X, the former Twitter, lets users hide once-vaunted blue check

SAN FRANCISCO — Users on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, will now be allowed to hide their once-prized blue check marks, the company says.

A coveted status symbol at Twitter before Elon Musk bought the company, the blue checks have been mocked by some as a sign that the user is willing to pay for special treatment.

"As a subscriber, you can choose to hide your checkmark on your account," an X help page said on Wednesday.

"The checkmark will be hidden on your profile and posts."

Blue ticks, long free at Twitter, were intended to signal the identity of certain users -- such as journalists, celebrities and politicians -- had been verified in an effort to build trust in the platform.

But Musk decried that as a "lords & peasants system," and opened up access to the check marks to anyone who paid for a Blue subscription -- an $8 per month program which gives users access to other special features as well.

He quickly put the program on a temporary hold after problems with people buying tick marks and impersonating high-profile personalities, including the tycoon himself.

In April, the eccentric billionaire then followed through with a long-promised move to strip free blue ticks from Twitter users.

Some praised the move as egalitarian while others decried it as being shaken down for money to safeguard their status on the platform.

Wordsmith Stephen King, who had previously vowed he would never cough up, even telling Musk that Twitter should instead be paying him to post, appeared horrified to discover that he still had his blue check.

Musk said in response to a news article about the check marks at the time that he was "paying for a few personally," and replied to King's message with "You're welcome namaste."

Word that X Blue subscribers can try to hide that fact prompted one user to fire off a post contending that Musk "destroyed a decade old symbol of trust and turned it into a mark of shame."

A post from the X account @ianvisits said that "Blue ticks are now so toxic that you can hide the fact that you have one."

Other paid-for features, such as posts longer 280 characters, may still allow other users to identify a Blue subscriber even if their blue tick has been hidden.

"The checkmark may still appear in some places and some features could still reveal you have an active subscription," X said at its help page.

Agence France-Presse 

San Francisco warns Musk he needs permit for giant, flashing X sign

SAN FRANCISCO - San Francisco sent the company formerly known as Twitter a warning Monday that it needed proper permits for the giant, flashing new X sign atop its headquarters, after the tech firm twice refused to let building inspectors check it.

The sign, installed on the roof of the company's downtown office last week, is part of owner Elon Musk's bid to rebrand the troubled social media giant to the 24th letter of the alphabet.

But local residents have complained, both to media and on Musk's app, about the brilliant flashing lights emitting from the sign at night. Some have also complained about safety, suggesting the sign -- which looms over the building's edge -- does not appear securely anchored to the roof.

A building inspector following up on a complaint first went to the tech firm's headquarters on Friday -- but was not allowed onto the roof to check the sign, according to the complaint posted on a city website.

Instead, an X representative told the inspector that the structure was "a temporary lighted sign for an event," the complaint showed.

A second attempt by an inspector to check the sign was also rebuffed on Saturday, according to the city.

On Monday the city sent X a notice of violation warning that it needed proper permits for the sign. The city website says that such notices can result in fees, but it was not immediately clear if X would face any financial penalty.

When contacted by AFP about the complaint, X replied with an automated message saying it would respond "soon."

Musk has brushed off the backlash to the sign and to the rebrand in general, responding with a laughing emoji to one X user's post about the city being at odds with him over the new sign.

The billionaire killed off Twitter's globally recognizable bird logo early last week as he rebranded the company he hopes to turn into a super-app inspired by China's WeChat, which would function as a social media platform and also offer messaging and payments.

Since Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion last October, the platform's advertising business has collapsed as marketers soured on Musk's management style and mass firings at the company that gutted content moderation.

In response, he has moved toward building a subscriber base and pay model in a search for new revenue.

Workers last week were stopped while removing the Twitter sign and blue bird logo from the headquarters due to a lack of proper permits.

Agence France-Presse

Meta earnings beat market expectations as ads revive

SAN FRANCISCO -- Facebook parent Meta on Wednesday beat market expectations for quarterly earnings, powered by a reviving digital ad business.

Meta reported a profit of $7.8 billion on $32 billion in revenue during the recently ended quarter, as the number of people using Facebook monthly rose to 3.03 billion.

"We had a good quarter," Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said in an earnings call.

"We continue to see strong engagement across our apps and we have the most exciting roadmap I've seen in a while..."

Meta had suffered a rough 2022 amid a souring economic climate, which forced advertisers to cut back on spending, and Apple's data privacy changes, which allowed users to block ad targeting, the pillar of Meta's business.

But like the other big US tech companies, Meta's share price has had a stellar 2023 that Zuckerberg in January said would be the "year of efficiency".

