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☆ Silly Meta, Roblox isn’t just for kids
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-15 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

NEW YORK, Feb 15 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Video-game and social-media hub Roblox (RBLX.N) isn’t playing around when it comes to expanding its audience. The company behind MeepCity and Royale High has been racing alongside Meta Platforms (META.O) to turn the metaverse into more than just a vague buzzword. Despite being unprofitable and considerably smaller than Facebook’s owner, it is putting up a solid fight. Meta is mulling ways to attract younger users, including maybe opening the game up to minors older than 13. They do not reflect the views of Reuters News, which, under the Trust Principles, is committed to integrity, independence, and freedom from bias.

☆ Facebook, Gibson Dunn sanction order is light on dollars, heavy on message
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-10 | by ( Alison Frankel | Thomson Reuters | Alison Frankel Has Covered High-Stakes Commercial Litigation As A Columnist For Reuters Since A Dartmouth College Graduate | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +7 min

CompaniesCompanies Law firms Meta Platforms Inc FollowFeb 10 (Reuters) - To Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc (META.O) and its lawyers at Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, $925,000 isn't a whole lot of money. Chhabria, as you've probably heard, ordered Facebook and its lawyers to pay that sum to plaintiffs' lawyers as recompense for their bad-faith litigation tactics. "Does anyone really think that Facebook was planning on taking this case to trial?" This is, by far, the most likely explanation for Facebook and Gibson Dunn’s conduct." Facebook and its lawyers fell into their roles with ease, and then they took things way too far.”Gibson Dunn and Meta both declined to provide a statement on Chhabria’s order.

Feb 9 (Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Thursday sanctioned Meta Platforms Inc (META.O) and its law firm, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher for “delay, misdirection and frivolous arguments” in a data privacy lawsuit over the company’s sharing of user information with third-parties. Representatives for Gibson Dunn and Facebook did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Los Angeles-founded Gibson Dunn has represented the company in numerous matters. The court had ordered Facebook to turn over data it had collected on the plaintiffs in the case, regardless of whether it had been shared. The case is IN RE: Facebook, INC. Consumer Privacy User Profile Litigation, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, No.

☆ Meta restores Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-09 | by ( Donie O'Sullivan | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +1 min

CNN —Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts were restored on Thursday, allowing the former president to once again post on the social media platforms, a Meta spokesperson confirmed to CNN. Meta previously said it would take a few weeks before Trump could access his account. The company suggested the delay was to give the company time to install guardrails on Trump’s account that could result in it being suspended again if he breaks the company’s rules. Twitter restored Trump’s account in November. Still, this person said, the Trump campaign would leap at the opportunity to resume using his likeness in its Facebook advertisements.

☆ Facebook’s Trump Gift to Democrats
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-27 | by ( The Editorial Board | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Meta Platforms Inc. is letting Donald Trump back on its social-media sites, and the question is who is happier: Mr. Trump, or Democrats? Our guess is the latter, as they are eager to see the former President back at the center of Republican politics. Nick Clegg , Meta’s president for global affairs, wrote Wednesday that Mr. Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts will soon be reinstated. “The public should be able to hear what their politicians are saying—the good, the bad and the ugly—so that they can make informed choices at the ballot box,” Mr. Clegg wrote in a blog post.

Former President Donald Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts are being reinstated, the social media giant Meta announced Wednesday — a little more than two years after he was suspended from the platforms over incendiary posts about the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. Meta owns Facebook and Instagram. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., then the minority leader, vowed to “rein in big tech power over our speech” after Facebook announced the length of Trump’s suspension in 2021. Trump’s presidential campaign officially petitioned Facebook to allow Trump back on to the platform this month. “If Facebook wants to have this fight, fine, but the House is leverage, and keeping Trump off Facebook just looks political,” the adviser said.

☆ Facebook approved ads promoting violence in wake of Brazil riots, report says
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-19 | by ( Martin Coulter | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

REUTERS/Ueslei MarcelinoLONDON, Jan 19 (Reuters) - Facebook approved a series of online ads promoting violence in Brazil, days after protesters ransacked government buildings, according to a new report. However, four days after the uprising, human rights organisation Global Witness found Facebook was still allowing ads containing death threats and other calls to violence on its platform. Using fake accounts, the group submitted 16 bogus ads to run on the platform, 14 of which were approved for publication. Global Witness said it withdrew the ads from Facebook before any other users could see them. “In the aftermath of the violence in Brasilia, Facebook said they were ‘actively monitoring’ the situation and removing content in violation of their policies.

