Source: Facebook, Instagram to charge EU users for ad-free service

WASHINGTON, United States - Meta is proposing to offer European users a subscription-based version of Instagram and Facebook if they would rather not be tracked for ads, a source said on Tuesday.

The idea, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, comes as the social media giant seeks to comply with a growing list of EU regulations designed to curb the power of US big tech.

The company founded by Mark Zuckerberg makes its billions of dollars in profit by offering advertisers highly individualized data on users, but new European regulations and EU court decisions have made that harder.

The proposal has been put to EU regulators and is another example of big tech companies having to adapt long-held practices to meet oncoming EU rules.

The source close to the matter said subscribers in Europe could pay 10 euros ($10.50) a month for a desktop version of Instagram or Facebook, or 13 euros a month for Instagram on their phones.

Social media platforms have increasingly floated the idea of charging users for access to their sites, whether to comply with data privacy regulations or better guarantee the identity of users.

But the practice would be a major shift for the social media industry that grew exponentially over the past decade on an advertising model that made the site free for users in return for being tracked and ads seen highly personalized.

The proposal could help meet several regulations including the Digital Markets Act that imposes a list of do's and don'ts on big tech companies in Europe, including a ban on tracking users when they surf other sites if their consent hasn't been clearly granted.

It also follows the recommendation of the EU's highest court, which in a July decision said that Meta platform users who declined to be tracked should be offered an ad free alternative "for an appropriate fee."

That ruling echoed many previous rulings against Meta and other big tech firms in which the court ruled that the US company must ask for permission to collect large amounts of personal data, striking down various workarounds that Meta had offered.

Meta declined to comment directly on the Wall Street Journal report, but said in a statement that it still "believes in the value of free services which are supported by personalized ads."

"However, we continue to explore options to ensure we comply with evolving regulatory requirements."

Meta reported second-quarter revenues of $32 billion, of which $31.5 billion came from advertising. Some $7.2bn of that came from Europe.

Agence France-Presse

Facebook owner Meta to launch Twitter-like 'Threads' app

WASHINGTON -- Facebook owner Meta's new Threads app, meant to compete with Twitter, was available for pre-order on mobile app stores on iPhone and Android operating systems on Monday.

Listed as "Threads, an Instagram app," the new program should be available in the coming days, and is described on Apple's app store as "Instagram's text-based conversation app."

"Threads is where communities come together to discuss everything from the topics you care about today to what'll be trending tomorrow," says the app's description on the store.

Thread's launch comes after a period of uncertainty at Twitter since Tesla owner Elon Musk took over in October, with the billionaire restructuring the company, firing thousands and placing many features behind a subscription paywall.

Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, announced in mid-March that it was working on a new social network whose description made it a potential competitor to Twitter.

Threads will enable users to "connect directly with your favorite creators and others who love the same things -- or build a loyal following of your own to share your ideas, opinions and creativity with the world," according to its app store description.

"We're thinking about a decentralized, independent social network for sharing written messages in real time," the group said in a statement sent to AFP.

Twitter provoked ire last week when Musk announced that the platform would limit the number of tweets that could be read per day, with people not paying for subscriptions -- by far the majority of users -- limited to 1,000 tweets a day.

The stated aim of the decision was to limit the use of the social network's data by third parties, in particular companies feeding artificial intelligence models.

Agence France-Presse

Facebook owner Meta to lay off 11,000 staff

PARIS - Facebook owner Meta will lay off more than 11,000 of its staff in "the most difficult changes we've made in Meta's history", boss Mark Zuckerberg said on Wednesday.

He said the cuts represented 13 percent of the social media titan's workforce and would affect its research lab focusing on the metaverse as well as its apps, which include Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp.

The tech industry is in a serious slump and several major firms have announced mass layoffs -- Twitter's new owner Elon Musk fired half its staff last week.

"I want to take accountability for these decisions and for how we got here," Zuckerberg said in a note to staff.

"I know this is tough for everyone, and I'm especially sorry to those impacted."

Ad-supported platforms such as Facebook and Google are suffering with advertisers looking to cut costs as they struggle with inflation and rising interest rates.

Zuckerberg told staff he had expected the boost in e-commerce and online activity during the Covid pandemic to continue, but added: "I got this wrong, and I take responsibility for that."

