Meta under fire may face £10m fine from EU December 20, 2022 Meta, Facebook’s parent company has been accused of flouting competition rules by an EU commission. If the charges are proven, they may face a penalty of up to £10m. Meta is likely in breach of the European Union’s anti-trust regulations. The EU’s preliminary review has found that Meta has tied access to the social media [...]
Facebook: We’ll pull US news content if Congress passes law to pay December 6, 2022 Facebook’s parent company Meta has threatened to pull news content from the US if Congress push forward with plans to make the company pay for content. Meta’s head of policy communications, Andy Stone, tweeted the thread, saying that “if Congress passes an ill-considered journalism bill as part of national security legislation, we will be forced [...]
Online safety bill to criminalise encouraging self-harm November 27, 2022 The long-awaited online safety bill is set to criminalise content that encourages self-harm as it attempts to beef up protections. While encouraging suicide is already illegal, there is widespread concern about material on the internet that encourages people to harm themselves. The recent inquest into the death of 14-year-old Molly Russell found that unsafe online [...]
Meta’s independent board overturns police requested music video ban November 22, 2022 Meta’s oversight board has overturned the decision to remove a UK drill music video clip from Instagram following a request from the Metropolitan Police. The board, which is designed to issue independent judgments on the Facebook owner, said the video ‘Secrets Not Safe’ by Chinx, which referenced gang shooting, was wrongly banned, stating that it [...]
Facebook owner Meta sued for selling personal data for ads November 21, 2022 Facebook owner Meta has been sued in the high court after claims that it disregarded the right to object against the collection of personal data to sell to advertisers. Human rights advocate Tanya O’Carroll alleges that the Silicon Valley giant has breached UK data laws by failing to respect her right to demand that it [...]
Facebook and WhatsApp owner Meta cuts 11,000 jobs November 9, 2022 Over 600 UK Meta employees could lose their jobs as the owner of Facebook launches its biggest job cull in history, cutting 11,000 jobs worldwide. In a note published this morning, chief exec Mark Zuckerberg said he would be reducing the global headcount by 13 per cent, regarding it as “some of the most difficult [...]
Facebook owner Meta gears up for mass job cuts November 7, 2022 Things seem to go from bad to worse for Meta, with the Facebook owner gearing up to announce mass layoffs this week. Sources told the Wall Street Journal that thousands of jobs are set to be culled, as the firm fends off the wider tech sell-off and slowing advertising spend. Meta declined to comment on [...]
Meta struggles: Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp owner’s profits halved October 27, 2022 Owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, Meta, reported a fall in its revenue for the third quarter driven by plummeting ad revenue. The social media giant’s intake was four per cent down on last year’s third quarter, from £29bn to £27bn, while its costs and expenses were up almost 20 per cent. Income was down [...]
Tech stocks get ready for a rocky road ahead October 24, 2022 BIG TECH braces itself for another testing earnings season, as the biggest names in Silicon Valley post their quarterly figures this week. Kicking off the tumble last Friday, Snapchat posted a rocky quarter, citing squeezed ad spend and ongoing macroeconomic uncertainty as the main driver. Not only has Snapchat’s parent firm lost a quarter of [...]
Pressure mounts to save end-to-end encryption cull in online safety laws October 21, 2022 The rallying cry to block new laws that could undermine end-to-end encryption have grown louder today, as free speech groups urge the government to rethink its strategy to online safety. In a fresh call this morning, the Global Encryption Coalition, which includes anonymity network Tor and Open Rights Group, said the online safety bill should [...]