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☆ Elon Musk is the gift that keeps on giving to Mark Zuckerberg
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-08 | by ( Clare Duffy | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

New York CNN —At the start of last year, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg was in the hot seat. But then, the attention of lawmakers, media and the tech world writ large abruptly shifted to another tech billionaire: Elon Musk. While Twitter users have lamented what Musk’s ownership has meant for the platform, it may be the best thing that could have happened for Zuckerberg. A billion-user opportunityThe distraction and chaos of Musk’s Twitter takeover could hardly have come at a better time for Zuckerberg and Meta. The Twitter-Threads battle has raised the stakes for another fight: a cage fight that Musk and Zuckerberg have spent the past several weeks planning.

Persons: Mark Zuckerberg, Elon, Twitter, Musk, Zuckerberg, “, ”, Herbert Hovenkamp, —, he’s, Meta, Musk’s, “ Elon, Meta —, Donald Trump, Instagram, Adam Mosseri, Zuckerberg’s Organizations: New, New York CNN, Facebook, Apple, Meta, Twitter, University of Pennsylvania’s Carey Law School, Instagram, SpaceX, YouTube Locations: New York, Cambridge

Threads is integrated into Instagram, giving it potential access to roughly two billion monthly active users. Threads isn’t available in the European Union, where privacy watchdogs have long been concerned with how Meta handles users’ information. Being big doesn’t run afoul of antitrust law. Leveraging them to enhance the quality of Threads would not in and of itself violate antitrust laws, Mr. Melamed said. “The Threads example shows that big tech companies can also be valuable entrants, bringing new competitive pressure,” Mr. Francis said.

Persons: Nancy Rose, DealBook, ” Ms, Rose, ”, Doug Melamed, Melamed, “, Daniel Francis, Mr, Francis, — Ephrat Livni Organizations: Federal Trade Commission, European Union, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Twitter, Stanford Law School, Justice Department, New York University, Competition Locations: ’

☆ Meta’s Threads isn’t worth 11 Twitters
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-07 | by ( Lauren Silva Laughlin | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

On Wednesday, he launched a Twitter competitor, Threads, promptly encouraging Twitter to threaten to sue. Zuckerberg isn’t doing shareholders any favors. It’s less clear if Twitter’s users have moved, but in that sense, Threads may hurt Meta more than it helps. Even if Threads were to put Twitter out of business, that exercise isn’t worth 11 Twitters. Follow @thereallsl on TwitterCONTEXT NEWSTwitter has threatened to sue Meta Platforms over its new Threads app, Reuters reported on July 6.

Persons: Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Zuckerberg, Musk, Meta, Jennifer Saba, Sharon Lam Organizations: YORK, Reuters, Twitter, Elon, Facebook, Apple, Public, Meta, Semafor, Thomson Locations: Instagram

Has Zuckerberg invented a Twitter killer? Meta’s new social network had already racked up more than 10 million sign-ups within seven hours of its launch, and attracted celebrities and politicians like Oprah Winfrey and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York. But the presence of big-name advertisers such as Procter & Gamble and Ford points to the bigger commercial stakes in the fight between Mark Zuckerberg’s new platform and Elon Musk’s Twitter. Meta is billing Threads as a “friendly” forum, but the social media giant is gunning for the blue bird. Advertisers are watching closely, even if they can’t buy ads there yet.

Persons: Zuckerberg, Oprah Winfrey, Alexandria Ocasio, Ford, Mark Zuckerberg’s, gunning, ” Martin Sorrell, DealBook Organizations: Procter, Gamble, Elon, Twitter, Meta, S4 Capital Locations: Cortez, New York

☆ Threads: Meta takes aim at Twitter with new app
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-04 | by ( Hanna Ziady | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

Zuckerberg’s Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, has teased a new app that is set to take on Twitter by offering a rival space for real-time conversations online. The app is called Threads and it is expected to go live Thursday, according to a listing in the App Store. The app appears to have many similarities to Twitter — the App Store description emphasizes conversations, as well as the potential to build a following and connect with like-minded people. Since taking Twitter private in October, Musk has turned the social media platform on its head, alienating advertisers and some of its highest-profile users. Twitter announced Monday that users would soon need to pay for TweetDeck, a tool that allows people to organize and easily monitor the accounts they follow.

