Facebook and Instagram owner Meta said on Thursday (Aug 13) it had taken down more than 750,000 accounts it suspected were held by Australians aged under 16 since a world-first ban on teen accounts, and promised more action in the face of possible regulatory intervention.

The company said it had deactivated 462,000 suspect Instagram accounts and 294,000 suspect Facebook accounts from just before the Australian social media ban went live in December to June, up from 331,000 Instagram accounts and 173,000 Facebook accounts it said it had removed by January.

The world’s largest social media company has said it wants to comply with a law it and other platforms have vocally opposed, just as Australia’s internet regulator considers an enforcement lawsuit against platforms, including some that Meta owns, that it says have failed to take sufficient steps to comply with the law.

No other platforms have released compliance data that matches the date range given by Meta, but Australian government figures and multiple independent studies have shown more than eight in 10 under-16s were still on social media in the ban’s first three months.

The Australian government proposed the landmark law, which came into force on Dec 10, on concerns about social media’s impact on the physical and mental health of children and young teens.

With other countries around the world considering similar age-restrictions, Australia has accused the platforms of intentionally setting the ban up to fail, and has introduced a law to double the maximum penalty for non-compliance to A$99 million (US$69.75 million) and give the regulator greater document discovery powers.

PARLIAMENTARY HEARING ON FRIDAY

Representatives of Meta, TikTok, YouTube owner Google and Snap’s Snapchat are scheduled to give evidence in a parliamentary inquiry about the changes on Friday, as are regulatory and government officials.

“Enforcement is ongoing, and these numbers will continue to grow,” Meta said in a statement.

“We share the Australian Government’s goal of ensuring young people have safe, age-appropriate experiences online, and we are meeting our obligations under the law,” the company added.

A 2025 Australian trial of age assurance technology found products on the market could effectively support a ban. 

Most large platforms, including Meta’s, rolled out photo-based age estimation software, although they say they typically first subject users to age inference, or assuming a person’s age based on their online activity.

Meta said it was using AI to analyse user profiles for “contextual clues that an account may belong to someone under 16, such as birthday celebrations or mentions of school grades” and to analyse reports about suspected underage accounts. 

The company added that it had removed the option for a person to make more attempts to set up an account if their previous account was deleted. (CNA/ Reuters)

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A top Meta executive on Wednesday apologised to IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on behalf of his company for “restricting” Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s post.

“I apologised to the minister on behalf of Meta for the error restricting PM Modi’s post,” Joel Kaplan, chief Global Affairs Officer at Meta, said in a statement.

Joel Kaplan, along with top Meta executives, also met IT secretary S Krishnan and other senior officials of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (Meity) in a discussion that lasted 45 minutes.

India is Meta’s largest market by users, with hundreds of millions of people using Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.

PM Modi posted the vertical video, speaking directly to the camera, on July 23 — during the height of protests led by the online Cockroach Janta Party (CJP). The video was was briefly removed from Meta-owned Facebook and Instagram, but was later restored.

The US-headquartered social media giant attributed the incident to a technical glitch and apologised. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) found the explanation “inadequate”. The company said the content was removed “in error” and was restored on the platform.

BJP MP Nishikant Dubey, who heads the parliamentary committee on communications and information technology, said the panel blamed Meta.

“Deleting the prime minister’s video was not the work of an intermediary, but that of a publisher,” Dubey said, adding, “Zuckerberg will have to apologise within three days.”

India’s parliamentary standing committees scrutinise government policies and can summon officials and company executives to answer questions.

However, they cannot themselves impose penalties, revoke legal protections or direct prosecutions.

Any action against an online platform would have to be taken by the government or the courts under existing law. (NDTV)

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Meta Platforms and EssilorLuxottica on Tuesday announced a new range of lower-cost AI smart glasses, building on the success of their Ray-Ban wearable devices.

The new Meta Glasses start at $299, making them far more affordable than the $800 Ray-Ban Display glasses launched last year.

The Facebook parent has invested billions of dollars in its pursuit of “personal intelligence”, betting that advanced gadgets and electronics would bring the benefits of AI to individual users.

Although built in collaboration with Luxottica, the new range of glasses are the first to not be associated with any of the eyewear firm’s popular brands such as Ray-Ban or Oakley.

The glasses come in new colors and shapes, including a rectangle look, and a slim oval frame collection designed in partnership with media personality Kylie Jenner.

The devices are also the first AI glasses from Meta to launch with Meta AI powered by Muse Spark, the first model out of the company’s Superintelligence Labs.

The success of Meta’s glasses has spurred other tech companies such as Google and Apple to explore the development of similar devices.

Global smart glass shipments reached 9.6 million units last year, with Meta accounting for about 76.1 per cent of the total, according to the International Data Corporation.

