Tag: facebook

Twitter Now ‘X’ on Both Android and iOS Platforms; Tweets Relabeled as ‘Posts’

Twitter was recently rebranded as X by owner Elon Musk. On Friday, Musk claimed that the social media platform reached “new heights” with more than 540 million monthly users as compared to the reported 229 million monthly active users in May 2022. Musk took over the site in November 2022, and has since made several changes including laying off almost 50 percent of the firm’s workforce and appointing Linda Yaccarino as the CEO. This rebrand is the latest among all of Musk’s changes and riptides, as Twitter continues to struggle with its advertisement revenue.

Between talks of the patent rights of the letter X, the mobile application icon for Twitter on both Android and iOS platforms has changed to ‘X’ with an update. Now, the content shared by users, previously known as tweets, are now called posts. The Twitter 10.1.0-beta.1 version now appears on some Android devices at ‘X Beta,’ although the apk file is still called com.twitter.android. Even on Apple’s iOS handsets, the update appears with the new logo but the old name.

X for Android has also changed the “Tweet” option on the bottom right corner of the homepage to “Post,” which suggests that Musk’s idea of rebranding is to do away with all things old and essential of Twitter. Each step is closer to achieving his dreams of building “the Everything App.”

It is likely that Musk’s rebrand train may face a few legal roadblocks. The alphabet or the symbol X is very widely used and it could be a potential legal point of conflict. Case in point, its rival social media platform Facebook-parent Meta Platforms owns a 2019-registered federal trademark registered which covers a blue-and-white letter “X” for fields including software and social media. Even Microsoft has owned an X trademark since 2003 with regard to communications about its Xbox video-game system.

Experts say that the companies are likely to not sue unless they feel threatened that Twitter’s X “encroaches on brand equity they built in the letter.” Notably, even Meta faced legal backlash from investment firm Metacapital and virtual-reality company MetaX when they changed their name from Facebook to Meta and later settled over its infinity-symbol logo.

Samsung launched the Galaxy Z Fold 5 and Galaxy Z Flip 5 alongside the Galaxy Tab S9 series and Galaxy Watch 6 series at its first Galaxy Unpacked event in South Korea. We discuss the company’s new devices and more on the latest episode of Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.
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Elon Musk, Twitter, X, Tesla, Social Media, Meta, Threads, Instagram, Facebook, Android, iOS

NASA Introduces Beta Site; On-Demand Streaming Service, App Update Coming Soon



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Facebook Parent Meta Fined AUD 20 Million for Undisclosed User Data Collection

An Australian court ordered Facebook owner Meta Platforms to pay fines totalling A$20 million ($14 million) for collecting user data through a smartphone application advertised as a way to protect privacy without disclosing its actions.

Australia’s Federal Court also ordered Meta, through its subsidiaries Facebook Israel and the now-discontinued app, Onavo, to pay A$400,000 (nearly Rs. 2.2 crore) in legal costs to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), which brought the civil lawsuit.

The fine wraps up one strand of Meta’s legal issues in Australia related to its handling of user information since a global scandal erupted over its use of data analytics firm Cambridge Analytica in the 2016 US election.

Meta still faces a civil court action by Australia’s Office of the Information Commissioner over its dealings with Cambridge Analytica in Australia.

Wednesday’s judgment was in relation to a virtual private network (VPN) service the company then called Facebook offered from early 2016 to late 2017, Onavo, which it advertised as a way to keep personal information safe. VPNs obscure an internet user’s identity by giving their computer a different online address.

However, Facebook used Onavo to collect users’ location, time, and frequency using other smartphone apps, and websites they visited for its own advertising purposes, Judge Wendy Abraham said in a written judgment.

“The failure to make sufficient disclosures … may have deprived tens of thousands of Australian consumers of the opportunity to make an informed choice about the collection and use of their data before downloading and/or using Onavo Protect,” Abraham wrote.

She added that the court could have fined Meta hundreds of billions of dollars since Australians downloaded the app 271,220 times and each breach of consumer law carried a A$1.1 million (nearly Rs. 6.07 crore) fine, but “the contraventions can be characterised as a single course of conduct”.

The fine was agreed by both sides but “carries with it a sufficient sting to ensure that the penalty amount is not such as to be regarded … as simply an acceptable cost of doing business”, she wrote.

Meta, which made global revenues of $116 billion (nearly Rs. 95,15,746 crore) last year, said in a statement the judge had acknowledged it never sought to mislead customers, and “over the last several years we have built tools to give people more transparency and control over how their data is used”.

The ACCC was not immediately available for comment. 

