Meta (Facebook) sucks balls

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pmbug said:
www.cnbc.com

Meta has started its latest round of layoffs, focusing on business groups

Meta has begun its third round of layoffs as part of a cost-cutting plan that will eliminate more than 21,000 workers from the company.
www.cnbc.com www.cnbc.com

Metaverse is a black hole money pit.
Click to expand...
Agreed.

These tech people are NOT...NORMAL. They misunderstand the appeal, or lack thereof, of reducing people's lives to an animated cartoon, playing in real time inside some microcomputer with goggles.

NORMAL people will be repulsed. Not autistic dweebs, the type who are best at coding...but...others are.

This is their Rubicon, their Waterloo. Finally Zuck's reach exceeded his grasp.
 
So Meta acquired Instagram some time back and now has rolled out their competitor to Twitter called Threads which is built on the Instagram platform (meaning anyone on Instagram automatically has a Threads account). Social media wars heating up...
 
searcher said:

Why the Meta-Facebook-Threads effort to make language safe is so dangerous​

public.substack.com

The Infantilism Of Totalitarianism

Why the Meta-Facebook-Threads effort to make language safe is so dangerous
public.substack.com public.substack.com
Click to expand...
They don't seem to learn.

I remember the (relatively) early days of the InterwebZ, back around 1998. Earthlink was a new service in a new market - a series of dial-up modem batteries in most major urban regions. You used the toll-free number (programmed in the Earthlink software on Macs and probably Windows 98s, too) and it walked you through the setup to find the best local number for your area. Also gave you an account, for of course, a card purchase.

And you got a monthly magazine, too. For real! The ISP mailed out a glossy dead-tree artifact each month, with Sky Dayton (founder and CEO) writing a back-page editorial.

Whether he wrote them or not, they were well written, if a bit promotional.

One I remembered, was how he compared Earthlink's continued rise with AOL's (then) stagnant member numbers. He postulated why: Earthlink, gave the user the whole of the Internet. Back then it was two protocols: the Worldwide Web and UseNet. Plus of course, email - and Earthlink gave users an email box and program (web-based email was a few years away).

AOL gave users a PLAYPEN. Bad words were greyed out, if accessed from a non-AOL page. Many sites couldn't be visited. ONLY "approved" sites that America Online was confident of, could be accessed. Most of them, commercial.

Back then there were some veterans' sites, and some commentary sites, that AOL wouldn't let a user visit. I had a hack to use AOL when traveling - before Wi-Fi was everywhere. Earthlink wasn't portable. But I couldn't access Col. David Hackworth's weekly diatribes, nor some sardoni-laced editorial sites.

Point is: People rebelled against their content feed being curated, screened or censored...BY ANYONE. They DO NOT WANT that.

But the tech fields now are populated with young people who are Leftist; who are autistic; who are overpaid and who think they know better than us mere mortals.

They will again have to learn. This time, it will be, I think, a wholesale repudiation of the Web.

People are starting. There just isn't any reason to read or view material, when it all adds up to a political-party newspaper.
 
**I hope this hasn't been posted elsewhere.

Oct 24 (Reuters) - Dozens of U.S. states are suing Meta Platforms (META.O) and its Instagram unit, accusing them of fueling a youth mental health crisis by making their social media platforms addictive.

In a complaint filed on Tuesday, the attorneys general of 33 states including California and New York said Meta, which also operates Facebook, repeatedly misled the public about the dangers of its platforms, and knowingly induced young children and teenagers into addictive and compulsive social media use.

www.reuters.com

Meta's Instagram linked to depression, anxiety, insomnia in kids - US states' lawsuit

Dozens of U.S. states are suing Meta Platforms and its Instagram unit, accusing them of fueling a youth mental health crisis by making their social media platforms addictive.
www.reuters.com www.reuters.com
 

The ‘pay-or-consent’ challenge for platform regulators​

Meta-owned Facebook’s original slogan, “it’s free and always will be”, illustrates what most users think about paying for online services. So far, Meta and other digital firms have offered most of their services for free to encourage user enrolment. Yet, free services are not really free. Most are funded by an advertising model built on users’ personal data.

There has been an ongoing clash between this model and European Union regulations, including the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which make it harder for these ad-funded services to rely on personal data. Increasingly, EU laws require users to give explicit consent to the collection and use of their personal data, whether is it collected inside (on-platform, eg only from Facebook) or outside the platform (off-platform, eg from applications and websites).