The Meta Glasses announcement comes a week after Snapchat owner Snap launched a pair of augmented-reality glasses at a hefty price of $2,195. However, Snap’s glasses overlay digital content onto a user’s real-world view while Meta’s glasses allow display for text and AI interaction. (Reuters)

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Meta, owner of Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp, announced it resolved a major security flaw in its artificial intelligence support assistant that allowed hackers to bypass security protocols and take over premium Instagram accounts.

“This issue has been resolved and we are securing impacted accounts,” Andy Stone, a communication official of Meta said on US based social media platform X on Tuesday.

The critical vulnerability, which circulated on Telegram channels before being exposed on the social media platform X, permitted bad actors to hijack accounts without needing access to the victim’s email address or phone number.

The official White House Instagram page associated with former US President Barack Obama was also hacked, according to a Monday report by entertainment news outlet TMZ.

The breach was discovered on Sunday after several unusual posts appeared on the account

The security exploit required attackers to use a virtual private network to match the geographic location of the target user to bypass automated regional safeguards.

The perpetrator would then trigger a password reset option to open a chat window with the Meta AI Support Assistant, a tool launched globally earlier this year to automate account recovery and technical support.

The hacker simply instructed the automated system to change the registered email address of the targeted handle to their own address, prompting the chatbot to send an 8-digit verification code to the attacker.

After entering the code back into the chat interface, the system generated a password reset link, enabling the attacker to set a new password and lock out the legitimate account owner.

The cyberattack campaign compromised several high-profile handles over the weekend, including the inactive Barack Obama White House account, global beauty retailer Sephora, and the personal account of US Space Force Chief Master Sergeant John Bentivegna.

The compromised Obama White House account, which had not seen activity since 2017, was briefly defaced with pro-Iranian images and messages before Meta intervened. (Anadolu Agency)

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The company completed the rollout on Facebook Messenger in 2023 and later made the feature optional on Instagram with plans to make it default.

But, after seven years, Meta has decided not to proceed with the wider deployment to Instagram, which will now only offer standard encryption.

Standard encryption means an internet service provider can access private material if needed. It is the common system in most major online services such as Gmail.

The decision has been welcomed by child protection groups, including the NSPCC, which has long warned the technology could put children at risk.

“We are really pleased,” said Rani Govender from the charity, adding E2EE “can allow perpetrators to evade detection, enabling the grooming and abuse of children to go unseen.”

Privacy campaigners, however, say the move represents a step backwards. 

Years-long fight

Since 2019, Meta has defended its plans amid criticism, while working through the technical challenge of bringing the technology to Facebook and Instagram.

The company did not publicly announce its decision to abandon plans for the Instagram rollout.

Instead, it quietly updated the app’s terms and conditions in March.

“End‑to‑end encrypted messaging on Instagram will no longer be supported after 8 May 2026.

“If you have chats affected by this change, you will see instructions on how to download any media or messages you may wish to keep,” it said.

Meta told reporters the decision was taken because too few users were opting in to use the feature.

But commentators say take‑up of optional features is often low, as requiring users to opt in creates extra friction.

Some analysts, including cyber security expert Victoria Baines, professor of IT at Gresham College, believe the decision reflects a shift in Meta’s attitude towards privacy.

“Social media platforms monetise our communications — our posts, likes and messages — so they can serve targeted advertising,” she said.

“And increasingly, companies like Meta are focusing on training AI models, for which messaging data can be extremely valuable. I think the decision is more complex.”

Instagram has previously said direct messages are not used to train AI.

The company declined to comment further on its decision to reverse course on privacy, and Instagram boss Adam Mosseri declined to be interviewed.

Last month, Meta told staff their clicks and activity on work devices would begin to be collected as training data for the company’s AI models.

Campaigners such as Big Brother Watch say Meta’s decision could influence the wider social media industry.

However, in March, TikTok told the BBC it had no plans to introduce the technology for direct messages.

Fourteen days later, Instagram updated its terms and conditions to confirm it would not proceed with its rollout.

Commentators including Baines believe these decisions may slow the spread of E2EE, leaving it largely confined to dedicated messaging apps in the future. (BBC)

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Microsoft and Meta, the company behind Instagram and WhatsApp, are planning to make significant cuts to their respective workforces as spending on artificial intelligence (AI) finds a new high gear.

Meta said it was laying off about 8,000 workers, or about 10% of its workforce, in a bid to make efficiency savings as it ramps up investment.

Around 6,000 job vacancies were also to be left unfilled, it confirmed.

Meta had previously told investors that spending would top $160bn during 2026 – up from just shy of $120bn last year.

The company is competing with rivals to hire AI experts and, at the same time, is facing huge bills for data centres to power the technological development.

The announcement marks the continuation of a job cut trend across major US tech firms in recent years.

Microsoft said it was offering a voluntary redundancy programme, which the AP news agency reported would affect about 8,750 people within its core US workforce.