METAVERSE WOES

The downturn has affected companies across the sector, with Apple and Amazon also recently announcing results that disappointed investors.

But Meta also faces some unique problems of its own.

Investors have been worried about Zuckerberg's decision to devote billions of dollars to developing the metaverse, an immersive version of the web accessed via virtual reality headsets.

Zuckerberg renamed the company to Meta a year ago to reflect the commitment to the project, but the division working on metaverse technology has since made losses of more than $3.5 billion.

He has hinted several times this year that belt-tightening measures were just around the corner and said in his letter on Wednesday that staff layoffs were a "last resort".

Meta would also keep a hiring freeze going into next year, he said, and other spending cuts were envisaged.

"Fundamentally, we're making all these changes for two reasons: our revenue outlook is lower than we expected at the beginning of this year, and we want to make sure we're operating efficiently," he wrote.

Last month, Meta announced profits of $4.4 billion in the third quarter, a 52 percent decrease year-on-year, causing its stock price to fall 25 percent.

The slump in profits comes despite its platforms dominating the world in terms of users -- Facebook alone claims to have around two billion people who log on daily. 

Agence France-Presse

Meta unveils new virtual reality headset Quest Pro

SAN FRANCISCO, United States - A year after it rebranded itself in the name of building a metaverse, Meta unveiled a new version of its virtual reality headset tailored for working professionals.

The $1,500 Meta Quest Pro features a number of new features that are meant to improve users' perception of truly being in the presence of other people.

The headset makes it possible to view not only virtual worlds but also the real environment of the user, thanks to high-resolution outward-facing cameras.

"The moment that they begin to break into a smile or when they raise their eyebrow... your avatar should be able to express all of that and more," Meta chief Mark Zuckerberg said at Meta Connect, the company's giant's annual conference focused on virtual reality.

Customers can begin ordering the Quest Pro starting Tuesday, and the device will ship at the end of the month.

Meta said it is partnering with Microsoft and others to tune popular business and productivity software to virtual worlds using Quest Pro. 

Capabilities being worked on include using Quest Pro during virtual meetings on the Microsoft Teams platform, according to the two companies.

"At Microsoft, we're incredibly excited about the metaverse and how digital and physical worlds are coming together," Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said during the presentation.

Facebook renamed itself Meta in October 2021 to signal a pivot to building its vision for an interactive virtual and augmented reality world that it sees as the future.

The move came as the company was facing a backlash after a whistleblower leaked documents suggesting the social media giant put profits over safety.

Meta is undergoing a difficult period financially due to dropping advertising revenues and fierce competition from other platforms such as TikTok, whose popularity has exploded.

About a third of the apps in the Quest app store brought in millions of dollars in revenue since launching there, according to Meta chief technology officer Andrew "Boz" Bosworth.

Some $1.5 billion has been spent overall on games and apps in the Quest store, and titles on the way to its virtual shelves include an "Iron Man" game set for release in November by Marvel Entertainment and Sony Interactive Entertainment, according to Meta executives.

Agence France-Presse

Meta warns of password-stealing phone apps

Meta warned a million Facebook users Friday that they have been "exposed" to seemingly innocuous smartphone applications designed to steal passwords to the social network.

So far this year, Meta has identified more than 400 "malicious" apps tailored for smartphones powered by Apple or Android software and available at the Apple and Google app stores, director of threat disruption David Agranovich said during a briefing.

"These apps were listed on the Google Play Store and Apple's App Store and disguised as photo editors, games, VPN services, business apps and other utilities to trick people into downloading them," Meta said in a blog post.

The apps often ask people to login with their Facebook account information to use promised features, stealing usernames and passwords if entered, according to Meta's security team.

"They are just trying to trick people into entering in their login information in a way that enables hackers to access their accounts," Agranovich said of the apps.

"We will notify one million users that they may have been exposed to these applications; that is not to say they have been compromised."

More than 40 percent of the apps Meta listed involved ways to edit or manipulate images, and some were as seemingly simple as using smartphones as flashlights.

"Our sense is these types of malicious app developers try to target multiple services," Agranovich said, noting the app creators are likely after passwords to more than just Facebook accounts.

"The targeting here seemed to be relatively indiscriminate – get people to download the applications around the world in an attempt to get access to as many login credentials as possible."

Meta said that it shared what it discovered with Apple and Google, who control what is offered at their respective app shops and each vet offerings.

