Stuff New Zealand: Government to force Google and Facebook to pay for using NZ news. “The Government will follow Australia and Canada in proposing a law that will require internet giants Google and Meta to pay for the local news they use, with estimates of about $30 million to $50m flowing to New Zealand media.”
The Verge: Tax filing websites have been sending users’ financial information to Facebook. “The data, sent through widely used code called the Meta Pixel, includes not only information like names and email addresses but often even more detailed information, including data on users’ income, filing status, refund amounts, and dependents’ college scholarship amounts.”
Wall Street Journal: Meta Employees, Security Guards Fired for Hijacking User Accounts. “Meta Platforms Inc. has fired or disciplined more than two dozen employees and contractors over the last year whom it accused of improperly taking over user accounts, in some cases allegedly for bribes, according to people familiar with the matter and documents viewed by The Wall Street Journal.”
NBC News: FBI, DHS, and social media firms like Meta, TikTok aren’t adequately addressing threat of domestic extremists, Senate report says. “An investigation by the Senate Homeland Security Committee alleges that the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security and leading social media companies are not adequately addressing the growing threat of domestic terrorism, especially white supremacist and anti-government extremists.”
UChicago News: Police agencies significantly overrepresent Black suspects in Facebook posts, study finds. “Facebook users are exposed to posts that overrepresent Black suspects by 25 percentage points relative to local arrest rates, according to the study, published Nov. 2 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The reporting trend occurs across crime types and geographic regions, but is especially prevalent in much of the Midwest and some of the South and mid-Atlantic. It also increases with the proportion of both Republican voters and non-Black residents, the researchers said.”
Penn Today: The language of loneliness and depression, revealed in social media. “By analyzing Facebook posts, Penn researchers found that words associated with depression are often tied to emotions, whereas those associated with loneliness are linked to cognition.”
CNN: Meta’s stock falls 17% as its quarterly profit is cut in half . ” Meta on Wednesday posted the second quarterly revenue decline in its history since going public and warned that it is making ‘significant changes’ aimed at cutting costs ahead of 2023, as it confronts an economic downturn that is hitting its core online advertising business.”
Business Insider: Zuck refuses to let his metaverse dream die. Wall Street has finally had enough.. “Following Wednesday’s earnings announcement, Meta shares slumped nearly 20% in after-hours trade to $104.30. The slump wiped $67 billion off Meta’s market capitalization, according to Reuters, extending a loss of almost half a trillion dollars this year alone.”
Business Insider South Africa: Meta and Google are snapping up Twitter employees. “Amid Musk’s months-long game of will-he-won’t-he with his offer to buy the company, hundreds of Twitter employees are leaving for opportunities at other tech giants like Google and Meta, according to a report from Greg Larkin and Elizabeth Gafford at Punks & Pinstripes. The company analyzed and verified LinkedIn data to see how many workers are leaving Twitter and where they go after they leave.”
News@Northeastern: Facebook’s Ad Delivery Algorithm Is Discriminating Based On Race, Gender And Age In Photos, Northeastern Researchers Find. “Have you ever noticed the faces in Facebook ads seem to match your gender, race or age? That isn’t an accident, Northeastern computer science researchers say. A new paper published by a group of researchers from Northeastern’s Khoury College of Computer Sciences found that Facebook’s algorithm delivers advertisements differently based on who is pictured in the ad.”
New York Times: Meta Forced to Sell Giphy After British Antitrust Order. “Meta said on Tuesday that it would sell Giphy, the online repository for video clips of pets, facial expressions and other animated GIFs, a major defeat for the social media giant in a long-running dispute with British antitrust regulators.”
Gizmodo: Nick Clegg, Other Meta Executives ‘Inadvertently’ Identified in OnlyFans Bribery Suit. “Three Meta executives have been identified by name—reportedly by mistake—in a California federal lawsuit brought by adult entertainers alleging bribery and abuse of internet databases meant to flag, among other things, terrorism related content.”
The Verge: Meta’s flagship metaverse app is too buggy and employees are barely using it, says exec in charge. “Meta’s VR social network Horizon Worlds — the company’s flagship ‘metaverse’ app — is suffering from too many quality issues and even the team building it isn’t using it very much, according to internal memos obtained by The Verge.”
CNET: These 400 Apps Might Have Stolen Facebook Usernames and Passwords “A million Facebook users might have provided their usernames and passwords to harmful apps designed to help scammers take over their accounts, Facebook parent company Meta said Friday.”
Ars Technica: Roblox sued for allegedly enabling young girl’s sexual, financial exploitation. “Through the pandemic, the user-created game platform that’s so popular with kids, Roblox, expanded its user base and decided to go public. Within two years, its value shot from less than $4 billion to $45 billion. Now it’s being sued—along with Discord, Snap, and Meta—by a parent who alleges that during the pandemic, Roblox became the gateway enabling multiple adult users to prey on a 10-year-old girl.”
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