Persons: Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Musk, ” parroting Organizations: London CNN, Twitter, Meta, TweetDeck, Facebook, Las Locations: Las Vegas

☆ Zuckerberg’s Quest to Re-Enter China Faces Challenge: His Own Words
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-03 | by ( Newley Purnell | Raffaele Huang | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

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Persons: Dow Jones

☆ Mark Zuckerberg’s MMA trainer says he's ‘not sure’ the Meta CEO would beat Elon Musk in a cage fight
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-25 | by ( Jyoti Mann | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Elon Musk this week challenged Mark Zuckerberg to go head-to-head in a cage fight. "I'm not sure how the fight will play out," Zuckerberg's MMA trainer Khai Wu told Forbes. Mark Zuckerberg's mixed martial arts trainer is far from certain that the Meta CEO would win a fight with Elon Musk. Weighing in on Zuckerberg's planned showdown with the Tesla CEO, Wu told Forbes: "I just go and train. The billionaires this week appeared to agree to go head-to-head after Musk challenged Zuckerberg to a cage fight.

Persons: Elon, Mark Zuckerberg, Khai Wu, Forbes, Mark Zuckerberg's, Elon Musk, Joe Rogan, Zuckerberg's, Khai, Wu, Tesla, I'm, Musk, Zuckerberg, Dana White, haven't, Ashlee Vance Organizations: Morning, Meta, UFC

☆ Canada is calling Meta’s bluff
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-23 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

If Australia is any guide, Meta’s intended blackout will likely be short-lived. Meta has insisted it is unfair to expect the company to pay publishers when it drives traffic to their websites. Lawmakers are pushing for similar rules in Meta’s home state of California and in the U.S. Congress. Meta says it makes 40% of its revenue, which was $117 billion last year, in the U.S. and lists Australia and Canada among its most significant regions. If Canada calls Meta’s bluff, the tech giant may just as easily fold against Uncle Sam.

Persons: Meta, Mark Zuckerberg’s, Uncle Sam, Anita Ramaswamy, Jennifer Saba, Katrina Hamlin Organizations: YORK, Reuters, Facebook, Google, U.S . Congress, Meta, Twitter, Siemens, Telecom Italia, Vivendi, Intel, Thomson Locations: Canada, Australia, California, U.S

☆ Tesla vs. Meta cage fight already has a winner
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-23 | by ( Jonathan Guilford | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

But what if Meta Platforms (META.O) and Tesla (TSLA.O), the companies they run, were pitted in a theoretical brawl? And while Meta is larger by revenue, Tesla is growing faster. Both Tesla and Meta are trying to reshape the world. CONTEXT NEWSTesla Chief Executive Elon Musk tweeted on June 20 that he would be “up for a cage match” with Meta Platforms boss Mark Zuckerberg. Musk made the comments in response to posts about Meta developing a rival social media platform to Twitter, which Musk owns.

Persons: Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Zuckerberg, Musk, Tesla, John Foley, Katrina Hamlin Organizations: YORK, Reuters, Reuters Graphics Reuters, Refinitiv, buybacks, Meta, Shareholders, Apple, Twitter, Thomson

☆ Meta lowers the minimum age for its Quest headsets from 13 to 10
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-16 | by ( Clare Duffy | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

New York CNN —Facebook-parent Meta plans to lower the minimum age for its virtual reality headsets from 13 years old to 10 years old, despite pressure from lawmakers not to market its VR services to younger users. In its Friday blog post, Meta said parents will be able to set time limits and enforce breaks for their preteens on the headsets. Meta also makes it possible to cast content from its VR headsets to a TV or phone screen, so parents can watch what their kids are seeing. Meta’s headset and Horizon Worlds represent Zuckerberg’s vision for a next-generation internet, where users can interact with each other in virtual spaces resembling real life. Update: This story has been updated to reflect Meta’s plan to continue restricting Horizon Worlds to users 13 and older.

Persons: Preteens, Meta, ” Meta, Massachusetts Sen, Ed Markey, Connecticut Sen, Richard Blumenthal, Mark Zuckerberg Organizations: New, New York CNN, Facebook, Connecticut, CNN, Meta Locations: New York, Massachusetts, United States, Canada, Europe

☆ Opinion: Apple Vision Pro augmented reality could change the world
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-09 | by ( Opinion Rizwan Virk | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +9 min

CNN —It’s not surprising that Apple’s debut Monday of its $3,499 Vision Pro headset integrating virtual and augmented reality was greeted with mixed reactions, including skepticism, criticism and even lampooning. Each previous incarnation of a headset that immerses the wearer in a virtual world (called virtual reality, or VR) or lets wearers see their surroundings with virtual objects overlaid on them (augmented reality, or AR) started with overhyped expectations only to flame out. I am also doing my doctoral research on the history of virtual and augmented reality (known together as “extended reality”). These apps will be available to Vision Pro users as well. It’ll do anything your Mac or iPhone can do — and more.”And that’s why I believe that over time Apple’s Vision Pro will actually make science fiction scenarios of ubiquitous computing a reality.