© Thomson Reuters 2023  

Will the Nothing Phone 2 serve as the successor to the Phone 1, or will the two co-exist? We discuss the company’s recently launched handset and more on the latest episode of Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.
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EU Regulators Rebuff Meta’s Offer to Curb Use of Competitors’ Ad Data for Facebook Marketplace

Meta Platforms offered to curb the use of competitors’ advertising data for its Facebook Marketplace online classified service in an attempt to settle an EU antitrust investigation but regulators gave it the cold shoulder, people familiar with the matter said.

Its offer also included limiting the use of advertising data to develop products that compete with advertisers, the people said.

Meta’s proposal, similar to one made to the UK competition agency in May, suggests that the company will have to do more to counter the EU watchdog’s charges if it wants to stave off a possible fine.

However, the sources said Meta was not expected to improve its offer. The UK enforcer in a preliminary view has said Meta’s offer addresses its concerns.

Companies risk fines of as much as 10 percent of their global turnover for EU antitrust violations.

The world’s most popular social network sought to settle the EU investigation opened in June last year, other people familiar with the matter told Reuters last December. Details of Meta’s proposed concessions had not been previously reported on.

Both the European Commission and Meta declined to comment.

The EU antitrust watchdog last December charged Meta with abusing its market power through two practices, one of which was tying its online classified ads service Facebook Marketplace with its social network Facebook.

The other was allegedly its unfair trading conditions imposed on rival online classified ads services which advertise on Facebook or Instagram. Meta contested the EU charges at a closed hearing earlier this month. 

© Thomson Reuters 2023 

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OpenAI’s Head of Trust and Safety Resigns Amid Growing Job Pressure Over Family Life

OpenAI’s head of trust and safety Dave Willner is leaving the company, he said in a LinkedIn post on Friday, citing the pressures of the job on his family life and saying he would be available for advisory work.

OpenAI did not immediately respond to questions about Willner’s exit.

Trust and safety departments have taken on a high-profile role in technology companies such as OpenAI, Twitter, Alphabet and Meta as they seek to limit the spread of hate speech, misinformation and other harmful content on their platforms.

At the same time, fears AI will run out of control have risen.

Willner took over his role at OpenAI in February last year, after working at Airbnb and Facebook. He attributed his decision to quit to growing demands from his job affecting his family life.

“Anyone with young children and a super intense job can relate to that tension, I think, and these past few months have really crystallised for me that I was going to have to prioritise one or the other,” he said in the post.

“I’ve moved teaching the kids to swim and ride their bikes to the top of my OKRs (objectives and key results) this summer.”

Microsoft-backed OpenAI, whose AI chatbot ChatGPT, has stormed the world, has said it depends on its trust and safety team to build “the processes and capabilities to prevent misuse and abuse of AI technologies”. 

© Thomson Reuters 2023 

Will the Nothing Phone 2 serve as the successor to the Phone 1, or will the two co-exist? We discuss the company’s recently launched handset and more on the latest episode of Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.
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Meta, OpenAI Sued by Comedian Over Alleged Copyright Infringement

Comedian Sarah Silverman and two authors have filed copyright infringement lawsuits against Meta Platforms and OpenAI for allegedly using their content without permission to train artificial intelligence language models. 

The proposed class action lawsuits filed by Silverman, Richard Kadrey and Christopher Golden in San Francisco federal court Friday allege Facebook parent company Meta and ChatGPT maker OpenAI used copyrighted material to train chat bots. 

Meta and OpenAI, a private company backed by Microsoft, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Sunday. 

The lawsuits underscore the legal risks developers of chat bots face when using troves of copyrighted material to create apps that deliver realistic responses to user prompts. 

Silverman, Kadrey and Golden allege Meta and OpenAI used their books without authorization to develop their so-called large language models, which their makers pitch as powerful tools for automating tasks by replicating human conversation. 

In their lawsuit against Meta, the plaintiffs allege that leaked information about the company’s artificial intelligence business shows their work was used without permission. 

The lawsuit against OpenAI alleges that summaries of the plaintiffs’ work generated by ChatGPT indicate the bot was trained on their copyrighted content. 

“The summaries get some details wrong” but still show that ChatGPT “retains knowledge of particular works in the training dataset,” the lawsuit says. 

The lawsuits seek unspecified money damages on behalf of a nationwide class of copyright owners whose works were allegedly infringed. 

© Thomson Reuters 2023

From the Nothing Phone 2 to the Motorola Razr 40 Ultra, several new smartphones are expected to make their debut in July. We discuss all of the most exciting smartphones coming this month and more on the latest episode of Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.
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ChatGPT Creator OpenAI and Meta Face Lawsuits From Sarah Silverman, Authors Over Alleged Copyright Infringement

Comedian Sarah Silverman and two authors have filed copyright infringement lawsuits against Meta Platforms and OpenAI for allegedly using their content without permission to train artificial intelligence language models.

The proposed class action lawsuits filed by Silverman, Richard Kadrey and Christopher Golden in San Francisco federal court Friday allege Facebook parent company Meta and ChatGPT maker OpenAI used copyrighted material to train chatbots.