Trump’s campaign didn’t threaten a lawsuit, as some sources close to Trump thought he would. Trump has slightly more than 4.8 million followers on the platform, compared to nearly 88 million on Twitter and 34 million on Facebook. But Facebook subsequently changed its rules — including a limitation on high-volume advertising — and Trump's campaign protested. Twitter was credited with abetting Trump’s political rise, but his freewheeling style came across as unhinged even to many Republicans who started to oppose his Twitter use. “Moreover, every day that President Trump’s political voice remains silenced furthers an inappropriate interference in the American political and election process.”

☆ Trump campaign has asked Meta to unblock the former president’s Facebook account
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-18 | by ( Kristen Holmes | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

New York CNN —Former President Trump’s campaign sent a letter to Facebook’s parent company, Meta, Tuesday petitioning them to unblock his Facebook account, a source familiar with the letter tells CNN. Trump’s Facebook and Twitter accounts were blocked following the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol. Facebook initially said its ban of Trump would be indefinite. A Trump adviser said that reinstating the former president’s Facebook account would make it easier for the campaign to do outreach. Still, this person said, the Trump campaign would leap at the opportunity to resume using his likeness in its Facebook advertisements.

☆ Crypto is a ‘hot ball of money’ with very little intrinsic value, hedge fund says
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-17 | by ( Allison Morrow | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

For the uninitiated: Momentum trading is in an investment strategy that aims to capitalize on a trend. See a stock going up, buy the stock, make money. See a stock going down, short it, make money. The crypto trading world functions in much the same way. The momentum effect becomes self-fulfilling “as market participants attempt to front run the hot ball of money.”

☆ ChatGPT used by mental health tech app in AI experiment with users
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-14 | by ( David Ingram | David Ingram Covers Tech For Nbc News. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +11 min

But for a few thousand people, the mental health support they received wasn’t entirely human. About 4,000 people got responses from Koko at least partly written by AI, Koko co-founder Robert Morris said. Academics, journalists and fellow technologists accused him of acting unethically and tricking people into becoming test subjects without their knowledge or consent when they were in the vulnerable spot of needing mental health support. “There are millions of people online who are struggling for help.”There’s a nationwide shortage of professionals trained to provide mental health support, even as symptoms of anxiety and depression have surged during the coronavirus pandemic. In June, the World Health Organization included informed consent in one of its six “guiding principles” for AI design and use.

The debate comes less than two months after Twitter restored Trump’s account, but Meta’s intention to reevaluate the decision predates Twitter’s reversal. “I can’t think of what that rigorous standard would be that would make this policy be applied fairly, not just to former President Trump, but to any politician.”Is Trump bound to Truth Social? A phone screen displays the Truth Social app in Washington, DC, on February 21, 2022. Trump now has his own rival social media platform, Truth Social, which he launched in February. Despite his desire for a bigger megaphone and aides encouraging him to rejoin Twitter, Trump has said he is committed to Truth Social.

The Democrats’ 2024 Senate map was already going to be tough, and it got a little bit harder now that Michigan Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow announced Thursday she would not run for re-election. Michigan is one of the five states President Biden won in 2020 by less than 4 percentage points where the Democrats currently have a seat up for re-election next year. And there are three more Democratic seats up in 2024 in states that Trump won. In other 2024 news:Gallego makes more moves: Arizona Democratic Rep. Ruben Gallego is making high-profile hires as he considers a Senate bid, Politico reports. Chris Sununu told Fox News “a lot of folks” want him to run for president and took a swipe at Florida Republican Gov.