Persons: Rizwan Virk, CNN — It’s, Rizwan, Tom Cruise’s, ’, Mark Zuckerberg’s, Tiago Amorim, Adrees Latif, I’m, Cathy Hackl, Samantha Kelly, I’d, Bob Iger, Tim Cook, CNN’s Kelly, Ivan Sutherland, Apple, ”, Cook, “, you’ll, Tom Cruise Organizations: Labs, MIT, Physics, Eastern, Arizona State University’s College of Global Futures, Twitter, CNN, Meta, Google, Microsoft, HTC, Samsung, Sony, Reuters, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Apple, VR, Vision, Disney, Facebook Locations: Brazil, Manhattan , New York

☆ After a Rocky Year, Zuckerberg Lays Out Meta’s Road Map to Employees
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-08 | by ( Mike Isaac | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Mark Zuckerberg has spent the last nine months against the ropes as his company has made big cuts to its work force and struggled to gain mainstream traction with its ambitious plans for virtual reality. On Thursday, he told Meta employees how he planned to get the company back on track. In an all-hands meeting, Mr. Zuckerberg offered an explanation for recent layoffs and for the first time laid out a vision for how Meta’s work in artificial intelligence would blend with its plans for the virtual reality it calls the metaverse. Mr. Zuckerberg’s talk was an attempt to rally staff after the most tumultuous period in his company’s 19-year history. The chief executive said he made “tough decisions” about layoffs with the goal of “building a better technology company” that shipped better products, faster — something he believed Meta wasn’t doing well as it swelled to more than 80,000 employees at the peak of the pandemic.

Persons: Mark Zuckerberg, Zuckerberg, Meta wasn’t, ” Organizations: Meta, New York Times

☆ Fuddy-duddy Meta has a kid problem
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-05 | by ( Anita Ramaswamy | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

His company Meta Platforms (META.O) landed in hot water with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission for the third time on Wednesday over its handling of younger users’ data. Monetizing them is difficult, as other social media platforms have shown. The other is Meta hasn’t been able to reinvent itself such that it can capture new and younger users anyway. Meantime Meta’s user growth has been slowing, which has eroded its market share in social media ads. Those concerns aren’t totally unique to Zuckerberg’s company, as several state lawmakers across the United States are debating legislation that would restrict kids’ social media use.

☆ Meta has a kid problem
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-05 | by ( Anita Ramaswamy | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

☆ TikTok ban is the least palatable of options
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-26 | by ( Jennifer Saba | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +8 min

Montana is following a movement around the United States to try to keep Americans from using TikTok. That has consequences: The United States has never pulled a platform used by so many people to communicate. China, which before TikTok had never cracked the U.S. market with a successful social media network, is unlikely to let ByteDance part with TikTok. More recently the company had been working with the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States to ease concerns. TikTok users in the United States could still binge on short videos, but the company – and its rivals – would face tougher constraints.

☆ America’s Inflation Antihero Gets a Makeover
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-21 | by ( Jeanna Smialek | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The years have not been kind to Arthur Burns, who led the Federal Reserve from 1970 to 1978 and is often remembered as perhaps the worst chair ever to head America’s central bank. Chris Hughes thinks he deserves another look. Mr. Hughes, 39, is a newly accepted doctoral student focused on central bank history at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Mr. Hughes then bought and for four years served as publisher of The New Republic, the liberal magazine. As a person who knows something about reinvention, Mr. Hughes thinks Mr. Burns should get one, too.

☆ Meta opens up its Horizon Worlds VR app to teens for the first time, prompting outcries from US lawmakers
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-19 | by ( Brian Fung | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

Washington CNN —Meta is forging ahead with plans to let teenagers onto its virtual reality app, Horizon Worlds, despite objections from lawmakers and civil society groups that the technology could have possible unintended consequences for mental health. On Tuesday, the social media giant said children as young as 13 in Canada and the United States will gain access to Horizon Worlds for the first time in the coming weeks. Zuckerberg has pushed to spend billions developing VR hardware and software, even as Meta has scaled back significantly in other parts of its business. “Meta is despicably attempting to lure young teens to Horizon Worlds in an attempt to boost its failing platform,” said Connecticut Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who last month, along with Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Ed Markey, urged Zuckerberg to reconsider letting teens use the app. Lawmakers have previously raised alarms about the impact of some of Meta’s other products, including Instagram, on younger users.

☆ Meta’s latest round of layoffs is underway
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-19 | by ( Clare Duffy | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

New York CNN —Facebook parent Meta on Wednesday began its latest round of layoffs focusing on technical workers, who are often thought of as more immune to job cuts in Silicon Valley. Zuckerberg’s notice said that restructurings and layoffs in Meta’s tech groups would take place in April. Members of Meta’s recruiting team were notified of additional layoffs last month, and cuts to the company’s business groups are expected to take place in late May. The 10,000 job reductions mark the second recent round of significant job cuts at Meta. With 11,000 job cuts announced in November and the 10,000 announced last month, Meta’s headcount will fall to around 66,000 — a total reduction of about 25%.

