The Senate hearing on social media saw Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg apologise to families who hold social media responsible for children who harmed themselves, including some who took their own lives.
It also saw some bizarre racism by one senator who apparently can’t tell the difference between Singapore and China …
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Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has doubled down on his view that app age verification should be the responsibility of Apple and Google, and not social media companies.
His remarks form part of prepared testimony to Congress, as he and other social media CEOs come under fire for failing to do enough to protect their teenage app users …
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The timing of Meta’s announcement of new teen safety measures earlier this week likely wasn’t coincidental: Mark Zuckerberg and other social media CEOs are set to testify to Congress on the topic.
Facebook’s founder will be joined by the chief execs of TikTok, Snap, Discord and X as Congress seeks to determine whether the companies are doing enough to protect teens from harm …
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Meta is beefing up protections against grooming of teens on Instagram and Facebook by further limiting who is able to send them direct messages.
The latest measure builds on a previous Instagram protection, based on who teenagers follow in the app …
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Meta has announced a radical new move to comply with European antitrust requirements taking effect in March. The company will let you unlink your Instagram, Facebook, and Messenger accounts – as well as those for Facebook Marketplace and Facebook Gaming.
This means you’ll have the option of setting each up as a completely separate account, with no shared data between them …
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Instagram and Facebook collect your data from thousands of companies, according to an experiment carried out by Consumer Reports.
Separately, the company is the largest reporter of potential child sexual abuse materials (CSAM), but there is a legal problem with the way many of these reports are submitted …
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Meta has announced that teen Instagram and Facebook accounts will in future block a wide range of harmful content, including posts about self-harm, graphic violence, and eating disorders. The move is being made in response to lawsuits by the majority of US states …
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Smart glasses aren’t a new thing, in fact, they’ve been around for a long time. But over the years, companies have been working on improving them, or at least trying to make them mainstream. Meta is one of the companies trying to do this, and I decided to give the Ray-Ban Meta glasses a try to see if there’s any point in having smart glasses.
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A new strain of Instagram phishing emails has been detected, in which attackers attempt to trick victims into forking over usernames, passwords, phone numbers, and, most notably, backup codes used to bypass two-factor authentication (2FA).
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A first-of-its-kind law restricting social media use by children has been challenged by an industry group representing TikTok, Meta, X, and Snap.
The NetChoice trade group argues that the law introduced by Utah, and which other states plan to emulate, is unconstitutional …
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Social network Threads has now launched in EU countries, with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg noting that this now opens it up to an additional 448M people. The company first teased this last week.
EU citizens will also be able to browse Threads without having to create an Instagram account – a move likely intended to placate antitrust regulators …
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Two major dating app companies have suspended Instagram advertising after tests mimicking the behavior of child predators led to ads being served alongside sexually explicit material.
Other brands affected include Disney, Pizza Hut, and Walmart …
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Apple’s decision to use tethered Vision Pro batteries raised a few eyebrows when the upcoming product was announced, with the decision apparently made to reduce the weight of the headset.
However, the company was concerned that the front-heavy weight balance of the device could cause neck strain, and a new Apple patent application puts forward a potential solution – which borrows from a Meta Quest headset accessory shown above …
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Apple and Google should be held legally responsible for gatekeeping app downloads by teenagers, suggests Facebook and Instagram developer Meta.
The proposal to shift legal responsibility comes as social media platforms face increasing legal battles from parents and lawmakers alike …
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A combined Facebook and Instagram subscription is coming to European users in the next few weeks, enabling an ad-free experience in both services for €9.99/month ($10.60).
Alongside this, parent company Meta has announced that it is “pausing” all advertising to under-18s at the same time, meaning they get the same privacy benefits as a paid subscription at no cost …
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A live TikTok global music event will take place on December 10 at Sloan Park in Mesa, Arizona. Known as TikTok in The Mix, it will combine headline acts like Cardi B, Niall Horan, Anitta, and Charlie Puth with upcoming artists who are making a name for themselves on the platform …
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Similar to what other platforms like X (formerly Twitter) and Telegram have been doing, Meta now allows users to pay to get verified and unlock some extra features on Facebook and Instagram. To convince more people to pay for the Meta Verified service, the company has reportedly been working on a new option that will let users choose to only see content from verified accounts.
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The developer of a virtual reality yoga app has filed a lawsuit against Meta, accusing the company of retaliating after it learned he was also in talks with Apple about bringing the app to Vision Pro.
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Major content moderation failures by both X and Meta are serving to underline the risks of both deliberate disinformation and inadvertent misinformation impacting on next year’s presidential elections …
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Mixed reality headset makers seem to face a choice: do it well, or do it cheap. Priced from $3500, Apple Vision Pro sure ain’t doing it cheap. The consensus from those who have tried Vision Pro, though, seems to be that the experience is technologically impressive.
Can the same be said for Meta’s new Quest 3 mixed reality headset? The $500 XR headset is only loosely defined as cheap, of course, because of Apple’s hard-to-fathom price tag. Nevertheless, is it possible to sell mixed reality for a literal fraction of Vision Pro’s price and still make the experience compelling?
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TikTok may be going ad-free for five bucks a month, but you’ll have to pay a bit more for a similar experience on Meta’s platforms. A new report details Meta’s proposal to offer a version of Facebook and Instagram with no ads that would cost nearly $17/month.
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Threads is working on a new feature that will let you delete your account without nuking your Instagram account, but it won’t be ready anytime soon. Meanwhile, new data forecasts where Meta’s competitor to X (formerly Twitter) will be by year’s end.
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The British government’s hugely controversial Online Safety Bill has today passed in the second chamber of Parliament, and after six years of debate is now set to become law.
While Apple’s iMessage and other end-to-end encrypted messaging apps were saved from being outlawed by the bill, the government hasn’t yet given up the fight …
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Even before Apple unveiled Vision Pro, Meta already had virtual reality headsets called Meta Quest (which were created after Meta acquired Oculus). However, Meta’s headsets aren’t exactly a hit. But Zuckerberg seems to have ambitious plans to compete with Apple Vision Pro, as a new report suggests that Meta has been working with LG to build a new VR headset.
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