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☆ Federal appeals court tosses state antitrust suit seeking to break up Meta
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Brian Fung | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

The decision is a blow to regulators who have cited Meta as a prime example of the way tech giants have allegedly abused their dominance. And it casts a shadow over a parallel antitrust case against Meta that was brought by the Federal Trade Commission at around the same time. The states’ original complaint had sought to unwind Meta’s past acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp, accusing the company of a “buy-or-bury” approach that violated antitrust laws. In addition, Randolph wrote, state allegations claiming that Meta’s — then Facebook’s — policies placing restrictions on app developers were anticompetitive didn’t hold up. Last year, the same federal judge who dismissed the state suit, James Boasberg, allowed the federal suit to proceed.

☆ Premarket stocks: Here's what we know about First Republic Bank
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-27 | by ( Nicole Goodkind | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

New York CNN —First Republic Bank has been teetering on the edge for weeks. The San Francisco-based lender could be next in the line to collapse, following in the footsteps of former competitors Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank. The FDIC, Federal Reserve, White House and First Republic did not respond to requests for comment about those reports. The stock’s trading was halted numerous times both days as its rapid decline triggered volatility-triggered timeouts by the New York Stock Exchange. “It’s becoming clearer each day” that First Republic is “toast,” said Don Bilson at Gordon Haskett, in a note Wednesday.

☆ Facebook Parent Expected to Report Fourth Straight Quarter of Falling Sales
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-26 | by ( Salvador Rodriguez | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

The unit that makes Meta’s virtual-reality headsets has been posting operating losses. Photo: Jeff Chiu/Associated PressFacebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. is expected to post its fourth straight quarter of declining sales as it struggles with weak advertiser demand and increasing privacy headwinds. Meta is expected to report first-quarter revenue of nearly $27.7 billion, according to analysts surveyed by FactSet. That would be down 0.7% compared with a year earlier. Meta has never reported four consecutive quarters of declining sales since going public in 2012.

☆ Facebook Parent Meta Platforms Sees First Sales Increase in Nearly a Year
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-26 | by ( Salvador Rodriguez | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Illustration: Adele MorganFacebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. on Wednesday reported its first increase in sales in nearly a year due to continued improvements in its advertising business, as the company continues to pare back spending in what Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg has called a “year of efficiency.”The company reported revenue of $28.6 billion, up 3% from a year prior and ahead of expectations of nearly $27.7 billion, according to analysts surveyed by FactSet. That snapped a streak of three quarters in which Meta’s revenue had retreated from the year prior, the only time that has occurred since the company went public in 2012. Shares surged by more than 10% in off-hours trading, as the company also forecast that second-quarter revenue could reach as high as $32 billion.

☆ Meta stock jumps after company reports first revenue growth in nearly a year
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-26 | by ( Clare Duffy | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

The company also reported that profits declined by nearly a quarter compared to the same period in the prior year to $5.7 billion. The company said it expects revenue to grow again in the current quarter compared to the prior year. Like other tech companies, Meta has also recently read investor cues and taken to playing up its focus on artificial intelligence rather than the metaverse. The shift comes as Meta contends with the popularity of AI tools from tech firms like Microsoft and OpenAI. In his statement with the results Wednesday, Zuckerberg said: “Our AI work is driving good results across our apps and business.”

☆ Meta Returns to Growth After Struggling With Falling Sales
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-26 | by ( Mike Isaac | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

The debate over whether Meta is in decline may get quietened, at least for now. After three straight quarters of falling revenue, Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook, on Wednesday reported that revenue for the first quarter jumped 3 percent, to $28.6 billion, from a year ago. The results, which surpassed Wall Street expectations and Meta’s own guidance, were bolstered by a growth in users. The company added 37 million daily users to Facebook, its marquee app, up 4 percent from a year earlier and a turnaround from its first-ever drop in users that it reported in early 2022. “We had a good quarter and our community continues to grow,” Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Meta, said in a statement.

☆ Meta is younger dog learning newer new tricks
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-26 | by ( Anita Ramaswamy | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

NEW YORK, April 26 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Meta Platforms (META.O) is a full generation younger than its Big Tech peers, and it’s looking pretty fresh, too. The company's first-quarter profit announced on Wednesday beat analysts’ expectations, sending shares of the $530 billion company up 12% in after-market trading. A 3% year-over-year boost in revenue, the first such increase the company has had in a while, was a pleasant surprise. In order to grow ads 26%, the company had to slice the average price per ad by 17%. Operating expenses jumped 10% from the same period last year, giving the company a 25% operating margin for the quarter.