"With two straight quarters of positive revenue growth and the first quarter of double-digit revenue growth since late 2021, Meta’s year of efficiency is off to a strong start," said Insider Intelligence analyst Debra Aho Williamson.

"There's a lot to feel good about when it comes to Meta right now," Williamson added.

Meta shares were up more than seven percent $320.32 in after-market trades.

In its earnings release, the company said that the number of ads on its various applications rose by 34 percent year-on-year in the second quarter.

Analysts noted the greater interest from advertisers in Reels, the video format copied from TikTok, and a less gloomy economic context conducive to marketing spending.

Meta is seeing "good progress" in bringing in money from Reels, with the video snippets played more than 200 billion times daily across Facebook and Instagram, Zuckerberg said.

VR costs

Meta's vow of austerity on spending brought an unprecedented round of cost-cutting that has seen the company lay off tens of thousands of workers since last November.

Meta said it had 71,469 employees at the end of June, a decrease of 14 percent from the same time a year earlier.

The company has faced criticism over its gamble on the metaverse, the world of virtual reality that Meta believes will be the next frontier online and led it to change its name from Facebook in 2021.

This to date has proved to be a bad bet with customers so far unenthused by the technology, even though Apple will enter the space sometime next year with the release of its expensive VisionPro headset.

Zuckerberg referred to the lackluster rate at which people are embracing the metaverse as a "somewhat sobering signal" but he remained confident it is a computing platform of the future.

The metaverse and AI remain priorities at Meta, according to Zuckerberg.

Meta said in the earnings report that it expects its operating losses at the unit responsible for VR to "increase meaningfully" in the year ahead.

The company has also jumped to take advantage of the chaos at Twitter, which has now been renamed to X.

Earlier this month Meta rushed out the release of Threads, a text-only app that saw more than 100 million downloads in just days, though the users' longterm interest remains unproven.

"We saw unprecedented growth out of the gate and, more importantly, we're seeing more people coming back daily than I'd expected," Zuckerberg said of Threads.

"Now we're focused on retention and improving the basics; I'm really happy with the path that we're on here."

On AI, Zuckerberg has chosen a different track than Microsoft and its partnership with OpenAI.

Meta instead has endorsed a more "open source" approach and made its Llama generative AI technology available to researchers and companies to adapt to their own needs.

Investors are keen to see how Meta expands use of generative AI in its products, questions on the earnings call showed.

Zuckerberg indicated in a recent podcast that his company is working on an AI platform that would allow creators and advertisers to more efficiently work together.

Agence France-Presse

Twitter challenger Threads struggles for traction

SAN FRANCISCO, United States - After a wildly successful first few days, Threads popularity has waned in the weeks since Meta launched its challenge to Twitter, which lives on despite its problems.

The average amount of time people spend on Threads daily has plummeted more than 75 percent since the platform made a rock star debut on July 6, according to data from Sensor Tower, a market analysis firm.

Threads was quickly billed as a potential death knell for Twitter, a platform that has tumbled into chaos under the leadership of mercurial tycoon Elon Musk.

The launch saw sign-ups of more than 100 million users in less than five days, smashing the record of AI tool ChatGPT for fastest-growing consumer app and creating relief and excitement amongst early adopters fleeing Twitter.

"I actually closed down my Twitter account after starting Threads," said Brooklyn resident Lauren Brose, head of marketing at a tech start-up.

"I used to love Twitter. After Elon Musk took over Twitter, I found that the entire environment just changed completely."

But weeks later, Threads has since seen a "material decline in new sign-ups," Sensor Tower said.

Twitter continues to dominate its space as a platform for online comment and news, and Musk "would have to completely destroy it" to drive away its audience for good, according to Silicon Valley investor and analyst Jeremiah Owyang.

"Will Threads kill Twitter? Absolutely not. It's just not equivalent," he said.

Threads went live on Apple and Android app stores in 100 countries at its launch, though it is not available in Europe because parent company Meta is unsure how to navigate the European Union's data privacy legislation.

Twitter is thought to have around 200 million regular users but it has suffered repeated technical failures since Tesla tycoon Musk bought the platform last year and sacked much of its staff.

Musk, also the boss of SpaceX, has alienated users by introducing charges for previously free services and allowing banned right-wing accounts back on the platform.

There is little doubt that Threads had a major leg up compared to other wannabe Twitter alternatives.

Several rivals have emerged but most are niche platforms without the capacity to grow at the necessary scale to dethrone Twitter.

But Meta was able to easily prompt Instagram users to start Threads accounts, tapping into a base of at least a billion users at the image-focused social network.

NOT ABOUT NEWS?

Threads has a lot to prove, and features to add, to become a formidable Twitter alternative, according to Insider Intelligence analyst Jasmine Enberg.