The number equates to 7% of its total staff.

Sky’s US partner CNBC had earlier reported the existence of the voluntary scheme, which is due to be rolled out early next month.

The news provider said staff were alerted to it in a memo from the company’s chief people officer, Amy Coleman.

“Our hope is that this program gives those eligible the choice to take that next step on their own terms, with generous company support,” she wrote, according to CNBC. (Sky News)

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A jury in the United States has ordered social media giant Meta to pay $375m for harming children’s mental health and making them vulnerable to sexual exploitation.

Jurors in New Mexico handed down the verdict on Tuesday after a six-week trial in which state authorities accused the tech behemoth of failing to protect minors.

The verdict marks the first time that a US state has successfully sued Meta over child safety issues.

Meta, the parent company of Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp, is facing a wave of lawsuits over how its platforms affect young people’s mental health.

Jurors sided with state prosecutors who argued that Meta prioritised profits over safety, and violated parts of New Mexico’s Unfair Practices Act.

The jury agreed with allegations that Meta made false or misleading statements and also agreed that Meta engaged in “unconscionable” trade practices that unfairly took advantage of the vulnerabilities and inexperience of children.

Jurors heard testimony from 40 witnesses, including employees-turned-whistle-blowers, and reviewed hundreds of documents, reports and emails.

“We respectfully disagree with the verdict and will appeal,” a Meta spokesperson said in a statement.

“We work hard to keep people safe on our platforms and are clear about the challenges of identifying and removing bad actors or harmful content.”

New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez, a Democrat, took Meta and CEO Mark Zuckerberg to court in 2023 after his office ran an undercover operation in which investigators posed as Facebook and Instagram users aged under 14.

Torrez’s office said the fake accounts on the platforms received sexually explicit material and were contacted by adults seeking similar content, leading to criminal charges against multiple individuals.

In a statement, Torrez called the verdict “a historic victory for every child and family who has paid the price for Meta’s choice to put profits over kids’ safety”.

“The substantial damages the jury ordered Meta to pay should send a clear message to big tech executives that no company is beyond the reach of the law,” he said.

A second phase in New Mexico’s proceedings against Meta is scheduled to begin in May, when a judge will hear the state’s claim that the company should be ordered to pay additional penalties and make specific changes to its platforms and company operations.

A separate jury in California is weighing whether Meta and YouTube should be held liable for harms caused to children on their platforms, including by making them addictive.

That case is considered a bellwether that could influence the outcome of thousands of similar lawsuits against social media companies across the US. (Al Jazeera)

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Meta has shut down about 550,000 social media accounts belonging to children in Australia, complying with a new law that bans users under age 16 from accessing major social media platforms, the company said.

The action follows legislation that took effect Dec. 10, making Australia the first democratic nation to impose a nationwide restriction on social media use by children under 16. Under the law, platforms such as Instagram, Facebook and TikTok are required to prevent underage access.

In a blog post, Meta said it removed approximately 330,000 Instagram accounts, 173,000 Facebook accounts and nearly 40,000 Threads accounts believed to belong to users younger than 16.

Companies that fail to comply face fines of up to 49.5 million Australian dollars (about $33 million).

The Australian government introduced the law following growing public concern over the potential harms of social media on children and adolescents.

Meta said it is committed to complying with the legislation. However, the company said a full ban is not the best long-term solution, urging authorities to pursue a broader approach that encourages the technology industry to provide safe, privacy-protecting and age-appropriate online experiences for young users.

The government has said enforcement will continue as platforms adjust their systems to meet the new legal requirements. (Newswire)

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A Spanish court ordered Facebook owner Meta Platforms to pay local media outlets 479 million euros ($552.7 million) after a legal complaint over how the company processes user data for advertising.

Madrid’s commercial court said Thursday that it partially upheld a complaint alleging that Meta violated Spanish competition rules by breaching the European Union’s data-protection regulations.

It ordered the company to compensate 87 digital publishers and news agencies under the trade group Information Media Association (AMI), whose members include major outlets like business daily El Economista and national press agency EFE.

Meta said it disagreed with the ruling and would appeal. A spokesperson said the claim lacked evidence of alleged harm, and ignored how the online advertising industry works. Meta gives users opportunities to control their social-media experience, the spokesperson added.

The EU’s General Data Protection Regulation–which came into force in 2018–sets out guardrails for how websites can handle user data and obliges them to seek consent to process it.

In an effort to comply with the legislation, the Instagram and Whatsapp owner in 2018 changed the legal reason it used to justify its processing of personal data, saying it was being necessary to carry out a contract for its services. It has since come under scrutiny from privacy watchdogs. Ireland’s Data Protection Commission fined the company 1.2 billion euros in 2023 over its practices. Meta then changed the legal basis to being dependent on user consent in August 2023.