Apple told AFP that only 45 of the 400 applications highlighted by Meta were on its operating system, and that the company has already removed them from its app store.

Google said that most of the apps Meta flagged had already been identified and removed from the Play store by its own vetting systems.

"All of the apps identified in the report are no longer available on Google Play," a spokesperson told AFP.

"Users are also protected by Google Play Protect, which blocks these apps on Android."

Agence France-Presse

Facebook agrees to settle Cambridge Analytica privacy suit

Facebook has reached a preliminary agreement in a long-running lawsuit seeking damages from the social network for allowing third parties, including the company Cambridge Analytica, to access users' private data. 

According to a document filed Friday in a San Francisco court, Facebook says it is submitting a draft "agreement in principle" and has requested a stay of proceedings for 60 days to finalize it. 

The social network did not indicate the amount or terms of the agreement in the class action. 

When asked by AFP, Facebook's parent company Meta did not respond on Saturday. 

The deal comes as Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg and former chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg, who announced her resignation in June, were due to testify in court in September as part of the scandal. 

In a lawsuit initiated in 2018, Facebook users accused the social network of violating privacy rules by sharing their data with third parties including the firm Cambridge Analytica, which was linked to Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign. 

Cambridge Analytica, which has since shut down, had collected and exploited, without their consent, the personal data of 87 million Facebook users, to which the platform had given it access. 

This information was allegedly used to develop software steering US voters in favor of Trump. 

In 2019, federal authorities fined Facebook $5 billion for misleading its users and imposed independent oversight of its personal data management. 

Since the Cambridge Analytica scandal broke, Facebook has removed access to its data from thousands of apps suspected of abusing it, restricted the amount of information available to developers in general, and made it easier for users to calibrate restrictions on personal data sharing.

Agence France-Presse

Facebook use plunges among US teens: survey

US teens have left Facebook in droves over the past seven years, preferring to spend time at video-sharing venues YouTube and TikTok, according to a Pew Research Center survey data out Wednesday. 

TikTok has "emerged as a top social media platform for US teens" while Google-run YouTube "stands out as the most common platform used by teens," the report's authors wrote.

Pew's data comes as Facebook-owner Meta is in a battle with TikTok for social media primacy, trying to keep the maximum number of users as part of its multi-billion dollar ad-driven business.

The report said some 95 percent of the teens surveyed said they use YouTube, compared with 67 percent saying they are TikTok users.

Just 32 percent of teens surveyed said they log on to Facebook -- a big drop from the 71 percent who reported being users during a similar survey some seven years ago.

Once the place to be online, Facebook has become seen as a venue for older folks with young drawn to social networks where people express themselves with pictures and video snippets.

About 62 percent of the teens said they use Instagram, owned by Facebook-parent Meta, while 59 percent said they used Snapchat, researchers stated.

"A quarter of teens who use Snapchat or TikTok say they use these apps almost constantly, and a fifth of teen YouTube users say the same," the report said.

In a bit of good news for Meta's business, its photo and video sharing service Instagram was more popular with US teens than it was in the 2014-2015 survey.

Meanwhile, less than a quarter of the teens surveyed said they ever use Twitter, the report said.

The study also confirmed what casual observers may have suspected, 95 percent of US teens say they have smartphones, while nearly as many of them have desktop or laptop computers.

And the share of teens who say they are online almost constantly has nearly doubled to 46 percent when compared to survey results from seven years ago, researchers noted.

The report was based on a survey of 1,316 US teens, ranging in age from 13 years old to 17 years old, conducted from mid-April to early May of this year, according to Pew.

Agence France-Presse

Facebook tweaks app with eye on rival TikTok

Facebook has split the news feed in two on its app, a significant change that mimics the experience on its fiercest competitor, hugely popular TikTok. 

One of the feeds unveiled Thursday is a chronological flow from the user's connections and the other option includes algorithm-driven recommendations on anything that might interest them.

The recommendations focus makes Facebook more similar to TikTok's "For You" feed, where the booming video app's algorithm aims to determine what people want to see and shows it to them.

These changes come as Facebook-owner Meta is in a battle with TikTok for social media primacy, trying to keep the maximum number of users as part of its multi-billion dollar ad-driven business.

Facebook apps will open to a personalized feed of posts called "Home", where artificial intelligence will offer posts from friends but also recommended content, the social network said.