Meta and OpenAI, a private company backed by Microsoft, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Sunday.

The lawsuits underscore the legal risks developers of chatbots face when using troves of copyrighted material to create apps that deliver realistic responses to user prompts.

Silverman, Kadrey and Golden allege Meta and OpenAI used their books without authorisation to develop their so-called large language models, which their makers pitch as powerful tools for automating tasks by replicating human conversation.

In their lawsuit against Meta, the plaintiffs allege that leaked information about the company’s artificial intelligence business shows their work was used without permission.

The lawsuit against OpenAI alleges that summaries of the plaintiffs’ work generated by ChatGPT indicate the bot was trained on their copyrighted content.

“The summaries get some details wrong” but still show that ChatGPT “retains knowledge of particular works in the training dataset,” the lawsuit says.

The lawsuits seek unspecified money damages on behalf of a nationwide class of copyright owners whose works were allegedly infringed.

© Thomson Reuters 2023

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Samsung Galaxy M34 vs OnePlus Nord CE 3: Price in India, Specifications Compared



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Meta Loses Antitrust Case in Top EU Court Over 2019 German Privacy Breach Checks

Antitrust authorities overseeing firms such as Facebook owner Meta Platforms are entitled to also assess privacy breaches, Europe’s top court ruled on Tuesday, potentially handing them more leeway in Big Tech probes.

The ruling followed a challenge by Meta after the German cartel office in 2019 ordered the social media giant to stop collecting users’ data without their consent, calling the practice an abuse of market power.

The case before the Luxembourg-based Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) looked at whether the German antitrust agency overstepped its authority by using its antitrust power to address data protection concerns, which are the remit of national data protection authorities.

Meta, the owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, challenged the finding, prompting a German court to seek advice from the CJEU.

In response to the ruling, a Meta spokesperson said: “We are evaluating the Court’s decision and will have more to say in due course.”

The CJEU judges said regarding antitrust investigations that “it may be necessary for the competition authority of the member state concerned also to examine whether that undertaking’s conduct complies with rules other than those relating to competition law.

The CJEU, however, said antitrust regulators must “take into consideration any decision or investigation by the competent supervisory authority pursuant to that regulation”.

The German cartel office welcomed the ruling.

“Data is a decisive factor in establishing market power. The use of the very personal data of consumers by the large internet companies can also be abusive under antitrust law,” its head, Andreas Mundt, said.

Thomas Graf, a partner at law firm Cleary Gottlieb, was more cautious about whether antitrust authorities would want to go into the details of privacy law.

“You still need to explain why it is relevant for antitrust law and demonstrate restrictive effects and abuse, and they will need to coordinate with the GDPR authorities,” he said.

The EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a privacy and security law that imposes obligations on organisations anywhere that target or collect data related to people in the EU.

“Are antitrust authorities going to become GDPR regulators? I don’t think so,” Graf said.

The European Consumer Organisation (BEUC) also welcomed the ruling: “In a complex digitalised economy, more than ever we need authorities to think outside the box and to consider data protection,” BEUC Deputy Director General Ursula Pachl said.

The case is C-252/21 Meta Platforms and others (User conditions for a social network).

© Thomson Reuters 2023

From the Nothing Phone 2 to the Motorola Razr 40 Ultra, several new smartphones are expected to make their debeut in July. We discuss all of the most exciting smartphones coming this month and more on the latest episode of Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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Facebook Acted on Only 27 Percent of User Complaints in May in India as Grievances Surged to 16,995

Social media giant Meta’s Facebook took action against only around 27 percent of complaints it received from users and Instagram against less than half of total grievances raised by users in May 2023, according to the company’s latest India Monthly Report.

Individual grievances on Facebook more than doubled to 16,995 and jumped over 68 percent on Instagram in May compared to April data.

As per the category-wise information disclosed by Meta, Facebook “actioned on” less than one-tenth grievances of users where they claimed that the content is showing them in partial nudity or in a sexual act.

In the case of Instagram, the platform acted on half of the total users’ reports it received for violation of its policy on “content showing me in nudity/partial nudity or in a sexual act”.

Meta transparency report shows the other categories of report, on which Facebook action rate was less than a quarter of percentage, included grievances raised by users for “bullying or harassment” (less than 7 percent), “inappropriate or abusive content” (about 8 percent) and fake profiles (about 48 percent).

Facebook received a total 16,995 grievances from users and provided tools for users to resolve their issues in 2,325 cases.

“Of the other 14,670 reports where specialized review was needed, we reviewed content as per our policies, and we took action on 2,299 reports in total,” Meta said in its report for Facebook.

The category-wise details of action taken on 2,299 additional reports was not disclosed by Facebook.

