Gizmodo: Google Glass Was Ugly, but Facebook’s AR Baseball Hat Might Actually Be Worse. “One of the biggest hurdles for augmented reality devices is design: No one wants to wear an obvious gadget on their face. Realising the issues Google Glass had with gaining consumer traction, it seems Facebook may embrace a unique design for a future wearable. Folks, it’s a baseball hat.”
Reuters: Brazilian Senate to hear Google, Facebook, Twitter in pandemic probe. “A Brazilian Senate committee on Wednesday formally approved a request to call representatives of Google, Facebook and Twitter to testify in an ongoing probe into the government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Senators want to look into what role the companies had in helping to spread potentially dangerous misinformation during the pandemic.”
Bloomberg: Facebook’s Instagram Adds Shopping Via Images, Virtual Try-On. “Facebook Inc.’s Instagram is adding new shopping tools, like letting people search for products using an image, as it expands e-commerce offerings across its family of apps.”
Washington Post: Rights group: Facebook amplified Myanmar military propaganda. “Facebook’s recommendation algorithm amplifies military propaganda and other material that breaches the company’s own policies in Myanmar following a military takeover in February, a new report by the rights group Global Witness says. A month after the military seized power in Myanmar and imprisoned elected leaders, Facebook’s algorithms were still prompting users to view and ‘like’ pro-military pages with posts that incited and threatened violence, pushed misinformation that could lead to physical harm, praised the military and glorified its abuses, Global Witness said in the report, published late Tuesday.”
Politico: Trump’s fundraising arm is back advertising on Facebook. “Former president Donald Trump’s fundraising arm is once again advertising on Facebook after the social media giant banned the ex-president from using the site. Starting late last week, Save America Joint Fundraising Committee, a joint venture between Trump’s Save America leadership PAC and his Make America Great Again PAC, has spent $3,506 on Facebook ads promoting Trump’s upcoming rally outside Cleveland, Ohio and calling for donations to his fund.”
TechCrunch: Facebook officially launches Live Audio Rooms and podcasts in the U.S.. “In April, Facebook announced a series of planned investments in new audio products, including a Clubhouse live audio competitor as well as new support for podcasts. Today, Facebook is officially rolling these products with the launch of Live Audio Rooms in the U.S. on iOS, starting with public figures and select Facebook Groups, and the debut of an initial set of U.S. podcast partners.”
Tech Xplore: Facebook to launch NetHack Challenge at NeurIPS 2021. “Due to its unforgiving nature requiring players to start an entire game over in a new dungeon once their characters die, many regard NetHack as one of the most challenging games out there. In fact, even at the expert level, successfully completing the game requires an average of 25-50 times more steps than a typical StarCraft II game. Furthermore, as players’ engagement with their environment and related objects are wholly intricate, users must often think outside the box or consult an outside source such as NetHack Wiki in order to win.” Been playing this game on and off for ~30 years and I’ve yet to win.
Facebook: Removing Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior From Ethiopia. “We removed a network of accounts, Pages and Groups in Ethiopia for coordinated inauthentic behavior (CIB). It targeted domestic audiences in its own country.”
CNN: Facebook is testing AI to get you to stop fighting in its groups. “Conversations can quickly spiral out of control online, so Facebook is hoping artificial intelligence can help keep things civil. The social network is testing the use of AI to spot fights in its many groups so group administrators can help calm things down.” If it works as well as the AI content moderation, I’m sure it’ll work fine. And by “fine,” I mean head for the hills.
Mongabay: Unregulated by U.S. at home, Facebook boosts wildlife trafficking abroad. “In a matter of seconds, anyone can find evidence of wildlife trafficking on Facebook, according to independent researchers and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) experts. Even using simple search terms returns thousands of posts that offer wildlife and body parts up for sale. Elephant ivory from Thailand, pangolin scales from Vietnam, and sun bears from Malaysia. Tigers, walrus, tortoises, rhinos, sea turtles and shark fins have all been found for sale on the world’s biggest social media platform, even though it says it has banned the trade on its site.”
Neowin: Facebook is testing ads inside its Oculus Quest headset. “Facebook announced today that it is testing in-headset ads in its Oculus Quest virtual reality platform over the next few weeks. The company will kick off the test with Resolution Games’ Blaston along with other developers.”
Michigan State University: MSU, Facebook develop research model to fight deepfakes. “Artificial intelligence experts from Michigan State University and Facebook partnered on a new reverse-engineering research method to detect and attribute deepfakes, which gives researchers and practitioners tools to better investigate incidents of coordinated disinformation using deepfakes as well as open new directions for future research.”
VentureBeat: Facebook’s AI can copy the style of text in photos from a single word. “Facebook today introduced TextStyleBrush, an AI research project that can copy the style of text in a photo from just a single word. The company claims that TextStyleBrush, which can edit and replace arbitrary text in images, is the first ‘unsupervised’ system of its kind that can recognize both typefaces and handwriting.”
MakeUseOf: How to Use Facebook’s Transparency Center to Understand the Social Network Better. “Facebook wants to be clearer about its policies to help you better understand the app, and has launched a new resource to help in this respect. Facebook’s Transparency Center is a one-stop shop for anyone looking to understand how the platform deals with all manners of things. This article will help you navigate the Transparency Center so you can understand the social media network better.”