It needs to foster creators to engage users, and to find its own identity separate from Instagram and Twitter, Enberg said.

"Given that Twitter is in a state of disarray, the brilliant move that they did was using the existing social graph from Instagram for rapid and seamless adoption," Owyang said of Threads.

The downside is that's not the user base "that you want to have chats with or to do microblogging," he added.

Instagram users typically engage with the service for images or videos, not commentary or controversy, Owyang noted.

"It is a very different crowd on Instagram," Creative Strategies analyst Carolina Milanesi said of a comparison to Threads.

Twitter is known as a forum for news and politics, topics that Threads has no interest in spotlighting, according to a recent post by Threads and Instagram boss Adam Mosseri.

Meanwhile, Twitter is seen as an established home for posts by journalists, celebrities, athletes, politicians and others.

Another roadblock to Threads growth is that Meta is holding it back from the European Union, Milanesi said.

"You are missing a big chunk of the market," she said of Threads being absent from the EU.

TWITTER DIASPORA?

While people frustrated with Musk-owned Twitter are seeking alternatives, no single competitor has established itself as the ideal option.

Twitter quitters have become a "diaspora" of sorts, spread across Mastodon, Bluesky, Threads and other platforms in search of a new social media home, Owyang reasoned.

"Many people have left Twitter, and that will continue," Owyang said.

"But the issue is where are they going? There's no one centralized place to go."

The Threads app has been downloaded more than 184 million times globally since its launch, according to Data.ai Intelligence.

"But, the app hasn’t proved to be materially different from Twitter in terms of features/functionality," said Sensor Tower senior insights analyst Abe Yousef.

"What should dissuade people from remaining on Twitter, assuming they’re comfortable with Twitter's content policies?" Yousef added.

Agence France-Presse

Australia bans TikTok on government devices

SYDNEY — Australia said Tuesday it will ban TikTok on government devices, joining a growing list of Western nations cracking down on the Chinese-owned app due to national security fears.

Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus said the decision followed advice from the country's intelligence agencies and would begin "as soon as practicable".

Australia is the last member of the secretive Five Eyes security alliance to pursue a government TikTok ban, joining its allies the United States, Britain, Canada and New Zealand.

France, the Netherlands and the European Commission have made similar moves.

Dreyfus said the government would approve some exemptions on a "case-by-case basis" with "appropriate security mitigations in place".

Cyber security experts have warned that the app -- which boasts more than one billion users -- could be used to hoover up data that is then shared with the Chinese government.

Fergus Ryan, an analyst with the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, said stripping TikTok from government devices was a "no-brainer".

"It's been clear for years that TikTok user data is accessible in China," Ryan told AFP.

"Banning the use of the app on government phones is a prudent decision given this fact."

Ryan said Beijing would likely "perceive it as unfair treatment of and discrimination against a Chinese company".

The security concerns are underpinned by a 2017 Chinese law that requires local firms to hand over personal data to the state if it is relevant to national security.

Beijing has denied these reforms pose a threat to ordinary users.

China "has never and will not require companies or individuals to collect or provide data located in a foreign country, in a way that violates local law", foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said in March.

'ROOTED IN XENOPHOBIA' 

TikTok has said such bans were "rooted in xenophobia", while insisting that it is not owned or operated by the Chinese government.

The company's Australian spokesman Lee Hunter said it "would never" give data to the Chinese government.

"No one is working harder to make sure this would never be a possibility," he told Australia's Channel Seven.

But the firm acknowledged in November that some employees in China could access European user data, and in December it said employees had used the data to spy on journalists.

The app is used to share short, lighthearted videos and has exploded in popularity in recent years.

Many government departments were initially eager to use TikTok as a way to connect with a younger demographic that is harder to reach through traditional media channels.

New Zealand banned TikTok from government devices in March, saying the risks were "not acceptable in the current New Zealand Parliamentary environment".

Earlier this year, the Australian government announced it would be stripping Chinese-made CCTV cameras from politicians' offices due to security concerns.

Agence France-Presse

TikTok chief faces US Congress as lawmakers mull ban

WASHINGTON — TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew will fight for the survival of the hugely popular video-sharing app in the United States on Thursday, as he faces skeptical Washington lawmakers over the company's alleged ties to the Chinese government.

The 40-year-old Singaporean will address the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee at 10:00 am (1400 GMT) and endure hours of serious grilling by both Republicans and Democrats who fear that Beijing could subvert the site for spying or to promote propaganda.

Tiktok, owned by Chinese company ByteDance, is under immense pressure across Western countries, with government officials in the United States, at the EU commission, as well as the UK and Canada forced to delete the app from their devices.

British broadcaster BBC on Tuesday advised its staff to remove TikTok from their phones.