☆ Tech layoffs raise new alarms about how platforms protect users
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-06 | by ( Clare Duffy | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +11 min

Some also formed ethical AI teams and invested in oversight groups. And Facebook-parent Meta suggested that it might cut staff working in non-technical roles as part of its latest round of layoffs. “With that outsourcing, I feel like they had this comfort level that they could cut some of the trust and safety team, but Twitch is very unique,” the former employee said. It invested heavily in content moderation, public policy and an oversight board to weigh in on tricky content issues to address rising concerns about its platform. Tech leaders may also be grappling with the fact that even as they built up their trust and safety teams in recent years, their reputation problems haven’t really abated.

☆ Social Media Platforms Are Asking Users for Money. They Probably Don’t Mean You.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-24 | by ( Laura Forman | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Social-media companies are finally asking users to pay up. As of last month, the option to pay for Facebook’s new subscription service will run you nearly $12 a month in some countries despite co-founder Mark Zuckerberg’s 2010 declaration that his social-media network will always be free. Facebook parent Meta Platforms is also rolling out an optional subscription service for its photo sharing app, Instagram. Snap Inc. has added a subscription service for Snapchat. Elon Musk’s Twitter, bleeding cash, recently upgraded its legacy subscription service, Blue, and LinkedIn has had subscription offerings for well over 15 years.

☆ What metaverse? Meta says its single largest investment is now in ‘advancing AI’
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-15 | by ( Catherine Thorbecke | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

“Our single largest investment is in advancing AI and building it into every one of our products,” Zuckerberg said Tuesday. And not to be left behind, Meta announced late last month that it was forming a “top-level product group” to “turbocharge” the company’s work on AI tools. “I do think it is a good thing to focus on AI,” Ali Mogharabi, a senior equity analyst at Morningstar, told CNN of Zuckerberg’s comments. In 2022, Meta lost more than $13.7 billion in its “Reality Labs” unit, which houses its metaverse efforts. After taking a beating in 2022, shares for Meta have surged more than 50% since the start of the year.

☆ ‘The next AOL?’: Meta’s massive layoffs raise questions about Zuckerberg’s strategy as company morale sinks
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-14 | by ( Oliver Darcy | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

Coupled with the new cuts, Meta will have cut about 24% of its workforce, or one in four employees, in just about half a year. Nevertheless, the layoff announcements have naturally sent morale at the Menlo Park-headquartered company plummeting. Zuckerberg indicated that the job cuts will not be complete until the end of May. “You can cut your way to profitability in the short term,” the former tech CEO said. “But you can’t cut your way to growth.

☆ Mark Zuckerberg takes on Elon Musk
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-13 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

NEW YORK, March 13 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Mark Zuckerberg is eyeing Elon Musk’s turf. Meta Platforms (META.O) is exploring a stand-alone social network for sharing text updates, according to a statement from the social media network to Breakingviews on Monday. The move makes sense since Facebook and Instagram have done a better job wringing money from their users than Twitter has. Since Musk bought Twitter in October 2022, the network has been plagued by technical difficulties and fleeing advertisers. Zuckerberg has a business model that knows how to monetize users, whereas Twitter is still figuring that out.

☆ Nonconsensual deepfake porn puts AI in spotlight
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-16 | by ( Donie O'Sullivan | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

chatbot that can answer questions and write prose, is a reminder of how powerful this kind of technology can be. Deepfakes have been used to put women’s faces, without their consent, into often aggressive pornographic videos. It’s a depraved AI spin on the humiliating practice of revenge porn, with deepfake videos appearing so real it can be hard for female victims to deny it isn’t really them. Amid the fallout, the Twitch streamer “Sweet Anita” realized deepfake depictions of her in pornographic videos exist online. Twitch streamer "Sweet Anita" during her interview with CNN.

☆ Trump Facebook ban could be reversed in the coming weeks
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-05 | by ( David Ingram | David Ingram Covers Tech For Nbc News. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +7 min

For one thing, social media looks different than it did two years ago. Trump now has his own social media company, Truth Social, and his account has been restored on Twitter (where he has yet to tweet). And though there’s no legal right for Trump or anyone else to be on social media, Republicans in Florida and Texas are trying to create laws that would prevent social media companies from removing certain posts. NBC News asked a handful of experts in social media moderation what they thought about the upcoming decision. The answers offered a sense of the shifts in social media and moderation since both Twitter and Facebook banned Trump.

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