The Spanish court said that Meta’s earnings in Spain between the GDPR coming into effect and its privacy changes in 2023 gave it a competitive advantage, and that money made while in breach of the rules should be shared with competitors in the country’s digital advertising market.

AMI said in a statement that the ruling marks a historic legal victory for the association. “It is a judicial recognition of the economic harm caused by unfair competition based on the undue use of personal data,” it said. (Dow Jones)

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A Dutch court on Thursday ordered Meta Platforms to give Facebook and Instagram users an easier way to choose a timeline that shows posts in chronological order rather than being shaped by algorithms that track their activity and interests. 

The District Court of Amsterdam issued the preliminary injunction in summary proceedings, and it found that elements of both platforms violated the European Union’s Digital Services Act.

Meta Ireland has two weeks to provide users with a “direct and simple” option to select a non-profiled timeline, the order in which posts and pieces of media submitted by other users is displayed. The company’s platforms must ensure that this choice remains in effect even if an app or website is closed, or the user navigates to other sections.

Currently, user-chosen settings automatically revert from chronological order to an algorithm-based profiled recommendation system whenever the platform is reopened, a practice the ruling describe as a prohibited “dark pattern.” The court said this undermines freedom of information.

“People in the Netherlands are not sufficiently able to make free and autonomous choices about the use of profiled recommendation systems,” the court said. It noted that these protections are especially important ahead of the parliamentary election on Oct. 29.

The Dutch digital rights group Bits of Freedom, which brought the case, welcomed the ruling. “It is unacceptable that a few American tech billionaires can determine how we view the world,” spokesperson Maartje Knaap said.

Meta said it plans to appeal the ruling. “We fundamentally disagree with this decision,” the company said in a statement. The company said it already complies with the Digital Services Act, and that it informs its users in the Netherlands about how to turn off the profiled timeline setting. (NL Times)

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US multinational technology company, Meta Platforms, Inc., has launched a Digital Government Day program to upskill media secretaries and representatives of state media institutions. 

The Digital Government Day program has been launched in partnership with the Ministry of Digital Economy and the Information and Communication Technology Agency (ICTA).

This is the first workshop that provided the necessary skills in using digital media such as Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads effectively to communicate the digital transformation journey.

The sessions were conducted and led by Kaiya Waddell, Director of Government & Social Impact – APAC, Neha Mathur – Partner Manager, Government & Social Impact, Dr Priyanka Bhalla – Safety Policy Manager, South Asia, and Senura Abeywardena -Head of Public Policy, Central Asia, Mongolia, Sri Lanka & Maldives.

The discussions focused on several themes, including digital transformation journeys for governments maximising reach and impact, best practices on community building, and engaging citizens through storytelling and best practices on reels and emerging formats.

Highlighting the government’s commitment to strengthening digital communication, the event was attended by Deputy Minister of Digital Economy Eranga Weeraratne, Consultant at the Ministry of Digital Economy Sumudu Ratnayake and Director of Electronic Media at the President’s Media Division Isuru Anuradha. (Newswire)

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Every day criminal scammers attempt to play on people’s economic anxiety to trick people with too-good-to-be-true offers and pyramid schemes to earn quick money. As part of our ongoing efforts to protect people from scams, we’re sharing updates on disrupting attempts by criminal scam centers to target people on our apps, the latest insights into how these scams work, new anti-scam tools on WhatsApp and key safety tips. 

Taking Action Against Scammers

Some of the most prolific sources of scams are criminal scam centers, often fueled by forced labor and operated by organized crime primarily in Southeast Asia. In the first six months of this year, as part of our ongoing proactive work to protect people from scams, WhatsApp detected and banned over 6.8 million accounts linked to scam centers. Based on our investigative insights into the latest enforcement efforts, we proactively detected and took down accounts before scam centers were able to operationalize them.

How Scammers Operate

These scam centers typically run many scam campaigns at once – from cryptocurrency investments to pyramid schemes. There is always a catch and it should be a red flag for everyone: you have to pay upfront to get promised returns or earnings. 

Scams may start with a text message or on a dating app, then move to social media, private messaging apps and ultimately payment or crypto platforms. In the course of just one scam, they often try to cycle people through many different platforms to ensure that any one service has only a limited view into the entire scam, making it more challenging to detect.

Working with Others to Protect People

As an example, recently WhatsApp, Meta and our peers at OpenAI disrupted scams efforts which we were able to link to a criminal scam center in Cambodia. These attempts ranged from offering payments for fake likes to enlisting others into a rent-a-scooter pyramid scheme, or luring people to invest in cryptocurrency. As OpenAI reported, the scammers used ChatGPT to generate the initial text message containing a link to a WhatsApp chat, and then quickly directed the target to Telegram where they were assigned a task of liking videos on TikTok. The scammers attempted to build trust in their scheme by sharing how much the target has already ‘earned’ in theory, before asking them to deposit money into a crypto account as the next task. 