More:

www.bruegel.org

The ‘pay-or-consent’ challenge for platform regulators

Users expect online services to be free but some digital firms are now offering pay-or-consent options, affecting competition dynamics.
www.bruegel.org www.bruegel.org
 
Subscribe or view ads - it's true with cable/satellite tv and it's becoming more true every day with social media (except I bet the big boys still abuse your privacy/personal info even if you pay them).
 
BRUSSELS, Nov 10 (Reuters) - Facebook owner Meta Platforms (META.O) and social media company Snap (SNAP.N) have been given a Dec. 1 deadline by the EU to give more information on how they protect children from illegal and harmful content, the European Commission said on Friday.

www.reuters.com

Meta and Snap must detail child protection measures by Dec. 1, EU says

Facebook owner Meta Platforms and social media company Snap have been given a Dec. 1 deadline by the EU to give more information on how they protect children from illegal and harmful content, the European Commission said on Friday.
www.reuters.com www.reuters.com
 
searcher said:
lol

View attachment 8710
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Is social media addictive? ‘Digital detox’ study suggests not​


A week of reduced social media usage neither increased nor decreased people’s desire to get back online, a new study finds. The lack of craving to return to social media platforms such as Instagram and X (formerly Twitter) suggests that for most people, the use of social media may not be truly addictive, the authors argue. Some experts remain skeptical, however.

“It’s a really well done study,” says Mariek Vanden Abeele, a communication scientist at Ghent University who was not involved in the research. Because people often frame excessive social media use in terms of addiction, she says, the idea of “detoxing” from Instagram and X, as one might from drugs or alcohol, has garnered attention as well. “What do we see in this study? That actually does not work very well,” Vanden Abeele says.

More:

 
Cigarlover said:
Stock has about tripled since then so must be going out of business anyway now. Or, maybe someone started a rumor to drive price down so they could accumulate cheap shares.
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Melt-up?

The banksters are looking for places to use money to manipulate...buy today, sell for moar tomorrow, because all the banksters are buying, because ZIRP short-term loans to member banks.
 
Never forget its origins:

Pentagon Kills LifeLog Project

The Pentagon canceled its so-called LifeLog project, an ambitious effort to build a database tracking a person's entire existence. Run by Darpa, the Defense Department's research arm, LifeLog aimed to gather in a single place just about everything an individual says, sees or does: the phone...
www.wired.com www.wired.com
 
BRUSSELS, Nov 30 (Reuters) - Meta Platforms' (META.O) advertising-free subscription service, a fee-based offering rolled out in Europe this month, breaches EU consumer laws, Europe's largest consumer group said on Thursday as it took its grievance to consumer protection authorities.

The joint complaint from the European Consumer Organisation (BEUC) and 18 of its members to the network of consumer protection authorities (CPC) came two days after advocacy group NOYB filed a complaint with the Austrian privacy watchdog, saying Meta's new service amounted to paying a fee to ensure privacy.

www.reuters.com

Meta Platforms' ad-free service targeted in EU consumer complaint

Meta Platforms' advertising-free subscription service, a fee-based offering rolled out in Europe this month, breaches EU consumer laws, Europe's largest consumer group said on Thursday as it took its grievance to consumer protection authorities.
www.reuters.com www.reuters.com
 
Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, launched a far-reaching legal attack on the Federal Trade Commission’s authority to enforce consumer protection laws Wednesday in an attempt to evade proposed restrictions on the company’s collection and use of personal data.

In May, the FTC announced its intent to impose significant new limits on the personal data practices of Meta, including a ban on monetizing the data of minors and constraints on the company’s use of facial recognition technology. The proposed action, which would modify an existing FTC order against Meta resulting from the Cambridge Analytica scandal, is based on findings that Meta “failed to fully comply with the order, misled parents about their ability to control with whom their children communicated through its Messenger Kids app, and misrepresented the access it provided some app developers to private user data.”

On Wednesday, Meta filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to preemptively halt the FTC’s proceeding, arguing that the Commission’s structure and enforcement procedures—which are firmly grounded in decades of federal law and agency practice—violate a laundry list of constitutional provisions. Meta is seeking a preliminary injunction staying the FTC’s action based on the company’s novel reading of the Constitution. Earlier this week, a separate legal challenge by Meta to the FTC’s enforcement action was rejected by a federal judge.
...
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epic.org

Meta Launches Kitchen Sink Constitutional Attack on FTC to Evade New Privacy Limits

<p>Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, launched a far-reaching legal attack on the Federal Trade Commission’s authority to enforce consumer protection laws in an attempt to evade proposed restrictions on the company’s collection and use of personal data.</p>
epic.org epic.org
 
"People just give me phone numbers, addresses, personal information. Dumb pfux."