TikTok's gravest threat is from the United States, where the administration of President Joe Biden has set an ultimatum that the company either dump its Chinese ownership or face an outright ban.

A ban would be an unprecedented act on a media company by the US government, cutting off 150 million monthly users in the country from an application that has become a cultural powerhouse -- especially for young people -- and the nation's most viewed source of entertainment after Netflix.

"Let me state this unequivocally: ByteDance is not an agent of China or any other country," Chew will say, according to prepared remarks released ahead of the House committee hearing.

"TikTok has never shared, or received a request to share, US user data with the Chinese government. Nor would TikTok honor such a request if one were ever made," Chew will add in his opening statement on Thursday.

Despite his assurances, the cards in Washington seemed to be dealt against Chew, with several pieces of legislation, including one bill backed by the White House, already paving the way for a ban of the app.

"Americans deserve to know the extent to which their privacy is jeopardized and their data is manipulated by ByteDance-owned TikTok’s relationship with China," Cathy McMorris Rodgers, chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee, said.

"What's worse, we know Big Tech companies, like TikTok, use harmful algorithms to exploit children for profit and expose them to dangerous content online," added the Republican.

'STOP SUPPRESSING' 

In the final months of his term, former president Donald Trump also attempted to ban the app, but his effort was ultimately blocked by a US judge.

During that battle, a potential sale to Microsoft or spinoff to Oracle never got off the ground due to the opposition of China.

Beijing last week urged Washington to "stop unreasonably suppressing" TikTok and said the United States has no evidence that TikTok threatens US national security.

In a TikTok post earlier this week, Chew asked US users to defend their favorite app by sharing "what you love" about the platform with elected representatives.

On Wednesday, a group of around a dozen teenagers, teachers and business owners rallied at the US Capitol to express their opposition to a potential ban. 

"Are there other platforms out there? Absolutely -- I'm on them. But none of them have the reach that TikTok has," aspiring soapmaking entrepreneur @countrylather2020 told her 70,000 followers in a video recorded after she arrived in Washington.

A sale, even if all parties agreed, would be very complicated. 

The success of the platform is due to its powerful recommendation algorithm, and "separating the algorithm between TikTok and ByteDance is like a Siamese twins operation," analyst Dan Ives of Wedbush told AFP.

TikTok still hopes to appease the authorities.

Chew's testimony will promote the company's elaborate plan -- known as Project Texas -- to satisfy national security concerns in which the handling of US data will be ring-fenced into a US-run division.

He will tell the lawmakers that TikTok has already spent $1.5 billion on the project and hired 1,500 US-based staff to launch it.

Agence France-Presse

Canadian privacy regulators launch TikTok probe

MONTREAL, Canada — Canadian privacy protection regulators said that they have launched an investigation into TikTok over its use and collection of users' personal information.

The Chinese-owned platform is under growing Western scrutiny, and Canada's move came just hours after the European Commission banned the app from all employees' work devices to "protect" the institution.

Canada's Office of the Privacy Commissioner said it had launched a joint probe into TikTok alongside provincial privacy regulators from Quebec, British Columbia and Alberta.

The investigation was initiated "in the wake of now-settled class-action lawsuits in the United States and Canada, as well as numerous media reports related to TikTok's collection, use and disclosure of personal information," a statement said.

The probe aims to establish "whether the organization's practices are in compliance with Canadian privacy legislation."

The privacy regulators said many of the social network's users are younger, and there is a greater "importance of protecting children's privacy."

The massively popular video-sharing platform, owned by Chinese giant ByteDance, has come under increasing scrutiny from the West over concerns that Beijing could access user data from around the world.

The US Congress passed a ban on downloading TikTok for most government devices, which President Joe Biden signed in late December, and momentum is building among lawmakers to broaden it even further.

Relations between China and Canada have deteriorated sharply in recent years, particularly after Canada arrested Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou at the request of the United States in 2018.

Agence France-Presse

E-cig giant Juul to pay $22.5 million in underage lawsuit

LOS ANGELES — E-cigarette firm Juul has agreed to pay $22.5 million in a US lawsuit that alleged the company deliberately targeted teenagers and lied about how addictive its products are, Washington state's attorney general said Wednesday.

The company, whose wide range of exotic flavored vapes -- including mango and creme brulee -- made it a byword for e-cigarettes in the United States, did not admit any wrongdoing but agreed to rein in its advertising.

In the latest such multi-million-dollar suit it has settled with a US state, Juul Labs agreed to pull commercials that appeal to young people, including on social media. It will also work to ensure stores in the state are not selling its products to anyone underage.

"Juul put profits before people," said Attorney General Bob Ferguson, who brought the suit in 2020.