How do you recognize these scams and stay safe? We partnered with internet safety expert and ethical hacker Rachel Tobac to share how scammers may target people – and how to avoid them. 

New WhatsApp Anti-Scam Tools

In addition to disrupting scam centers, WhatsApp is constantly rolling out new features to help protect people on our apps from known scam tactics at scale. 

Group messaging: We’re launching a new safety overview that we’ll show you when someone who is not in your contacts adds you to a new WhatsApp group you may not recognize. It will include key information about the group and tips to stay safe. From there, you can exit the group without ever having to look at the chat. And if you think you might recognize the group after seeing the safety overview, you can choose to see the chat for more context. Regardless, notifications from the group will be silenced until you mark that you want to stay. 

Individual messaging: Additionally, scammers may attempt to first initiate contact with you elsewhere on the internet before asking to message them on private messengers like WhatsApp. To protect against this tactic, we continue to test new approaches to alerting people to pause before engaging. For example, we’re exploring ways to caution you when you start a chat with someone not in your contacts by showing you additional context about who you’re messaging so you can make an informed decision. 

We’ve all been there: someone you don’t know attempting to message you, or add you to a group chat, promising low-risk investment opportunities or easy money, or saying you have an unpaid bill that’s overdue. The reality is, these are often scammers trying to prey on people’s kindness, trust and willingness to help – or, their fears that they could be in trouble if they don’t send money fast.

We encourage you to pause, question, and verify, before responding to a suspicious or unusual message, especially if it’s from a number you don’t know promising fast money:

• PAUSE: Take time before you respond. Think about whether this is a number you recognize, or whether it reads like a legitimate ask. 
• QUESTION: Does this request make sense? Does it seem too good to be true? Are they asking you to send money, gift cards or PIN codes? Are they offering unrealistically high pay for a few hours of work? Are they rushing you into taking action? These might be signs of a scam.
• VERIFY: If they’re claiming to be a friend or family member, make sure that they are who they say they are by contacting that friend directly – ideally using another method of communication. For example, if they messaged you on WhatsApp, call them on their phone – or if they sent you an SMS, give them a WhatsApp call using the phone number you know is theirs. (Meta)

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Eight Mile Style, a company that owns some of Eminem’s most popular songs, is suing social media giant Meta over alleged copyright infringement.

The lawsuit, filed in a federal court in Michigan, accuses the Menlo Park-based tech company of storing, reproducing and distributing Eminem’s music without obtaining the license to do so.

Eight Mile Style, which is based in Ferndale, Mich., is seeking at least $109 million from Meta and a court order to stop several alleged forms of copyright infringement.

Music is a big part of social media. On Meta’s platforms such as Facebook and Instagram, people add music in photos and videos they share publicly or with their friends and family.

But the way social media has changed the way people listen to and discover new songs has also sparked concerns from artists about whether they’re fairly compensated.

“Meta’s years-long and ongoing infringement of the Eight Mile Compositions is another case of a trillion (with a ‘T’) dollar company exploiting the creative efforts of musical artists for the obscene monetary benefit of its executives and shareholders without a license and without regard to the rights of the owners of the intellectual property,” the lawsuit said.

Meta said in a statement that it has licenses with thousands of partners globally and an “extensive” global licensing programs for music on its platforms.

“Meta had been negotiating in good faith with Eight Mile Style, but rather than continue those discussions, Eight Mile Style chose to sue,” the company said in an email.

Eight Mile Style owns and controls 243 compositions recorded by Eminem, a rapper and music producer that has created popular hits such as “Lose Yourself.” Meta did remove some of these songs including “Lose Yourself” from its music libraries, but other versions of the music including a piano instrumental cover and a karaoke version still remain on the platform, according to the lawsuit.

Meta not only allowed users who upload these songs to infringe on copyright but knowingly stored and reproduced them in its music libraries so users can use the music in videos and photos, the lawsuit alleges. Users have added Eminem’s music in millions of videos that have been viewed billions of times, according to the lawsuit.

Meta also unsuccessfully tried to obtain a license for Eminem’s songs as part of negotiations with the digital music royalty company Audiam even though the firm didn’t have the authority to give them that license.

“Meta executives have actively encouraged such rampant infringement in order to attract as many users as possible to, among other things, make advertising on their services more profitable for themselves,” the lawsuit said.

More than 3 billion people use one of Meta’s apps daily, and the company makes billions of dollars every quarter from advertising.

In the first three months of this year, Meta’s revenue reached $42.31 billion, an increase of 16% year-over-year. The company’s net income jumped by 35% to $16.6 billion in the first quarter.