☆ 2023 layoff tracker: The latest on which companies have announced job cuts
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-25 | by ( Jennifer Korn | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +20 min

New York CNN —BuzzFeed, Lyft, Whole Foods and Deloitte all recently announced layoffs affecting thousands of US workers. With 11,000 job cuts announced in November and the 10,000 announced in March, Meta’s headcount will fall to around 66,000 — a total reduction of about 25%. The company announced in January that it was eliminating some 18,000 positions as part of a major cost-cutting bid at the e-commerce giant. IndeedJob listing website Indeed.com announced cuts of approximately 2,200 employees, representing almost 15% of its total workforce, the company said in March. The cuts come after the company announced several rounds of job cuts throughout the pandemic due to falling demand, followed by rapid hiring last year.

☆ Meta stopped labeling Covid-19 content after finding it did little to combat misinformation, Oversight Board says
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-20 | by ( Brian Fung | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

Facebook rolled out the labels in early 2021, after coming under criticism for the spread of Covid-19 misinformation on its platforms during the first year of the pandemic. Meta should not relax its approach to Covid-19 misinformation as the company has proposed, the Oversight Board added. In the past, Meta has touted its ability to direct users to the Covid-19 information center. The labels were automatically applied to content that Meta’s automated tools determined were about Covid-19, the Oversight Board said. (Meta provided examples of a NIT and a FAXIT in its July 2022 request for Oversight Board guidance on whether it should relax its Covid-19 misinformation policy.)

☆ 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%.

☆ You can now apply for your share of a $725 million Facebook data privacy settlement. Here’s how
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-19 | by ( Clare Duffy | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +2 min

New York CNN —Facebook users who had an active account at any point between May 2007 and December 2022 can now apply to receive a piece of parent company Meta’s $725 million settlement related to the Cambridge Analytica scandal. The California judge overseeing the case granted preliminary approval of the settlement late last month, and Facebook users can now apply for a cash payment as part of a settlement. The claim form — which requires a few personal details and information about a user’s Facebook account — can be filled out online or printed and submitted by mail. It’s not yet clear how much each settlement payment will be. “Over the last three years we revamped our approach to privacy and implemented a comprehensive privacy program.

☆ 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.

☆ 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.

☆ Welcome to the era of viral AI generated 'news' images
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-02 | by ( Clare Duffy | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

None of these things actually happened, but AI-generated images depicting them did go viral online over the past week. The images ranged from obviously fake to, in some cases, compellingly real, and they fooled some social media users. There are also concerns that AI-generated images could be used for harassment, or to further drive divided internet users apart. Eliot Higgins, founder and creative director of the investigative group Bellingcat, posted fake images of former President Donald Trump to Twitter last week. Many of the recent viral AI-generated images were created by a tool called Midjourney, a less than year-old platform that allows users to create images based on short text prompts.

☆ Welcome to the era of viral AI generated ‘news’ images
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-02 | by ( Clare Duffy | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

☆ Meta to Let Users Opt Out of Some Targeted Ads, but Only in Europe
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-30 | by ( Sam Schechner | Jeff Horwitz | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Meta Platforms Inc. is planning to let European users of Facebook and Instagram opt out of certain highly personalized ads as part of plans to limit the impact of a European Union privacy order, according to people familiar with the planning. Under the plan, Meta, beginning Wednesday, will allow EU users to choose a version of its services that would only target them with ads based on broad categories, such as their age range and general location—without using, as it does now, data such as what videos they watch or content they click on inside Meta’s apps, the people said.

☆ Arkansas sues TikTok, ByteDance and Meta over mental health claims
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-29 | by ( Brian Fung | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +4 min

Washington CNN —The state of Arkansas has sued TikTok, its parent ByteDance, and Facebook-parent Meta over claims the companies’ products are harmful to users, in the latest effort by public officials to take social media companies to court over mental-health and privacy concerns. The complaints come amid mounting pressure in Washington on TikTok for its ties to China and as states have grown more aggressive in suing tech companies broadly, particularly on mental health claims. The suit further alleges that TikTok’s Chinese sister app, Douyin, does not make such content available within China. Adobe Stock“TikTok poses known risks to young teens that TikTok’s parent company itself finds inappropriate for Chinese users who are the same age,” the complaint said. TikTok has migrated US user data to servers operated by the American tech giant Oracle and has established organizational controls intended to prevent unauthorized data access.