"The company fueled a staggering rise in vaping among teens. Juul’s conduct reversed decades of progress fighting nicotine addiction.

"Today’s order compels Juul to surrender tens of millions of dollars in profit and clean up its act by implementing a slate of corporate reforms."

A Juul spokesperson told AFP, "this settlement is another step in our ongoing effort to reset our company and resolve issues from the past. We support the Washington State Attorney General’s plan to deploy resources to address underage use, such as future monitoring and enforcement."

This official added: "The terms of the settlement are consistent with our current business practices and past agreements to help combat underage use while offering adult smokers access to our products as they transition away from combustible cigarettes.”

E-cigarettes heat up a cartridge of liquid containing nicotine and other toxins into an aerosol. The user inhales the resulting vapor, mimicking traditional cigarettes.

Proponents of vaping say it is less harmful that traditional tobacco, though the science is not clear. The World Health Organization says using neither is the best course of action.

Opponents say the sweet-tasting flavors are appealing to young people, and the companies peddling them are -- knowingly or otherwise -- getting a whole new generation of people hooked on nicotine.

Washington's suit claimed Juul "flooded social media with colorful ads of young-looking models in fun poses that mimicked many of Big Tobacco’s ad campaigns. 

"At the same time, Juul pushed fruit and dessert flavored products such as mango and crème brulee."

By the end of 2018, Juul had more than 70 percent of the US market for e-cigarettes.

"Much of this was due to its popularity with teens, evidenced by the skyrocketing use of e-cigarettes among teenagers," the attorney general said.

Until 2018, Juul's packaging did not disclose that products contained nicotine, the suit said, despite their having up to five times the level found in similar products.

The settlement announced Wednesday is the latest to involve a lawsuit claiming Juul was marketing its products to children.

Last year, it agreed to pay Arizona $14.5 million and pledged not to target youngsters in the state. Months earlier it said it would pay North Carolina $40 million, but dd not admit liability.

The company is facing similar suits by other states, including New York and California, Bloomberg News reported.

Agence France-Presse 

Meta virtual money moves could include 'Zuck Bucks': report

SAN FRANCISCO, United States - Facebook's parent company Meta is exploring the potential of digital money referred to internally as "Zuck Bucks" in a play on the founder's name, the Financial Times reported.

Meta abandoned its effort to create a global cryptocurrency -- first called Libra but eventually re-branded as Diem -- in the face of fierce backlash by financial regulators around the world.

However, founder and chief Mark Zuckerberg has spoken about the importance of e-commerce and financial tools to his vision for an immersive online world called the metaverse.

"We continuously consider new product innovations for people, businesses, and creators," a Meta spokesperson said in response to an AFP inquiry.

"As a company, we are focused on building for the metaverse and that includes what payments and financial services might look like."

The spokesperson would not comment on specific innovations being pursued.

Products being considered at Meta include digital tokens similar to those used for transactions in video games, with the internet company's version nicknamed "Zuck Bucks" by those working on it, according to the Financial Times.

Popular games such as "Fortnite" and "Roblox" use tokens for transactions.

The tokens could potentially be used to reward creators and influencers whose posts draw online audiences.

Meta is looking to diversify its revenue beyond a reliance on targeted advertising that has provoked concerns about invading users' privacy.

Agence France-Presse

Meta rolls out parental supervision tools on Instagram

Facebook owner Meta Platforms Inc will allow parents to track how much time their children are spending on Instagram and will soon roll out parental supervision features on Quest virtual reality headsets, the company said.

The new parental controls are part of Meta's promise to protect children using its social media apps, after a whistleblower leaked internal documents that showed the company was aware that Instagram caused body image problems for some teenage girls.

The uproar resulting from the leaked documents led to Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, testifying before Congress in December, where he was grilled about children's safety online. 

The Instagram supervision tools will be available in the United States beginning Wednesday and will roll out globally over the coming months, Meta said.

Parents will be able to view what accounts their children follow and can set time limits for how long their kids spend on the app.

In May, Meta will launch a dashboard that includes supervision tools for its Quest headsets and will automatically block teens from downloading age-inappropriate apps on Quest.

Parental supervision on both Instagram and Quest will require consent from teens, Meta said in a blog post.

The company added it plans to eventually allow parents to oversee their kids' activities across all of Meta's services from one central place.

-reuters

Facebook, Twitter highlight security steps for users in Ukraine

Facebook owner Meta Platforms Inc has set up a special operations center to monitor the conflict in Ukraine, and it launched a feature so users in the country can lock their social media profiles for security, a company official said in Twitter posts on Thursday.

Twitter Inc on Wednesday posted tips on how users can secure their accounts against hacking, make sure their tweets are private and deactivate their accounts. The company tweeted the safety tips in English, Russian and Ukrainian.