--Face___k's founder, in early days.

Not no moar, Mark you cuck.
 

Each Facebook User is Monitored by Thousands of Companies​

By now most internet users know their online activity is constantly tracked. No one should be shocked to see ads for items they previously searched for, or to be asked if their data can be shared with an unknown number of “partners.”

But what is the scale of this surveillance? Judging from data collected by Facebook and newly described in a unique study by non-profit consumer watchdog Consumer Reports, it’s massive, and examining the data may leave you with more questions than answers.

Using a panel of 709 volunteers who shared archives of their Facebook data, Consumer Reports found that a total of 186,892 companies sent data about them to the social network. On average, each participant in the study had their data sent to Facebook by 2,230 companies. That number varied significantly, with some panelists’ data listing over 7,000 companies providing their data.

More:

themarkup.org

Each Facebook User is Monitored by Thousands of Companies – The Markup

A new study looks at who is sending information about your online activity to Facebook
themarkup.org themarkup.org
 

Social media CEOs to face grilling from senators on child safety​

The chief executives of the nation's top social media companies will testify before Congress on Wednesday in a hearing intended to drum up support for federal legislation to safeguard children from the online world.

The Senate Judiciary Committee will hear from Linda Yaccarino, the chief of X, formerly known as Twitter; Shou Chew, the CEO of TikTok; Evan Spiegel, co-founder and CEO of Snap -- the parent company of Snapchat; Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Meta; and Jason Citron, CEO of Discord.

Lawmakers are expected to drill the leaders on sexual exploitation of children online and getting illegal content off social media platforms -- a growing problem in the U.S.

More:

 

Meta oversight board, reviewing Biden video, says deepfake rule 'incoherent'​

February 5, 20246:14 AM EST

NEW YORK, Feb 5 (Reuters) - Meta's (META.O), opens new tab Oversight Board has found a Facebook video wrongfully suggesting that U.S. President Joe Biden is a pedophile does not violate the company's current rules while deeming those rules "incoherent" and too narrowly focused on AI-generated content.

The board, which is funded by Meta but run independently, took on the Biden video case in October in response to a user complaint about an altered seven-second video of the president posted on Meta's flagship social network.

More:

 

Meta will start collecting “anonymized” data about Quest headset usage​

Meta will soon begin "collecting anonymized data" from users of its Quest headsets, a move that could see the company aggregating information about hand, body, and eye tracking; camera information; "information about your physical environment"; and information about "the virtual reality events you attend."

In an email sent to Quest users Monday, Meta notes that it currently collects "the data required for your Meta Quest to work properly." Starting with the next software update, though, the company will begin collecting and aggregating "anonymized data about... device usage" from Quest users. That anonymized data will be used "for things like building better experiences and improving Meta Quest products for everyone," the company writes.

More:

arstechnica.com

Meta will start collecting “anonymized” data about Quest headset usage

Info on hand/eye tracking, "physical environment," and more could be included.
arstechnica.com arstechnica.com
 
I hate the company but Wall Street seems to love it. Up about 350 since the start of this thread.
 
Was out all morn, came back to this.

FACEBOOK has WorldWide Outage also Instagram and Threads are down​

Mar 5, 2024


1:51
 
Lulz...

(bold emphasis is mine)
Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on Monday raised concerns about efforts to ban Chinese-owned social media app TikTok in the U.S., saying it would only serve to empower Meta's Facebook platform.

"Without TikTok, you can make Facebook bigger, and I consider Facebook to be an enemy of the people," Trump, who was formerly U.S. president between 2017 and 2021, said in an interview Monday on CNBC's "Squawk Box."
...
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www.cnbc.com

Trump says a TikTok ban would empower Meta, slams Facebook as 'enemy of the people'

"Without TikTok, you can make Facebook bigger, and I consider Facebook to be an enemy of the people," Donald Trump said in a CNBC interview Monday.
www.cnbc.com www.cnbc.com
 

Project Ghostbusters: Facebook Accused of Using Your Phone to Wiretap Snapchat​

Meta has lots of data through Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook, but that’s not enough for them. Court filings unsealed last week allege Meta created an internal effort to spy on Snapchat in a secret initiative called “Project Ghostbusters.” Meta did so through Onavo, a Virtual Private Network (VPN) service the company offered between 2016 and 2019 that, ultimately, wasn’t private at all.

