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July 27 (Reuters) - Reels, Meta Platforms' (META.O) answer to viral short-form video app TikTok, elicited eyerolls when it launched in 2020 and was regarded as yet another example of Meta copying a popular rival. The number of Reels video plays on Facebook and Instagram now top 200 billion per day, up from 140 billion last fall. One reason for Reels' growth is that Meta's ad platform makes it seamless for advertisers to place their promotions on the feature, said Debra Aho Williamson, a principal analyst at Insider Intelligence. More than three-quarters of Meta's advertisers are placing ads on Reels, said Susan Li, Meta's chief financial officer. TikTok and its famous content recommendation algorithm remains the leader when it comes to time spent on social media apps.

Persons: Meta, Justin Osofsky, Instagram, TikTok, Osofsky, Mark Zuckerberg, Debra Aho Williamson, Susan Li, Zuckerberg, Meta's, Li, Sheila Dang, Katie Paul, Peter Henderson, Jamie Freed Organizations: Facebook, Meta, Intelligence, Insider Intelligence, Thomson Locations: Austin, New York

[1/2] A logo of Meta Platforms Inc. is seen at its booth, at the Viva Technology conference dedicated to innovation and startups, at Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris, France June 17, 2022. REUTERS/Benoit TessierJan 25 (Reuters) - Former U.S. President Donald Trump's potential return to Meta Platform's (META.O) Facebook and Instagram is unlikely to change how advertisers spend money with the world's second-largest digital ad company, ad agency executives said. In a blog post on Wednesday announcing Trump's reinstatement, Meta said he will face "heightened penalties for repeat offenses." Trump's reinstatement, however, reinforces long-standing concerns about how social media platforms can ensure that ads don't appear next to content that marketers consider unsuitable, D'Altorio said. Ad spending on Twitter slumped in the last two months of 2022, according to Standard Media Index, which measures ad spending based on data from ad agencies.

Nov 29 (Reuters) - Twitter's former head of trust and safety Yoel Roth on Tuesday said the social media company was not safer under new owner Elon Musk, warning in his first interview since resigning this month that the company no longer had enough staff for safety work. Roth had tweeted after Musk's takeover that by some measures, Twitter safety had improved under the billionaire's ownership. His departure further rattled advertisers, many of whom backed away from Twitter after Musk laid off half of the staff, including many involved with content moderation. Before Musk assumed the helm at Twitter, about 2,200 people globally were focused on content moderation work, said Roth. Musk tweeted on Nov. 19 that Trump's account would be reinstated after a slim majority voted in favor of the move in a surprise Twitter poll.

The groups said on Friday they are escalating their pressure and demanding brands pull their Twitter ads globally. Staff who worked in engineering, communications, product, content curation and machine learning ethics were among those impacted by the layoffs, according to tweets from Twitter staff. Shannon Raj Singh, an attorney who was Twitter's acting head of human rights, tweeted on Friday that the entire human rights team at the company had been cut. Musk tweeted that his team had made no changes to content moderation and done "everything we could" to appease the groups. Employees of Twitter Blue, the premium subscription service that Musk is bolstering, were also let go.

The company's content moderation team is expected to be a target of the cuts, tweets from Twitter employees suggested on Friday. Twitter employees vented their frustrations about the layoffs on the social network, using the hashtag #OneTeam. User Rachel Bonn tweeted: "Last Thursday in the SF (San Francisco) office, really the last day Twitter was Twitter. The company's office in Piccadilly Circus, London, appeared deserted on Friday, with no employees in sight. Employees told Reuters they were left to piece together information through media reports, private messaging groups and anonymous forums.

The social media company said in an email to staff that it will alert employees by 9 a.m. Pacific time on Friday (12 p.m. EDT/1600 GMT) about staff cuts. The social media platform said Twitter employees who are not affected by the layoffs will be notified via their work email addresses. The layoffs, which were long expected, have chilled Twitter's famously open corporate culture that has been revered by its employees. Shortly after the email landed in Twitter employee inboxes, hundreds of people flooded the company's Slack channels to say goodbye, two employees told Reuters. "If you are in an office or on your way to an office, please return home," Twitter said in the email on Thursday.

[1/2] Twitter logo and a photo of Elon Musk are displayed through magnifier in this illustration taken October 27, 2022. Managers have been forbidden from calling team meetings or communicating directly with staff, one senior Twitter employee said, adding that they were being monitored. "I'm really worried tweeps," a Twitter staffer wrote Thursday on Blind, which verifies employees through their work email addresses. "Give us the details," a Google employee wrote in a Blind post directed at Twitter staff. Much worse," answered a Twitter employee.

Chief People and Diversity Officer Dalana Brand announced on Tuesday in a LinkedIn post that she had resigned last week as well. General manager for core technologies Nick Caldwell confirmed his departure on Twitter, changing his profile bio to "former Twitter exec" by Monday night. Multiple employees who spoke with Reuters said they continue to receive little communication about the future of the company. An all-staff meeting that was scheduled for Wednesday was canceled, following the cancellation by Twitter of a check-in call last week. Use of the n-word has increased by nearly 500% on Twitter, said the Network Contagion Research Institute, which identifies "cyber-social threats."

Personette, who was chief customer officer, follows executives including former Twitter Chief Executive Parag Agrawal and Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal, whom Musk fired last week. Chief People and Diversity Officer Dalana Brand announced on Tuesday in a LinkedIn post that she had resigned last week as well. General manager for core technologies Nick Caldwell confirmed his departure on Twitter, changing his profile bio to "former Twitter exec" by Monday night. Jason Calacanis, an angel investor and Musk confidant working on Twitter, on Monday said Twitter was having "a very productive day" meeting with marketers and advertisers. Experts have said hateful content has skyrocketed since Musk closed his acquisition of Twitter last week.

This has hurt tech platforms that earn the bulk of revenue by selling digital ads and has led to cost-cutting to preserve profitability. On Thursday, Snap is expected to report 6% growth in revenue to $1.13 billion, according to IBES data from Refinitiv. This would represent the slowest-ever quarterly revenue growth for Snap as a public company. Wall Street is expecting Alphabet to report the highest growth of the Big Tech companies with an increase of 7.5% in ad revenue compared with last year. Snap and Meta have become more known for so-called performance ads, which are used to drive sales or website visits.

"Either Twitter is going to fix this, or we'll fix it by any means we can, which includes not buying Twitter ads." Twitter's challenges in identifying child abuse content were first reported in an investigation by tech news site The Verge in late August. Like all social media platforms, Twitter bans depictions of child sexual exploitation, which are illegal in most countries. Ghost Data identified the more than 500 accounts that openly shared or requested child sexual abuse material over a 20-day period this month. Twitter suspended over 1 million accounts last year for child exploitation material, according to the company's transparency reports.

Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com RegisterA promoted tweet on China's Suzhou city is displayed on a mobile phone near a Twitter logo, in this illustration picture taken September 8, 2022. The company will also open an application process to allow more people working in academia, civil society and journalism to join the Twitter Moderation Research Consortium, a group that Twitter formed in pilot mode earlier this year and has access to the datasets. Twitter has already shared datasets with researchers about coordinated efforts backed by foreign governments to manipulate information on Twitter. The company said it now plans to share information about other content moderation areas, such as tweets that have been labeled as potentially misleading. Register now for FREE unlimited access to Reuters.com RegisterReporting by Sheila Dang and Katie Paul; editing by Jonathan OatisOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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