Both social media platforms are often used by political activists and researchers to disseminate information during times of crisis. The Russian invasion of Ukraine on Thursday also raised concerns about the spread of disinformation about the conflict on social media.

With one click, users in Ukraine can lock their profile to prevent users who are not their friends from downloading or sharing their profile picture, or seeing posts on their timeline, Nathaniel Gleicher, Facebook's head of security policy, said on Twitter.

On Wednesday, Twitter also shared information on how users can deactivate their accounts.

As the conflict in Ukraine escalated on Thursday, social media users took to platforms like TikTok, Snapchat and Twitter to post videos of evacuation lines, helicopters in the sky and anti-war protests in Russia.

On short-form video app TikTok, the hashtags "Russia" and "Ukraine" had 37.2 billion and 8.5 billion views, respectively.

-reuters

Tinder owner to pay founders $441 million to settle valuation lawsuit

NEW YORK, United States - The company that owns Tinder will pay $441 million to the popular dating app's founders to settle a dispute over the valuation of stock options, documents showed Wednesday.

The suit filed in New York in 2018 contended that Tinder owner Match Group, and its then-parent firm InterActiveCorp, schemed to dramatically drive down the value of stock options and then eliminate them altogether.

Co-creators Sean Rad, Justin Mateen and Jonathan Badeen alleged Match and IAC relied on bogus figures to arrive at a valuation of $3 billion in 2017 -- when Tinder was actually worth more than four times that. 

Created in 2012, Tinder now has more than 10 million paying users who can quickly scroll through possible romantic matches, and then swipe left or right to signal interest.

With options on about 20 percent of Tinder's stock, the founders and their early employees felt they had been shortchanged by several billion dollars. 

Match will pay $441 million to the 10 Tinder alumni, including the three co-founders, in exchange for them agreeing to end all legal actions, according to a document filed Wednesday with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. 

Listed on the stock exchange in 2015, Match Group was completely spun off from IAC in 2020 and also owns dating platforms like Hinge, Meetic and OkCupid.

Agence France-Presse

Facebook tests paid subgroups in subscription push

Facebook is testing ways for creators to make money through Facebook Groups, such as users paying fees for exclusive access to content or conversations within subgroups, the company said on Thursday.

Facebook, which recently changed its name to Meta, said the test was part of its broader paid subscription effort. The social media company is one of many tech giants that have been working to woo social media creators and their large followings through payments and new tools.

Facebook, which has in recent years focused on building communities as a tactic to drive engagement on the site, said Group administrators will be able to run e-commerce shops to sell merchandise or create community fundraisers, which could offset the costs of running a Group.

On Wednesday, CEO Mark Zuckerberg also said that creators would be able to share custom links allowing them to accept payments directly, in a swipe at Apple's subscription fees. Facebook launched its subscriptions service last year.

The company announced a series of updates to its Groups product during its live-streamed Communities Summit. It said the subgroups feature, which can be free or paid, would allow members to break off within groups to focus on certain regions or topics.

Facebook Groups have been under scrutiny from lawmakers and researchers who argue that they provide closed spaces for health misinformation, violent rhetoric and extremism to proliferate without being properly policed.

A company spokesperson said Facebook was testing community fundraisers with select Groups and that Groups created in the last 30 days, violate its content rules or frequently share harmful content or misinformation were not eligible.

-reuters

Facebook halting facial recognition system over privacy fears

Facebook is shutting down its facial recognition system and deleting a billion faceprints, its parent company said Tuesday, in response to serious concerns over privacy.

The announcement from the leading social media network was made as it battles one of its worst crises ever, with reams of internal documents leaked to reporters, lawmakers and US regulators.

"There are many concerns about the place of facial recognition technology in society, and regulators are still in the process of providing a clear set of rules governing its use," parent company Meta said in a statement.

"Amid this ongoing uncertainty, we believe that limiting the use of facial recognition to a narrow set of use cases is appropriate," it added.

It was not clear when the changes would take effect, but they will be widely felt with Facebook noting that more than a third of its daily users have opted in to using the facial recognition system.

Shutting down that system "will result in the deletion of more than a billion people's individual facial recognition templates," the statement said.

As the social media giant battles a whistleblower crisis, it has also changed its parent company name to "Meta" in an effort to move past being a scandal-plagued social network to its virtual reality vision for the future.

Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp -- which are used by billions around the world -- will keep their names under the rebranding that critics have called an effort to distract from the platform's dysfunction.