☆ With its advertising business in crisis, Twitter eases ban on political ads
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-04 | by ( Brian Fung | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

Political advertising has never been a significant source of revenue for the company — it made less than $3 million from political ads in 2018, the year before the ban took effect. But advertising has historically made up nearly all of Twitter’s revenue, and replacing it could take a long time. Welcoming paid issue advocacy and political advertising to the platform once more could ease some of the effects of the advertiser revolt. “Internet political ads present entirely new challenges to civic discourse: machine learning-based optimization of messaging and micro-targeting, unchecked misleading information, and deep fakes. Until now, Twitter’s approach to political advertising diverged from that of Facebook, which has attracted widespread criticism for its policy exempting political ads from fact-checking — effectively allowing politicians to lie in ads.

☆ Facebook considering whether to allow Trump to return, decision expected in ‘coming weeks’
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-02 | by ( Donie O'Sullivan | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

CNN —Facebook’s parent company Meta is considering whether to allow former President Donald Trump back on to its platforms and is due to announce its decision in the coming weeks, a company spokesperson told CNN on Monday. Trump was banned from Meta’s platforms Facebook and Instagram after the attack on the US Capitol in January 2021. Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global affairs, said he is overseeing the decision. In a blog post in June 2021, Clegg explained how the company would consider allowing Trump back on its platforms. “Based on Meta’s own statement on standards for allowing Trump back on the platform, his account should continue to be restricted.”

The S&P 500 was 0.7% lower Friday, leaving it down 19.9% for the year. Corporate bonds had a miserable 2022, too: The return on bonds issued by S&P 500 companies was -14.2% this year. The Bloomberg Aggregate US Bond Index had its worst year since the index’s inception in 1977, according to FactSet. Excluding energy, S&P 500 earnings would fall 1.8% this year, Butters predicted. Occidental Petroleum has been the biggest gainer of the year in the S&P 500, up 122% year-to-date.

☆ Premarket stocks: Wall Street's biggest winners and losers in 2022
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-29 | by ( Nicole Goodkind | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

The S&P 500 is down nearly 20% and with two trading days left in the year, investors’ hopes of a miraculous recovery have been dashed. The energy sector has so far returned more than 60% this year, significantly outperforming every other S&P 500 sector. Occidental Petroleum has been the biggest gainer of the year in the S&P 500, up 122% year-to-date. The energy sector reported the highest year-over-year earnings growth of all 11 sectors, at 137.3%. Elon Musk’s Tesla (TSLA) is also down about 70%, making the auto tech company the third worst performer this year.

☆ Facebook parent Meta agrees to pay $725 million to settle Cambridge Analytica suit
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-23 | by ( Arjun Kharpal | Arjun Kharpal Is A News Assistant For Cnbc In London. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +3 min

Facebook parent Meta has agreed to pay $725 million to settle a class action lawsuit that claimed the social media giant gave third parties access to user data without their consent. The class action lawsuit was prompted in 2018 after Facebook disclosed that the information of 87 million users was improperly shared with Cambridge Analytica, a consultancy firm linked to former President Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign. A scandal that prompted global outrageThe Cambridge Analytica scandal prompted global outrage and a flurry of regulators worldwide to scrutinize Facebook’s data practices. Cambridge Analytica, which shut down after the allegations in 2018, was controversial because the data it harvested from Facebook was used to inform political campaigns. Since the scandal, Facebook changed its name to Meta to reflect its growing ambitions to become a leader in the metaverse, a term used to refer to virtual worlds.

☆ How a GOP-controlled House will attack ESG and corporate climate change strategy
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-21 | by ( Tim Mullaney | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

"I don't think that's a proper characterization of my view," McHenry said in an interview with CNBC Senior Congressional Correspondent Ylan Mui. What I think corporations should do is focus on their key knitting," he said. Vanguard Group also had been scheduled to testify, but after the fund giant abandoned an investment industry climate alliance, that changed. McHenry, rated as one of the most moderate House Republicans by non-profit GovTrack US, doesn't seem interested in the state approach. "It plays politics with corporations, in the name of having corporations not play politics."

