A whistleblower group is accusing Facebook of deliberately blocking websites for Australian hospitals and emergency services as part of a negotiating tactic last year.
The social network owned by Silicon Valley tech giant Meta was lobbying to weaken a proposed law requiring it to pay news providers in Australia when it blocked all such content from its platform in February 2021.
But the algorithm also blocked other websites in what the company maintained was an accident, telling AFP on Friday that “any suggestion to the contrary is categorically and obviously false.”
“We intended to exempt Australian government pages from restrictions in an effort to minimise the impact of this misguided and harmful legislation,” a Meta spokesperson said.
“When we were unable to do so as intended due to a technical error, we apologised and worked to correct it.”
However, US-based organisation Whistleblower Aid alleged it was actually a Meta ploy in filings with the US Department of Justice and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, first reported in the Wall Street Journal on Thursday.
The organisation said in a statement that Facebook’s five-day blackout of news content providers had deliberately “overblocked” local governments, health services and other sites that were providing support for vulnerable people.
The intention was to force the government to weaken the proposed law, the group said.
“This wasn’t just an example of a corporate actor behaving recklessly,” said Whistleblower Aid chief Libby Liu.
“Facebook intentionally put lives at risk to protect its bottom line.”
Shortly after the blackout, Australia passed a law forcing Facebook to negotiate with news content providers, but politicians watered down some of the most onerous proposals.
Instagram has started forcing users to enter their date of birth before being allowed to use the app. The change comes over eight months after Instagram announced its plans to make age verification mandatory on its platform and started prompting users to fill in their birthday details. The prime purpose of the update is to restrict access for kids below the age of 13. Instagram will also be able to use the given date of birth to offer better targeted ads to users.
To obtain the date of birth, Instagram is showing a screen before allowing access to its content. It asks users to enter their date of birth and has no option to bypass.
“Before you can continue using Instagram, you need to provide your birthday, even if this account is for something like a business or pet,” the screen prompt reads. “This helps us protect younger people in our community. We’ll also use your birthday to help personalise your experience, including ads. It won’t be part of your public profile.”
Several users who have not yet provided their date of birth on Instagram have started receiving the new prompt. A number of them have taken to Twitter and complained about Instagram’s move to forcefully ask for their birth date.
So now Instagram/Meta forces you to add your birthday not only to protect younger ones but also to include *MORE* ads to your feed… 🙄 pic.twitter.com/yoQXaBVp0b
Instagram initially started asking for age verification as an optional feature in 2019. The platform last year made it mandatory to provide date of birth details and announced the roll out of prompts to let users fill in the information in the midst of looking at the photos and videos in their feed or uploading a new content for their followers. However, up until now, the Instagram app was accessible to users who did not provide their details and skipped the earlier prompts.
Gadgets 360 has reached out to Instagram for a comment on the update and will update this article when the platform responds.
Some young users are, of course, likely to be able to bypass restrictions by giving their fake birth date details. However, Instagram — and Facebook — both have an artificial intelligence (AI) backed system in place to detect accurate age of its users.
“We look at things like people wishing you a happy birthday and the age written in those messages, for example, ‘Happy 21st Bday!’ or ‘Happy Quinceañera.’ We also look at the age you shared with us on Facebook and apply it to our other apps where you have linked your accounts and vice versa — so if you share your birthday with us on Facebook, we’ll use the same for your linked account on Instagram,” the social networking giant writes on its site to explain its birthday detection technology.
Last year, Facebook and Instagram parent Meta was found to be working on a kids-focussed version of the Instagram app that could be called Instagram for Kids. It was a result of generating growing interest from young users and facing strong criticism from government bodies including the US Congress for increasing Instagram’s use among kids. Advocacy groups and authorities including the US State Attorneys General urged the company to drop its plans. As a result of the outrage, it finally paused the development of the app in September.
Nevertheless, Meta has not yet completely scrapped its plans for developing Instagram for Kids — though it was urged to do so by various religious leaders in February.