Agence France-Presse

Facebook announces 10,000 EU jobs to build 'metaverse'

PARIS, France - Facebook on Monday announced plans to hire 10,000 people in the European Union to build the "metaverse", a virtual reality version of the internet that the tech giant sees as the future.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been a leading voice in Silicon Valley hype around the idea of the metaverse, which would blur the lines between the physical world and the digital one.

technology might, for example, allow someone to don virtual reality glasses that make it feel as if they're face-to-face with a friend -- when in fact they are thousands of miles apart and connected via the internet. 

"The metaverse has the potential to help unlock access to new creative, social, and economic opportunities. And Europeans will be shaping it right from the start," Facebook said in a blog post. 

"Today, we are announcing a plan to create 10,000 new high skilled jobs within the European Union (EU) over the next five years."

The European hires will include "highly specialised engineers", but the company otherwise gave few details of its plans for the new metaverse team. 

"The EU has a number of advantages that make it a great place for tech companies to invest -- a large consumer market, first class universities and, crucially, top quality talent," the blog post said. 

DISTRACTION FROM BAD NEWS?

The announcement comes as Facebook grapples with the fallout of a damaging scandal, major outages of its services, and rising calls for regulation to curb its vast influence. 

The company has faced a storm of criticism over the past month after former employee Frances Haugen leaked internal studies showing Facebook knew its sites could be harmful to young people's mental health.

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".

But Zuckerberg also appears to be a genuine evangelist for the advent of the metaverse era, predicting in July that Facebook will transition from "primarily being a social media company to being a metaverse company" over the next five years. 

Facebook bought Oculus, a company that makes virtual reality headsets, for $2 billion in 2014 and has since been developing Horizon, a digital world where people can interact using VR technology. 

In August it unveiled Horizon Workrooms, a feature where co-workers wearing VR headsets can hold meetings in a virtual room where they all appear as cartoonish 3D versions of themselves. 

BLURRING THE LINES

Metaverse enthusiasts point out that the internet is already starting to blur the lines between virtual experiences and "real" ones. 

Stars such as pop diva Ariana Grande and the rapper Travis Scott have performed for huge audiences, watching at home, via the hit video game Fortnite. 

In Decentraland, another online platform widely seen as a forerunner to the metaverse, you can already get a job as a croupier in its virtual casino. 

"No one company will own and operate the metaverse. Like the internet, its key feature will be its openness and interoperability," Facebook said in its blog post. 

It is not the only company pouring millions into developing the technology that could turn a fully-fledged version of the metaverse into reality. 

Epic Games, the company behind Fortnite, announced earlier this year that it had raised $1 billion in new funding, with some of that money set to support its vision of the metaverse.

Agence France-Presse

TikTok tops Facebook as most downloaded app of 2020

TikTok was the world's most downloaded app last year, overtaking Facebook and its messaging platforms, market tracker App Annie said Tuesday.

The Chinese-owned video app surged in popularity despite efforts by former president Donald Trump to ban it or force a sale to US-based investors, according to the research firm.

TikTok, owned by China-based ByteDance, is believed to have one billion users worldwide including more than 100 million in the United States, and its short-form videos are especially popular with young smartphone users. 

US President Joe Biden in June revoked executive orders from his predecessor seeking to ban TikTok and Chinese-owned WeChat from US markets on national security concerns but ordered a review of the potential risks of foreign-owned internet services. 

While political debate about the video-snippet sharing sensation roiled, TikTok climbed from the fourth most downloaded app in 2019 to the top spot last year, according to App Annie data.

On the way, TikTok stepped over Facebook and two of the US internet giants texting apps Messenger and WhatsApp, the market tracker determined.

TikTok's popularity has prompted Facebook-owned Instagram to add video features to ride the hot trend.

Meanwhile TikTok last month began letting users post videos up to three minutes in length, tripling the prior cap to stay ahead of competitors.

Facebook has argued that the surge in TikTok's popularity undercuts claims from antitrust enforcers in the United States that the California group dominates social networking.

Agence France-Presse

US to ban TikTok downloads, WeChat use

WASHINGTON - The United States on Friday ordered a ban on downloads of popular Chinese-owned video app TikTok and use of the messaging and payment platform WeChat, saying they threaten national security.

The move, to be implemented Sunday, comes amid rising US-China tensions and efforts by the Trump administration to engineer a sale of TikTok to American investors.

"The Chinese Communist Party has demonstrated the means and motives to use these apps to threaten the national security, foreign policy, and the economy of the US," Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in a statement.

The initiative would ban WeChat, an app with massive use among Chinese speakers, and TikTok from the online marketplaces operated by Apple and Google.

But while WeChat will effectively be shut down from Sunday in the US, existing TikTok user will be able to continue using the app until Nov. 12 -- when it would also face a full ban on its US operations.

But the Commerce Department said if national security concerns over TikTok were resolved before then, the order may be lifted.

