also been feeling the pinch of the advertising environment. Snap cut about 20% of its staff last quarter, and saw its losses widen, as it seeks to restructure. It did, however, see double digit user growth.
Alphabet, the owner of YouTube and Google, also missed expectations, with YouTube revenue falling year-over-year for the first time since it was broken out by the company.
This article was originally published on THR.com.
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