The plan with restricting access for kids through the latest development could eventually help Instagram to redirect its young audience to the new app that we may see in the coming future. Meta would also be able to generate more revenue by serving targeted ads after getting the date of birth of its users.
TikTok has surpassed Instagram and become the world’s top downloaded app in the first quarter of 2022, according to a report by app market intelligence firm Sensor Tower. The short-video app, which is banned in India, managed to continue to be one of the top-five top downloaded apps worldwide. However, Meta — the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp — retained its dominance in the app market globally, with Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp as the three top downloaded apps worldwide after TikTok.
Sensor Tower reports that no app has had more downloads than TikTok since the start of 2018. Since the beginning of 2022, the app has been downloaded more than 175 million times, according to the report.
TikTok was the top app worldwide in Q1 2022 Photo Credit: Sensor Tower
TikTok surpassed 70 million downloads on the App Store worldwide for the third time in the first quarter. It was driven by 11 percent quarter-over-quarter growth in Asia. CapCut, a video editing app from TikTok’s publisher ByteDance, also had the last quarter as its best to date with more than 30 million downloads. It has ranked among the top 10 App Store apps each of the past five quarters, Sensor Tower said in its 75-page report.
Alongside the worldwide growth, TikTok has emerged as the top downloaded app on both the App Store and Google Play in the US and on Google Play in Europe. The ban in India also didn’t impact much in Asia as TikTok continued to be the top-downloaded app on the App Store in the region. It also moved to the third top downloaded app position on Google Play from the fourth one in the quarter earlier.
However, on Google Play worldwide, Instagram and Facebook managed to continue to fight TikTok and retain their leadership on the top-two positions.
In addition to TikTok, YouTube emerged as one of the top-two apps on the US App Store each quarter since the first quarter of 2021, per the report.
Sensor Tower said that while TikTok has surpassed 10 million downloads each of the past nine quarters, YouTube has overtaken this threshold for eight straight quarters.
But nonetheless, TikTok continued to gain momentum in the US. Sensor Tower noted that it was the top app on Google Play for the third straight quarter, with installs up 19 percent year-on-year in the first quarter.
The ongoing trend of connecting people over virtual calls — despite the revival of physical meetings — has apparently helped Zoom to grow in the market in which entertainment-focussed apps including TikTok and Facebook parent Meta are writing new growth stories.
Sensor Tower said that Zoom had positive quarter-on-quarter growth for the first time in a year by reaching the number six position on Google Play in the US with more than three million downloads. It was the top app on Google Play as recently as the first quarter of 2021, the report said.
Apps including Telegram and WhatsApp have a tough fight in Europe. While WhatsApp managed to take the second position in the list of top downloaded apps in the continent, Telegram also had its second-best quarter in the region in the first quarter of 2022, trailing the nearly 28 million installs it had in the same quarter of 2021, according to Sensor Tower.
WhatsApp was also the top app particularly on the App Store in Europe for the seventh straight quarter in the first quarter. Sensor Tower said that it was also WhatsApp’s best first quarter of the year since 2018.
In Asia, Instagram continued to come as the top app for the third straight quarter in the first quarter, followed by Facebook. Instagram was also the top app in India where it accounted for more than 60 percent of Instagram’s installs in the country, Sensor Tower said.
Instagram was also the top app on Google Play in Asia — ahead of Facebook and Shopee. Sensor Tower noted that the photo-sharing app accounted for 29 percent of Meta’s Google Play installs in Asia in the first quarter, up from 26 percent in the same quarter last year and 18 percent in the same quarter of 2020.
Shopping apps are also seen getting bigger in Asia — at least on Google Play. Sensor Tower said that shopping app installs on Google Play in Asia grew 63 percent year-on-year in the first quarter. Top apps include Shopee, Meesho, and Flipkart’s Shopsy.