Instagram received 16,267 grievances from users, out of which it acted on 6,499 incidents comprising 2,671 reports on which action was taken after specialised review.

Instagram provided tools only in around 5 percent of cases where users reported about their account being hacked, around 50 percent in cases where users claimed that the content showed them in partial nudity or in a sexual act.

The category or the policy wise details of 2,671 reports were not shared by the company in the report.

Meta received two orders from Grievances Appellate Committee (GAC) on which it acted.

The GAC looks into complaints of users who are not satisfied by the resolution of social media majors.

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Meta, Google Advised in Vietnam to Use AI to Detect Toxic Content on Social Media: Report

Vietnam has told cross-border social platforms to use artificial intelligence (AI) models that can detect and remove “toxic” content automatically, the latest requirement in its stringent regime for social media firms, state media reported on Friday.

Vietnam has repeatedly asked companies like Meta‘s Facebook, Google‘s YouTube and TikTok to coordinate with authorities to stamp out content deemed “toxic”, such as offensive, false and anti-state content.

“This is the first time Vietnam has announced such an order,” state-run broadcaster Vietnam Television (VTV) reported from the information ministry’s mid-year review event, which was opened to selected newspaper.

The report did not give details on when and how cross-border platforms had to abide by the new requirement.

During the first half of this year, in accordance with government requests, Facebook removed 2,549 posts, the ministry said in a statement. YouTube removed 6,101 videos while TikTok took down 415 links, the info ministry said in a statement.

The announcement came as Southeast Asian countries are drawing up governance and ethics guidelines for AI that will impose “guardrails” on the booming technology, Reuters reported this month.

Vietnam in recent years has issued several regulations together with a cybersecurity law that target foreign social media platforms in a bid to battle disinformation in news and force foreign tech firms to establish representative offices in Vietnam and store data in the country.

The country last month undertook a comprehensive inspection on short videos platform TikTok’s local operations and preliminary results showed “various” TikTok violations, the info ministry has said.

VTV reported the info ministry saying at Friday’s event that US streaming giant Netflix had submitted documents needed to open a local office in Vietnam.

© Thomson Reuters 2023

Apple unveiled its first mixed reality headset, the Apple Vision Pro, at its annual developer conference, along with new Mac models and upcoming software updates. We discuss all the most important announcements made by the company at WWDC 2023 on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.
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Tech Giants Could Face Fines Worth Up to 5 Percent of Annual Turnover Under Proposed Australian Laws

Tech giants could face billions of dollars in fines for failing to tackle disinformation under proposed Australian laws, which a watchdog on Monday said would bring “mandatory” standards to the little-regulated sector.

Under the proposed legislation, the owners of platforms like Facebook, Google, Twitter, TikTok and podcasting services would face penalties worth up to five percent of annual global turnover — some of the highest proposed anywhere in the world.

The Australian Communications and Media Authority, a government watchdog, would be granted a range of powers to force companies to prevent misinformation or disinformation from spreading and stop it from being monetised.

“The legislation, if passed, would provide the ACMA with a range of new powers to compel information from digital platforms, register and enforce mandatory industry codes as well as make industry standards,” a spokesperson told AFP.

The watchdog would not have the power to take down or sanction individual posts.

But it could instead punish platforms for failing to monitor and combat intentionally “false, misleading and deceptive” content that could cause “serious harm”.

The rules would echo legislation expected to come into force in the European Union, where tech giants could face fines as high as six percent of annual turnover and outright bans on operating inside the bloc.

Australia has also been at the forefront of efforts to regulate digital platforms, prompting tech firms to make mostly unfulfilled threats to withdraw from the Australian market.

The proposed bill seeks to strengthen the current voluntary Australian Code of Practice on Disinformation and Misinformation that launched in 2021, but which has had only limited impact.

Tech giants including Adobe, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Redbubble, TikTok and Twitter are signatories of the current code.

The planned laws were unveiled Sunday and come amid a surge of misinformation in Australia concerning a referendum on Indigenous rights later this year.

Australians will be asked whether the constitution should recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and if an Indigenous consultative body should be created to weigh in on proposed legislation.

The Australian Electoral Commission said it had witnessed an increase in misinformation and abuse online about the referendum process.

Election commissioner Tom Rogers told local media on Thursday that the tone of online comments had become “aggressive”.

The government argues that tackling disinformation is essential to keeping Australians safe online, and safeguarding the country’s democracy.

“Mis and disinformation sows division within the community, undermines trust and can threaten public health and safety,” Minister for Communications Michelle Rowland said Sunday.

Stakeholders have until August to offer their views about the legislation.

Apple unveiled its first mixed reality headset, the Apple Vision Pro, at its annual developer conference, along with new Mac models and upcoming software updates. We discuss all the most important announcements made by the company at WWDC 2023 on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.
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