☆ Zuckerberg weighed naming Cambridge Analytica as a concern in 2017, months before data leak was revealed
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-20 | by ( Brian Fung | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

The data leak prompted a global outcry that led to hearings, an apology tour from Zuckerberg and Facebook’s $5 billion privacy settlement with the US government. Zuckerberg’s remarks in the deposition offer the clearest picture yet of what Zuckerberg knew about Cambridge Analytica, and when. But according to the court documents, Zuckerberg had originally proposed naming Russian foreign intelligence and Cambridge Analytica in the same breath. Zuckerberg testified that the reference to Cambridge Analytica was removed after a staffer recommended against naming specific organizations. But the improper sharing of Facebook data triggered a cascade of events that has culminated in numerous investigations and lawsuits.

☆ Meta lawsuit: An Ethiopian professor was murdered by a mob. Son alleges Facebook fueled the violence
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-14 | by ( Eliza Mackintosh | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

The case is a constitutional petition filed in Kenya’s High Court, which has jurisdiction over the issue, as Facebook’s content moderation operation hub for much of east and south Africa is located in Nairobi. “They have suffered human rights violations as a result of the Respondent failing to take down Facebook posts that violated the bill of rights even after making reports to the Respondent,” reads the complaint. The legal filing alleges that Facebook has failed to invest adequately in content moderation in countries across Africa, Latin America and the Middle East, particularly from its hub in Nairobi. In a statement to CNN, Meta did not directly respond to the lawsuit:“We have strict rules which outline what is and isn’t allowed on Facebook and Instagram. Last year, whistleblower Frances Haugen, a former Facebook employee, told the US Senate that the platform’s algorithm was “literally fanning ethnic violence” in Ethiopia.

☆ Rivian halts plans to build electric vans with Mercedes
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-12 | by ( Julia Horowitz | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

London CNN —Rivian said Monday it would no longer pursue a deal with Mercedes to build electric vans for businesses in Europe. “At this point in time, we believe focusing on our consumer business, as well as our existing commercial business, represent the most attractive near-term opportunities to maximize value for Rivian,” Scaringe said. A memorandum between Rivian and Mercedes was agreed just three months ago. They had planned to produce two large vans — one based on Mercedes’ engineering and another with “second-generation” Rivian engineering. Rivian, which is known for its electric trucks, generated huge hype when it made its public market debut in 2021.

☆ Fact Check-Facebook tally of total registered voters in the U.S. once again misinterpreted as number of voters in Arizona alone
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-08 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Facebook shared a tally of the total registered voters in the United States as part of a voting information campaign in 2020. An Instagram user shared a post that reads, “9,871,525 IS THE NUMBER OF REGISTERED VOTERS IN AZ ACCORDING TO FB. According to the Arizona Secretary of State’s website, there was a total of 4,143,929 registered voters as of November 2022 for the midterm election (here). The post does not specify when or where on Facebook the number of registered voters in Arizona was said to be 9,871,525. As this state-specific information is right above the (higher) number showing registered voters in the entire United States, a user might incorrectly assume this number may be for registered voters only in his or her state.

☆ Meta avoids showdown over news content in US after journalism bargaining bill shelved
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-07 | by ( Brian Fung | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

Minnesota Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a key architect of the news media bill, has argued that the Journalism Competition and Preservation Act (JCPA) is necessary to help small, local journalism outlets survive in the face of Google and Facebook’s advertising dominance. The News Media Alliance, a supporter of the JCPA, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Among those that signed the letter were the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, The Wikimedia Foundation and Public Knowledge. The tech industry launched its own offensive to keep the JCPA out of the defense bill, with groups including NetChoice and the Computer and Communications Industry Association announcing ad campaigns targeting the measure. Meta, meanwhile, turned to a familiar playbook in threatening to remove from the platform.

☆ Meta oversight board urges changes to VIP moderation system
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-06 | by ( Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +4 min

LONDON — Facebook parent Meta’s quasi-independent oversight board said Tuesday that an internal system that exempted high-profile users, including former U.S. President Donald Trump, from some or all of its content moderation rules needs a major overhaul. For content posted by American users, the average decision took 12 days, and for Afghanistan and Syria, it was 17 days. “If users included due to their commercial importance frequently post violating content, they should no longer benefit from special protection,” the board said. The board upheld Facebook’s decision to ban Trump last year out of concern he incited violence leading to the riot on the U.S. Capitol. But it said the company failed to mention the cross-check system in its request for a ruling.

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