This isn’t the first time Meta has faced legal issues over the use of Eminem’s music. In 2013, Eight Mile Style sued Facebook, alleging the social network used the Eminem song “Under the Influence” for an ad without their consent. (LA Times)

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The European Commission on Wednesday found tech giants Apple and Meta in breach of obligations under the EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), fining the two US companies €500 million ($572 million) and €200 million respectively.

Apple was found to have breached its “anti-steering” obligation under the DMA, while Meta was considered not to have given consumers the choice of a service that uses less of their personal data, another stipulation of the DMA.

However, the EU also closed an investigation of Apple over its user choice obligations after the tech giant complied with the DMA by making it easy to select a default browser and for users to remove pre-installed apps such as Safari.

What were the fines for?

Apple was fined after the Commission concluded that the company prevented developers from steering customers outside its App Store to allow them to access cheaper deals.

The fine was imposed on Meta over its “pay for privacy” system, which means users have to pay to avoid data collection, or agree to share their data with Meta-owned platforms Facebook and Instagram to keep using the platforms for free.

The Commission concluded that Meta did not provide Facebook and Instagram users a less personalized but equivalent version of the platforms, and “did not allow users to exercise their right to freely consent to the combination of their personal data.”

The Commission said that the fine on Meta concerned only the time period during which EU end users were solely offered the “consent or pay” option, from March 2024 to November 2024. That is when Meta introduced a new ads model allegedly using less personal data.

That model is currently under scrutiny by the EU. 

Risk of more EU-US tensions

Both companies have issued complaints about the penalties, the first under the DMA, which came into effect last year.

Apple said in a statement that it would appeal the fine.

“Today’s announcements are yet another example of the European Commission unfairly targeting Apple in a series of decisions that are bad for the privacy and security of our users, bad for products, and force us to give away our technology for free,” it said.

“We have spent hundreds of thousands of engineering hours and made dozens of changes to comply with this law, none of which our users have asked for. Despite countless meetings, the Commission continues to move the goal posts every step of the way,” the statement went on.

Meta, for its part, accused the EU of “attempting to handicap successful American businesses while allowing Chinese and European companies to operate under different standards”.

The fines are also likely to increase tensions in relations between the EU and US President Donald Trump, who has frequently complained of unfair behavior by the bloc toward US businesses.

The political analyst Giulia Torchio from the Brussels think tank European Policy Center told DW’s Lucia Schulten, however, that if the EU made its digital regulations negotiable in dealings with the US, it would send a signal that the bloc was ready to yield on its fundamental democratic principles.

‘Firm but balanced action,’ says EU

Antitrust commissioner Teresa Ribera said, however, in a statement that the fines “send a strong and clear message,” describing the action taken by the bloc as “firm but balanced.” 

Thomas Regnier, European Commission spokesperson, also denied that the fines targeted any particular country.

“We don’t care who owns the company. We don’t care where the company is located,” he said.

“We are totally agnostic on that front from a European Union and from the Commission’s perspective. What we’re caring about is our consumers, our citizens, our businesses. And be it a Chinese company, be it an American company, or be it a European company, you will have to play by the rules in the European Union and this is the only thing we’re looking at,” he said.

Regnier also called the fines “proportionate,” saying that the amount was determined “according to due process” on the basis of a number of factors.

“We took into account the gravity of the breach, the duration of the breach and then of course there are some mitigation measures, the fact that this is an absolute novel legislation that entered into application just about a year ago,” he said. (DW)

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Meta Platforms Inc. faces a historic antitrust trial beginning Monday that could force the tech giant to break off Instagram and WhatsApp, startups it bought more than a decade ago that have since grown into social media powerhouses.

The looming antitrust trial will be the first big test of President Donald Trump’s Federal Trade Commission’s ability to challenge Big Tech. The lawsuit was filed against Meta — then called Facebook — in 2020, during Trump’s first term. It claims the company bought Instagram and WhatsApp to squash competition and establish an illegal monopoly in the social media market.

Meta, the FTC argues, has maintained a monopoly by pursuing CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s strategy, “expressed in 2008: ‘It is better to buy than compete.’ True to that maxim, Facebook has systematically tracked potential rivals and acquired companies that it viewed as serious competitive threats.”

Facebook also enacted policies designed to make it difficult for smaller rivals to enter the market and “neutralize perceived competitive threats,” the FTC says in its complaint, just as the world shifted its attention to mobile devices from desktop computers.

“Unable to maintain its monopoly by fairly competing, the company’s executives addressed the existential threat by buying up new innovators that were succeeding where Facebook failed,” the FTC says.

Facebook bought Instagram — then a scrappy photo-sharing app with no ads and a small cult following — in 2012. The $1 billion cash and stock purchase price was eye-popping at the time, though the deal’s value fell to $750 million after Facebook’s stock price dipped following its initial public offering in May 2012.