"This system takes into account thousands of signals to help cut through the clutter and rank content in the order we think you will find most valuable," Meta said.

But if users would rather just see posts in reverse chronological order from their contacts, they can tap on the "Feeds" tab, an experience that echoes Facebook's early days.

The idea is for the "Home" page greeting Facebook users to be a venue for new content and recommendations, while the "Feeds" section is reserved for posts by people or groups someone has established connections with, according to the social network.

The firm reported early this year its first dip in daily users globally on the signature Facebook platform, a worrying signal about its future.

Meta is also working to re-orient itself after a string of controversies, including a whistleblower's claims the company put profits before users' safety.

Agence France-Presse

Russian court bans Instagram, Facebook as 'extremist'

A Moscow court on Monday banned Facebook and Instagram as "extremist" organizations, after authorities accused US tech giant Meta of tolerating "Russophobia" during the conflict in Ukraine.

The Tverskoi district court said it had agreed to a request from prosecutors for the two social media platforms to be banned for "carrying out extremist activities", but that Meta's WhatsApp messenger service would not be prohibited because it is not a public platform.

The move is part of sweeping efforts by Moscow to crack down on social media amid its military action in pro-Western Ukraine.

During Monday's hearing, Russia's FSB security service accused Meta of working against Moscow's interests during the conflict.

"The activities of the Meta organization are directed against Russia and its armed forces," FSB representative Igor Kovalevsky told the court, Russian news agencies reported.

"We ask (the court) to ban Meta's activities and oblige it to implement this ruling immediately," he said.

After President Vladimir Putin sent troops into Ukraine on February 24, authorities blocked access in Russia to Facebook and Instagram, as well as to Twitter.

Meta had announced on March 10 that the platforms would allow statements like "death to Russian invaders" but not credible threats against civilians. 

But in what appeared to be damage control, Meta's global affairs president, Nick Clegg, later said the laxer rules would only apply to people posting from inside Ukraine. 

Agence France-Presse

Facebook owner Meta will block access to Russia's RT, Sputnik in EU

Meta Platforms Inc, parent company of Facebook, will restrict access to Russian state media outlets RT and Sputnik on its platforms across the European Union, the company's head of global affairs said on Monday.

Nick Clegg said in a Twitter post that the social media company received requests from a number of governments and the EU to take steps in relation to Russian state-controlled media on its platforms. Clegg said Meta would continue to work closely with governments on the issue.

The European Union said on Sunday it would ban Russian state-owned television network RT and news agency Sputnik. Canadian telecoms operators have also stopped offering the RT channel.

Russian state-run media's activity on social media platforms has emerged as a contentious issue for big tech companies during the country's invasion of Ukraine, which Moscow calls a "special operation."

Meta, Microsoft Corp and Alphabet Inc's Google and YouTube have taken measures in recent days to restrict Russian state media from making money from ads on their platforms. Twitter Inc banned RT and Sputnik from advertising on its site in 2017.

Twitter said on Monday it would label and restrict the visibility of tweets containing content from Russian state-affiliated media outlets, in an expansion of its policy to label the state media accounts. Read full story

(Reporting by Elizabeth Culliford in New York, Editing by Will Dunham and Matthew Lewis)

-reuters-

Meta, Chime file lawsuit against alleged phishing scam on Facebook, Instagram

Facebook parent Meta Platforms said on Tuesday it had filed a joint lawsuit with digital banking company Chime against two Nigeria-based individuals who engaged in phishing attacks to deceive people and gain access to their online financial accounts.

The lawsuit, which is the first joint complaint between Meta and a financial services company, alleged that the defendants used Facebook and Instagram accounts to impersonate Chime and lure people to fake branded phishing websites with the aim of obtaining their Chime account login information and withdrawing funds.

In the suit, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Meta said the defendants used a network of computers to control more than 800 impersonating Instagram accounts and five Facebook accounts, in order to conceal their activity and evade technical enforcement measures.

Reuters could not immediately reach the defendants for comment.

"Impersonation scams are a serious challenge, and this action represents a major step forward in cross-industry collaboration against this abuse," Meta's director of platform enforcement and litigation Jessica Romero said in a blog post.

Fintech company Chime was launched by former Visa Inc executive Chris Britt and Comcast Corp alumnus Ryan King in 2012. Reuters exclusively reported last month that Chime had asked Goldman Sachs to help it with IPO preparations.