“Whenever someone asks a question about Snapchat, the answer is usually that because their traffic is encrypted we have no analytics about them,” said Mark Zuckerberg in an email to three Facebook executives in 2016, unsealed in Meta’s antitrust case on Saturday. “It seems important to figure out a new way to get reliable analytics about them… You should figure out how to do this.”

More:

gizmodo.com

Project Ghostbusters: Facebook Accused of Using Your Phone to Wiretap Snapchat

Unsealed court filings reveal Meta's secret plan, "Project Ghostbusters," to acquire valuable intel about Snapchat through its users' devices.
gizmodo.com gizmodo.com
 
It amazes me that people put up with that crap.
...and all to save about fifty cents a week.

Edited to add: just did the math, and actually it's to save .96cents a week.
A couple years ago it was .50/week that people saved by letting facebook mine their data.
 
Last edited:
Anyone paying attention already knew that. It's been going on for quite awhile.
 
Little shift here. Talking about $$$.

Zuckerberg’s Metaverse Gamble Pays Off With $201 Billion Fortune​

(Bloomberg) -- Mark Zuckerberg’s bet on the metaverse initially looked like a colossal mistake, wiping more than $100 billion from his net worth. But now it’s paying off big-time.

Buoyed by a record-high Meta Platforms Inc. share price, Zuckerberg’s net worth has climbed almost sixfold in less than two years to $201 billion, the first time he’s exceeded the $200 billion mark, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. He’s moved to fourth place on the list of the world’s 500 richest people behind Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Bernard Arnault.

While other tech titans made big jumps in net worth this year — Nvidia Corp. Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang, for example, has more than doubled his wealth to $106.2 billion — none has grown as much as Zuckerberg’s. He’s added $73.4 billion to his fortune since Jan. 1, thanks to his 13% stake in Meta. The stock closed at an all-time high on Wednesday and is up 60% this year.

More:

 
searcher said:
Didn't want to start a new thread, so...................

Meta to Pay $725 Million to Settle Cambridge Analytica Lawsuit​

Story by Sam Schechner • 1h ago

Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. has agreed to pay $725 million to settle a lawsuit that accused the company of allowing Cambridge Analytica and other third parties to access private information about millions of users.

The proposed settlement would fund payouts to U.S.-based users of Facebook, in what plaintiffs say could be the largest U.S. class-action privacy settlement ever, according to a court filing late Thursday.

Meta had agreed in principle to settle the case in August, but no financial details had been disclosed. A final agreement was hammered out Thursday, and now awaits approval by the court, the court filing said.

Click to expand...

Update:

www.scotusblog.com

Securities disclosure over Cambridge Analytica data breach comes before court - SCOTUSblog

The justices will return to securities law on Wednesday with arguments in a case arising out of the 2015 Cambridge Analytica-Facebook data breach. The tech giant’s effort to fend off federal securities fraud lawsuits in Facebook v. Amalgamated Bank could narrow the opportunities for private investor
www.scotusblog.com www.scotusblog.com
 
apnews.com

Supreme Court allows multibillion-dollar class action to proceed against Meta

The Supreme Court is allowing a multibillion-dollar class action investors’ lawsuit to proceed against Facebook parent Meta stemming from the privacy scandal involving the Cambridge Analytica political consulting firm.The justices heard arguments in November in Meta’s bid to shut down the lawsuit.
apnews.com apnews.com
 

Meta Announces $10 Billion Data Center in Louisiana​

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, is spending $10 billion to build its largest data center ever in Louisiana, the company confirmed on Wednesday.

The data center will take up 4 million square feet of an industrial site in the northern half of the state that once held a headlight factory.

The center will be powered by three new natural gas plants with 2.2 gigawatts of combined capacity, according to Entergy, the utility working with the tech giant. That is enough to power more than one million homes. Neal Kirby, an Entergy spokesman, said the plants will also provide power to the surrounding community.

Meta stock was flat on Wednesday, while the S&P 500 was up 0.6% and the Nasdaq Composite gained 1.3%. Entergy was up 0.2%, but had previously risen significantly when it told investors the outlines of the deal on Oct. 31 without naming the customer.

More:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/tech...S&cvid=804fdff554fa4095a7dd1700d4471a4c&ei=21
 
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