Instagram was the first company Facebook bought and kept running as a separate app. Up until then, Facebook was known for smaller “acqui-hires” — a type of popular Silicon Valley deal in which a company purchases a startup as a way to hire its talented workers, then shuts the acquired company down. Two years later, it did it again with the messaging app WhatsApp, which it purchased for $22 billion.

WhatsApp and Instagram helped Facebook move its business from desktop computers to mobile devices, and to remain popular with younger generations as rivals like Snapchat (which it also tried, but failed, to buy) and TikTok emerged. However, the FTC has a narrow definition of Meta’s competitive market, excluding companies like TikTok, YouTube and Apple’s messaging service from being considered rivals to Instagram and WhatsApp.

“The FTC already has the difficult task, whether it’s looking at 10 years ago or five years ago or today, of trying to define what is the market we’re talking about in a sufficiently narrow way that it can show Meta has a ton of power in that market,” said Paul Swanson, an antitrust attorney for the law firm Holland & Hart. “And I do think that challenge has gotten harder as the years have gone by and we see more and more potential competitors in social media spaces.”

Meta, meanwhile, says the FTC’s lawsuit “defies reality.”

“The evidence at trial will show what every 17-year-old in the world knows: Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp compete with Chinese-owned TikTok, YouTube, X, iMessage and many others. More than 10 years after the FTC reviewed and cleared our acquisitions, the Commission’s action in this case sends the message that no deal is ever truly final. Regulators should be supporting American innovation, rather than seeking to break up a great American company and further advantaging China on critical issues like AI,” the company said in a statement.

In a filing last week, Meta also stressed that the FTC “must prove that Meta has monopoly power in its claimed relevant market now, not at some time in the past.” This, experts say, could also prove challenging since more competitors have emerged in the social media space in the years since the company bought WhatsApp and Instagram.

Meta’s fate will be decided by U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, who late last year denied Meta’s request for a summary judgment and ruled that the case must go to trial.

Boasberg “seems to be skeptical” of the FTC’s narrow market definition in his rulings to date, Swanson said. He added that the judge also said it is a “fact question,” which means he is open to hearing what the FTC and its experts have to say to define that narrow market.

While the FTC may face an uphill battle in proving its case, the stakes are high for Meta, whose advertising business could be cut in half if it’s forced to spin off Instagram.

“Instagram is now Meta’s biggest money maker in the U.S., its most lucrative market, where the app accounts for 50.5% of the company’s ad revenues in 2025. Instagram has also been picking up the slack for Facebook on the user front, particularly among young people, for a long time,” said Emarketer analyst Jasmine Enberg. “The trial also comes as Meta is trying to bring back OG Facebook in an effort to appeal to Gen Z and younger users as they join social media. Social media usage is far more fragmented today than it was in 2012 when Facebook acquired Instagram, and Facebook isn’t where the cool college kids hang out anymore. Meta needs Instagram to continue growing, especially as more advertisers think Instagram-first with their Meta budgets.”

But Meta isn’t the only technology company in the sights of federal antitrust regulators, Google and Amazon face their own cases. The remedy phase of Google’s case is scheduled to begin on April 21. A federal judge declared the search giant an illegal monopoly last August.

“A big theme here is we are applying 19th-century laws to 21st-century markets. And I think it’s an open question whether the judgment developments to antitrust law can keep up with markets as they are changing — these fluid and dynamic tech markets in particular,” Swanson said. “And this will be a case that speaks directly to that.” (ABC News)

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Since we first launched our Ray-Ban Meta glasses, they’ve been so popular that we’ve had trouble keeping them on the shelves until recently. People have shared millions of moments with friends and family since we first introduced them. 

Whether you’re exploring a new city, sitting on the sidelines of a sporting event, or simply trying to be more present in your daily life, Ray-Ban Meta glasses are the perfect companion to help you experience the world, share your perspective and capture moments, completely hands-free. And now we’re adding new AI features, expanding partnerships and more.

Improved AI Features

First, we’re making it easier to have a conversation with Meta AI. Kick off your conversation with “Hey Meta” to ask your initial question and then you can ask follow-up questions without saying “Hey Meta” again. And you no longer need to say “look and” to ask Meta AI questions about what you’re looking at.

We’re adding the ability for your glasses to help you remember things. Next time you fly somewhere, you don’t have to sweat forgetting where you parked at the airport — your glasses can remember your spot in long-term parking for you. And you can use your voice to set a reminder to text your mom in three hours when you land safely. 

You can now ask Meta AI to record and send voice messages on WhatsApp and Messenger while staying present. This comes in especially handy when your hands are full or when you can’t get to your phone easily to write out a text.

We’re adding video to Meta AI, so you can get continuous real-time help. If you’re exploring a new city, you can ask Meta AI to tag along, and then ask it about landmarks you see as you walk or get ideas for what to see next — creating your own walking tour hands-free. Or, if you’re at the grocery store and trying to plan a meal, you can ask Meta AI to help you figure out what to make based on what you’re seeing as you walk down the aisles, and if that sauce you’re holding will pair well with that recipe it just suggested.