Meta said it had taken several previous actions against the defendants since June 2020 for violating its terms, including disabling their accounts, blocking impersonating domains on its platforms and sending cease and desist letters. (Reporting by Elizabeth Culliford in New York; Additional reporting by the Lagos bureau; Editing by Aurora Ellis)

-reuters-

Zuckerberg loses $29 billion in a day, as Meta shares crash

Mark Zuckerberg lost $29 billion in net worth on Thursday as Meta Platforms Inc's stock marked a record one-day plunge following a disappointing earnings forecast that shook the global tech landscape.

Meta's stock fell 26%, erasing more than $200 billion in the biggest ever single-day market value wipeout for a US company. That pulled down founder and chief executive officer Zuckerberg's net worth to $85 billion, according to Forbes.

Zuckerberg owns about 12.8% of the tech behemoth formerly known as Facebook.

His one-day wealth decline is among the biggest ever and comes after Tesla Inc. top boss Elon Musk's $35 billion single-day paper loss in November. Musk, the world's richest person, had then polled Twitter users if he should sell 10% of his stake in the electric carmaker. Tesla shares have yet to recover from the resulting selloff.

At least 21 brokerages cut price targets on Meta after the company posted a weaker-than-expected forecast on Wednesday, blaming Apple Inc.'s privacy changes and increased competition for users from rivals, including TikTok and YouTube.

Following the $29 billion wipeout, Zuckerberg is in 12th spot on Forbes' list of real-time billionaires, below Indian business moguls Mukesh Ambani and Gautam Adani.

To be sure, trading in technology stocks remains volatile as investors struggle to price in the impact of high inflation and an expected rise in interest rates. Meta shares could very well recover sooner rather than later, with the hit to Zuckerberg's wealth staying on paper.

Zuckerberg sold $4.47 billion worth of Meta shares last year, before 2021's tech rout. The stock sales were carried out as part of a pre-set 10b5-1 trading plan, which executives use to allay concerns about insider trading.

(Reporting by Eva Mathews, Akash Sriram and Chavi Mehta in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika Syamnath)

-reuters-

Facebook announces changing parent company name to ‘Meta’

Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp to keep names under rebranding

Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg on Thursday announced the parent company's name is being changed to "Meta" to represent a future beyond just its troubled social network.

The new handle comes as the social media giant tries to fend off one its worst crises yet and pivot to its ambitions for the "metaverse" virtual reality version of the internet that the tech giant sees as the future.

Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp will keep their names under the rebranding.

"We've learned a lot from struggling with social issues and living under closed platforms, and now it is time to take everything that we've learned and help build the next chapter," Zuckerberg said during an annual developers conference.

"I am proud to announce that starting today, our company is now Meta. Our mission remains the same, still about bringing people together, our apps and their brands, they're not changing," he added.

Facebook critics pounced last week on a report that leaked the rebranding plans, arguing the company was aiming to distract from recent scandals and controversy.

An activist group calling itself The Real Facebook Oversight Board has warned that major industries like oil and tobacco had rebranded to "deflect attention" from their problems.

"Facebook thinks that a rebrand can help them change the subject," the group said last week, adding the "real issue" was the need for oversight and regulation.

Facebook has just announced plans to hire 10,000 people in the European Union to build the "metaverse," with Zuckerberg emerging as a leading promoter of the concept.

- Crisis mode -

The social media giant has been battling a fresh crisis since former employee Frances Haugen leaked reams of internal studies showing executives knew of their sites' potential for harm, prompting a renewed US push for regulation.

Facebook has been hit by major crises previously, but the current view behind the curtain of the insular company has fueled a frenzy of scathing reports and scrutiny from US regulators.

"Good faith criticism helps us get better, but my view is that what we are seeing is a coordinated effort to selectively use leaked documents to paint a false picture of our company," Zuckerberg said in an earnings call on Monday.

The Washington Post last month suggested that Facebook's interest in the metaverse is "part of a broader push to rehabilitate the company's reputation with policymakers and reposition Facebook to shape the regulation of next-wave Internet technologies."

Google rebranded itself as Alphabet in a corporate reconfiguration in 2015, but the online search and ad powerhouse remains its defining unit despite other operations such as Waymo self-driving cars and Verily life sciences.

Agence France-Presse