On the App Store, Subway Surfers, Wordle, and Coloring Match were the top-three games worldwide in the last quarter. Garena Free Fire, Subway Surfers, and Merge Master were, however, the top-three games worldwide on Google Play.
Wordle — which is named after New York Times’ word game Wordle — was also the top game in the US, with more than nine million downloads. It was also the top game on the App Store in the country and had the top US App Store downloads since Among Us in the fourth quarter of 2020. Wordus and Word Guess were the other two games with Wordle-style gameplay that ranked among the top 20 games in the country, the report mentioned.
However, Sensor Tower said Roblox managed to continue ranking among the top-five games each quarter since the fourth quarter of 2020. In Asia, the list of top-three games in the first quarter was the same as the previous quarter, with Garena Fire Fire leading the chart, followed by Ludo King and Subway Surfers.
“Garena Free Fire and Ludo King have been in a tight race since the start of 2019, with Garena Free Fire’s 468 million installs edging Ludo King’s 461 million since that time,” Sensor Tower said.
PUBG Mobile also returned to the top-five list in Asia in the last quarter. It took the top spot on the App Store in the continent, with 37 percent quarter-on-quarter growth. However, Garena Free Fire emerged as the top game on Google Play in Asia. Garena Free Fire Max also managed to get more than 60 percent of its Google Play downloads in Asia in the last quarter, whereas the original title took the other 39 percent, the report shows.
In terms of demographics, India has continued to be the largest market for app downloads in the world in the first quarter. It was followed by the US, Brazil, and Indonesia, per the report.
India continued to lead in the top app markets worldwide in Q1 2022 Photo Credit: Sensor Tower
Sensor Tower also noted that Meta emerged as the top publisher across the globe for the first time since the first quarter of 2020. Google and ByteDance were, though, the two other top publishers in the app market globally.
Overall, worldwide downloads of apps grew 1.4 percent in the first quarter to 36.9 billion from the 36.4 billion downloads reported for the first quarter last year. Downloads from the App Store globally increased to 8.6 billion from 8.4 billion last year, while Google Play downloads reached 28.3 billion from 28 billion, Sensor Tower’s report shows.
The report is based on App Store and Google Play download estimates between January 1 and March 31. Download estimates are on a per-user basis and don’t count re-installs and updates of the same app by the same user. Also, Android app download estimates represent downloads from Google Play only and don’t consider download estimates from third-party Android stores.
WhatsApp now lets you add up to 32 participants to group voice calls, a step on its roadmap to expansion into WhatsApp Communities feature. This is among a host of new features that the social media messaging platform is said to be bringing out. WhatsApp last increased the group call participation limit in 2020. Other features that are reportedly under development or in the beta testing stage include a new caption view when sending media and the ability to include more recipients within a chat thread, a redesigned location sticker, an option to save disappearing messages, more emojis for message reactions, and advanced settings to manage your privacy settings.
Users will now be able to add up to 32 participants during voice calls in WhatsApp, as spotted on the App Store changelog as well as on the FAQ page of Android and iPhone on the WhatsApp site. In April 2020, WhatsApp had doubled the group voice call participation limit to eight from the earlier limit of four. To access the latest feature, users will have to update to the latest version of WhatsApp on their devices, that is, v22.8.80 on iPhone and v2.22.9.73 on Android.
As per the WhatsApp v22.8.80 for iPhone changelog on the App Store, the group voice call interface update brings with it a social audio layout, speaker highlight, and waveforms, as seen in the story image above. The changelog also details updated designs for voice message bubbles and info screens for contacts and groups, apart from other small improvements such as accessing your favourited media in gallery. To recall, WhatsApp announced the upcoming group voice call participant limit increase when it announced its expansion for Groups – WhatsApp Communities – last week.
It is interesting to note that one of WhatsApp’s biggest competitors, Telegram, doesn’t have a limit to the number of participants on a group voice call.