Soon, your glasses will be able to translate speech in real time. When you’re talking to someone speaking Spanish, French or Italian, you’ll hear what they say in English through the glasses’ open-ear speakers. Not only is this great for traveling, it should help break down language barriers and bring people closer together. We plan to add support for more languages in the future to make this feature even more useful.

Expanding Partnerships to Make the Glasses More Helpful and Fun

We’re partnering with Be My Eyes, a free app that connects blind and low-vision people with sighted volunteers so they can talk you through what’s in front of you. Thanks to the glasses and POV video calling, the volunteer can easily see your point of view and tell you about your surroundings or give you some real-time, hands-free assistance with everyday tasks, like adjusting the thermostat or sorting and reading mail.

In addition, we’re advancing our integrations with Spotify and Amazon Music, and adding new partnerships with Audible and iHeart. You can use your voice to search, discover and play content on the go. Ask to play by song, artist, album, or audiobook. And you can get more information about the content your glasses are playing (“Hey Meta, what album is this from?”).

We’re dropping a new, limited edition set of Shiny Transparent Wayfarer frames so you can show off the tech inside them. This special edition embraces the essence of innovation through transparency, leaning heavily into craftsmanship, design and ingenuity. And we’re bringing EssilorLuxottica’s new range of UltraTransitions® GEN S lenses to the Ray-Ban Meta collection, giving you even more options to adapt quickly in all light conditions. (Meta)

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Meta Platforms (META.O) plans to launch a microblogging app, Threads, days after Twitter executive chair Elon Musk announced a temporary cap on how many posts users can read on the social media site.

Threads, Instagram’s text-based conversation app, is expected to be released on Thursday and will allow users to follow the accounts they follow on the photo-sharing platform and keep the same username, a listing on Apple’s (AAPL.O) App Store showed.

The launch comes after Twitter announced a slate of restrictions on the app, including the need to be verified in order to use TweetDeck.

Musk’s latest announcements to address data scraping have sparked a fierce backlash from Twitter users and ad experts said it would undermine new CEO Linda Yaccarino, who started in the role last month.

Meta did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on a similar launch on the Google Play Store. (Reuters)

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Meta Platforms has announced it will slash a further 10,000 jobs in a second round of mass layoffs as the Big Tech industry braces for a deep economic downturn.

The Facebook-parent company said on Tuesday that it will reduce the size of its recruiting team and make further cuts in its tech groups in late April, and then its business groups in late May.

Meta has been engaged in a wider restructuring that will also see the United States-based company scrap hiring plans for 5,000 openings, cancel lower-priority projects and flatten layers of middle management.

“This will be tough and there’s no way around that,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a message to staff. “It will mean saying goodbye to talented and passionate colleagues who have been part of our success.”

Zuckerberg said he believed “this new economic reality will continue for many years”.

Worries of an economic downturn due to rising interest rates have sparked a series of mass job cuts across corporate America: from Wall Street banks such as Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to Big Tech firms including Amazon and Microsoft.

Meta, which is pouring billions of dollars to build the futuristic metaverse, has struggled with a post-pandemic slump in advertising spending from companies worried about the economic outlook.

Early last month, the company posted falling profits and its third consecutive quarter of declining revenue.

In response, Zuckerberg promised to turn 2023 into the “Year of Efficiency”. With the latest move, Meta expects expenses in 2023 to come in between $86bn and $92bn, lower than the $89bn to $95bn forecast previously.

The company’s shares jumped 6 percent in early trading on the news of the widely anticipated job cuts.

“As I’ve talked about efficiency this year, I’ve said that part of our work will involve removing jobs – and that will be in service of both building a leaner, more technical company and improving our business performance to enable our long-term vision,” said Zuckerberg.

In November, Meta slashed its workforce by 11,000 in the first mass layoffs in its 18-year history. Its headcount stood at 86,482 at the end of 2022, up 20 percent from a year ago.

Meta and other tech companies hired aggressively for at least two years but have in recent months begun to let some of those workers go.

The tech industry has laid off nearly 290,000 workers since the start of 2022, with about 40 percent of them coming this year, according to layoff-tracking sites.

This month, Amazon paused construction on its second headquarters in Virginia in the US following the biggest round of layoffs in the company’s history and its shifting plans around remote work.

Twitter has also carried out massive job cuts since the social media platform was bought by Elon Musk last year for $44bn.

The latest cuts of about 200 jobs last month took the company’s headcount down to fewer than 2,000 workers, according to the New York Times.

The newspaper found Twitter lost advertisers since Musk took over, with ads responsible for more than 90 percent of the company’s revenue. (AL Jazeera)

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