TikTok's brand of brief, quirky videos made on users' cellphones has become hugely popular, especially among young people.

The plan follows through on a threat by President Donald Trump, who has claimed Chinese tech operations may be used for spying, and it ramps up the pressure on TikTok parent ByteDance to conclude a deal to sell all or part of TikTok to allay US security concerns.

A deal which appeared to be taking shape would allow Silicon Valley giant Oracle to become the tech partner for TikTok, but some US lawmakers have objected to allowing ByteDance to keep a stake.

The ban on WeChat, owned by Chinese giant Tencent, has the potential for disrupting the widely used social media and financial application.

US officials said in a recent court filing they would not target those using WeChat for ordinary personal communications.

Agence France-Presse

Facebook bans content promoting ‘conversion therapy’

Facebook on Friday said it is banning content that promotes “conversion therapy,” which is based on the unfounded notion that gays can change their sexual orientation through psychological or spiritual intervention.

Facebook and its image-centric social network Instagram are updating policies to require removal of content that directly promotes conversion therapy when such posts are flagged by users, according to the California-based internet giant.


The move is an extension of an existing ban on ads that promote the tactic, which medical experts consider ineffective and often harmful.


“We don’t allow attacks against people based on sexual orientation or gender identity and are updating our policies to ban the promotion of conversion therapy services,” a Facebook spokesperson said in response to an AFP inquiry.


“We are always reviewing our policies and will continue to consult with experts and people with personal experiences to inform our approach.”

Conversion therapy “interventions” include electric shock, food deprivation and chemically-induced nausea, the American Medical Association has said in a report.


Empirical evidence demonstrates that sexuality and gender identities in people vary naturally, with the idea of “conversion” a misconception, the report said.

Such “sexual orientation change efforts” not only don’t work, but they may also cause significant distress, the AMA said, citing a study showing they caused depression, anxiety, alienation, and other ill effects.

Another study cited by the AMA found that nearly 30 percent of people who underwent conversion therapy reported suicide attempts.

Agence France-Presse

Influencer Jake Paul faces charges after Arizona mall riot

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. (AP) — Social media influencer Jake Paul faces misdemeanor charges following a riot at a mall outside Phoenix, police said Thursday. Paul, who has 20 million followers, says he was merely trying to find people protesting against the death of George Floyd.

Paul, 23, was identified as a participant in a riot last Saturday night at Scottsdale Fashion Square and has been charged with criminal trespass and unlawful assembly, the Scottsdale Police Department said in a statement.

Police determined that “Paul was present after the protest was declared an unlawful assembly and the rioters were urged to leave the area by police.” He entered and remained inside of the mall when it was closed, police said.

Sgt. Benjamin Hoster said he didn’t know whether Paul has an attorney and that he was issued a summons to appear in court “in a month.”

Paul, who has over 20 million YouTube subscribers, said in video posted Wednesday, that he and friends went to the mall to attend a protest against the death of George Floyd while in custody of Minneapolis.

They instead found people engaged in looting and property damage that included shattered windows of offices and stores, Paul said, adding that he didn’t participate in that activity.

“That’s the way it looked on camera. However that isn’t the case,” he said.

Paul said he kept walking in the mall area despite encountering the criminal activity because he still wanted to find the protest.

He said it was upsetting that social media posts accused him of vandalism. “I’m above that. I don’t’need to vanadalize. I don’t need to loot and I know it’s not the way forward.”

Paul said he was an “easy target” and that he has learned a lesson about entering situations that could pose problems. “But it’s not going to stop me from doing what I need to do.””

The Associated Press

Twitter suspends accounts defending Duterte’s COVID-19 response – report

MANILA, Philippines — Twitter has suspended accounts defending President Rodrigo Duterte under hashtags in support of the government’s coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) response.

“Hundreds of accounts” were in violation of the social media platform’s manipulation and spam policies, according to a report from The Washington Post on Thursday.



Quoting Twitter, the report said behaviors that violate Twitter’s rules on spam include posting “duplicate” content across multiple accounts, creating multiple accounts and sending large numbers of unsolicited replies or mentions.

Under Twitter’s rules and policies on platform manipulation and spam, it is said that the platform may not be used  if it is “intended to artificially amplify or suppress information or engage in behavior that manipulates or disrupts people’s experience.”

This policy prohibits misleading others by “operating fake accounts” which engage in “spamming, abusive or disruptive behavior.”

Several hashtags in support and of dissent to the President recently climbed the top trending topics on Twitter Philippines following his late night public addresses on COVID-19.


These include #OustDuterte, #IStandWithThePresident, #ICantStandThePresident and #OursDuterte.

source: technology.inquirer.net