☆ ‘Gossip Girl’ for Grown-Ups? Why Chic Women Are Dressing Preppy Again
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-24 | by ( Faran Krentcil | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

CHLOE LEE never thought she’d be grateful for her school uniform. “Now that I’m an adult, I realize how wrong I was,” the Chicago native said, laughing. One obvious draw: A few classic jackets and skirts that look good with everything can save you time by limiting wardrobe panics. And despite the look’s (literally) buttoned-up roots, it offers versatility, relaxed silhouettes and casual coolness. Or Bottega Veneta’s, where creative director Matthieu Blazy served up sophisticated prep via a blue leather skirt and two-tone collared shirt.

☆ U.S. and China wage war beneath the waves – over internet cables
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-24 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +28 min

Three of China’s state-owned carriers – China Telecommunications Corporation (China Telecom), China Mobile Limited and China United Network Communications Group Co Ltd (China Unicom) – had committed funding as members of the consortium, which also included U.S.-based Microsoft Corp and French telecom firm Orange SA, according to six people involved in the deal. China Telecom, China Mobile, China Unicom and Orange did not respond to requests for comment. China Telecom, China Mobile and China Unicom were resolutely behind HMN Tech, which had come in with a bid of around $500 million. China Telecom and China Mobile threatened to walk off the project, taking tens of millions of dollars of investment with them. Among them is China Telecom, which had previously won authorization to provide services in the United States.

☆ TikTok pile-on opens two cans of worms
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-23 | by ( Jennifer Saba | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Yet the bipartisan attack on the short-form video app, owned by China-based ByteDance, really points to two different complications – and each, in turn, opens up a much bigger can of worms. The overarching reason for Chew’s appearance is that President Joe Biden’s administration, and many in Congress, think TikTok’s Chinese backing makes it a dangerous tool of the People’s Republic. Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers accused TikTok of collecting biometric data and manipulating what information users see. It’s not just TikTok that potentially vacuums up consumer details while having close links to China. Follow @jennifersaba on TwitterCONTEXT NEWSTikTok Chief Executive Shou Zi Chew appeared before the U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee on March 23.

New York CNN —Global banks just suffered their worst week since 2008. Credit Suisse and First Republic: Two more banks wobbled but remained upright through the week. Meanwhile, First Republic bank received a $30 billion lifeline on Thursday from some of the largest banks in the United States. US-traded shares of Credit Suisse were down nearly 7% and First Republic shares plunged by about 33% on Friday. That doesn’t mean that banks taking money from the FHLB and participating in the Federal Reserve’s emergency Bank Term Lending Program, which lent out $12 billion to banks this week, are in big trouble.

☆ Meta AI Unlocks Hundreds of Millions of Proteins to Aid Drug Discovery
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-16 | by ( Eric Niiler | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Meta AI researchers produced this digital representation of one million proteins using a new artificial-intelligence tool known as ESMFold. Facebook parent company Meta Platforms Inc. has created a tool to predict the structure of hundreds of millions of proteins using artificial intelligence. Researchers say it promises to deepen scientists’ understanding of biology, and perhaps speed the discovery of new drugs. Meta’s research arm, Meta AI, used the new AI-based computer program known as ESMFold to create a public database of 617 million predicted proteins. Proteins are the building blocks of life and of many medicines, required for the function of tissues, organs and cells.

☆ 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.

☆ Meta’s ‘Year of Efficiency’ Still Looks Costly
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-14 | by ( Dan Gallagher | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg didn’t signal any intention of backpedaling on his vision for the metaverse. Wall Street loves it when Meta Platforms fires people. Maybe a bit too much. The parent company of Facebook said Tuesday it is planning to lay off another 10,000 employees this year. That would amount to about 13% of the remaining workforce following last year’s announced job cuts of 11,000, confirming a Wall Street Journal report from last week.

☆ Facebook-parent Meta plans to lay off another 10,000 employees
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-14 | by ( Catherine Thorbecke | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +3 min

CNN —Facebook-parent Meta plans to lay off another 10,000 workers, marking the second round of significant job cuts announced by the tech giant in four months. With 11,000 job cuts announced in November and the 10,000 announced Tuesday, that would bring Meta’s headcount down to around 66,000. In the first months of this year, Amazon, Google-parent Alphabet and Microsoft have all confirmed major job cuts impacting tens of thousands of tech workers. When the first round of job cuts was announced in November, Zuckerberg blamed himself at the time for the company’s over-hiring earlier in the pandemic. On that call, Zuckerberg also suggested that more job cuts could be coming.

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