In the meanwhile, as we mentioned, several potential new features have been spotted in beta updates by WhatsApp beta tracker WABetaInfo. The first of these, spotted in beta v2.22.10.6 for Android, WhatsApp is said to be refining the caption view with a focus on the recipients. The feature is said to be rolling out to select beta testers only for now. Earlier, users couldn’t select different recipients while sending a media from a chat. The option was restricted to when you were using the camera tab. The new update will let users send photo, video, or GIF to contacts within their chat thread and you can now select other people as recipients. The messaging platform from Meta has also redesigned the way you choose the audience for your status updates. WhatsApp is now presenting a view where the users can conveniently pick a different audience for their status updates. The feature is yet to rollout widely.
The beta tracker also spotted an under-development feature in WhatsApp v2.22.10.7 for Android – a redesigned location sticker under the ‘Content Stickers’ section in the drawing editor. WhatsApp is expected to use Android APIs to generate your location to produce the content stickers. Users can place the stickers on their photos prior to sharing them. The location stickers could be similar to the location stickers produced by Snapchat. The feature is not yet visible to beta users.
With beta v22.9.0.72 for iOS, WABetaInfo reports that the company has been spotted working on a feature that let users keep disappearing messages. Users who still want to keep a chat after its expiration can remove the expiration from a disappearing message. In case either party in the chat don’t want the messages to be saved, they can choose to un-keep it – immediately deleting it for everyone. The feature is disabled by default, and not accessible to beta testers at the moment.
Next, in beta v2.22.10.9 for Android, WhatsApp has been spotted developing the option to give users more emoji to choose when emoji reacting to messages. While the first version of emoji reactions that is expected to rollout to users will be limited to just six emojis – like, love, laugh, surprise, sad, and thanks – the latest version spotted in testing appears to give access to the entire emoji keyboard when users tap the plus button. The wider emoji reaction palette is not yet available to testers.
WhatsApp in its v22.9.0.70 beta update for iOS also began rolling out advanced settings to manage user privacy to some beta testers, WABetaInfo reports. The settings will let you have better control over your last seen, about, and profile photo among others. The feature was spotted on beta v2.22.8.9 for Android at the end of March, so we can expect the feature to roll out soon across both platforms
Alphabet unit Google, Meta and other large online platforms will have to do more to tackle illegal content or risk hefty fines under new Internet rules agreed between European Union countries and EU lawmakers on Saturday.
Last month, she won backing from the 27-country bloc and lawmakers for landmark rules called the Digital Markets Act (DMA) that could force Google, Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft to change their core business practices in Europe.
“We have a deal on the DSA: The Digital Services Act will make sure that what is illegal offline is also seen and dealt with as illegal online – not as a slogan, as reality,” Vestager said in a tweet.
EU lawmaker Dita Charanzova, who had called for such rules eight years ago, welcomed the agreement.
“Google, Meta, and other large online platforms will have to act to better protect their users. Europe has made clear that they cannot act as independent digital islands,” she said in a statement.
In a statement, Google said: “As the law is finalised and implemented, the details will matter. We look forward to working with policymakers to get the remaining technical details right to ensure the law works for everyone.”
Under the DSA, the companies face fines up to 6 percent of their global turnover for violating the rules while repeated breaches could see them banned from doing business in the EU.
The new rules ban targeted advertising aimed at children or based on sensitive data such as religion, gender, race and political opinions. Dark patterns, which are tactics that mislead people into giving personal data to companies online, will also be prohibited.
Very large online platforms and online search engines will be required to take specific measures during a crisis. The move was triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the related disinformation.
The companies could be forced to hand over data related to their algorithms to regulators and researchers.
The companies also face a yearly fee up to 0.05 percent of worldwide annual revenue to cover the costs of monitoring their compliance.
EU lawmaker Martin Schirdewan criticised the exemption granted to medium-sized companies.
“Under pressure from the conservatives, an exception rule for medium-sized companies was integrated, this is a mistake. Due to the large number of companies that fall under this definition in the digital sector, the exception is like a loophole,” he said.
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