Meta Platforms is restructuring its internal research department, drawing on employees from individual divisions like Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram to staff a centralized unit that will provide services to the entire company. The research will span everything from societal topics of politics, equity, health and climate to credibility topics like misinformation and account safety. The new division will be managed by Meta head of research Pratiti Raychoudhury. Additionally, Meta is deploying the new Few-Shot Learner artificial intelligence system to help moderate content, identify trends, monitor data and implement rules. Continue reading Meta Reorganizes Research Team and Deploys ‘Few-Shot’ AI

Select Facebook creators in the U.S. will have access to more data and revenue opportunities through the social platform’s new “Professional” mode. Previously exclusive to Facebook Pages, creators can now access audience analytics and, by invite-only for now, earn up to $35,000 per month with qualifying video content through a Reels Play bonus program. For creators who are already using Pages, Facebook is adding a Professional Dashboard to access more insights and productivity tools. The goal is to help creators track shares, reactions and comments to their posts in order to make more informed decisions and grow their audiences. Continue reading Facebook Adds a Professional Mode to Expand Creator Base

Regulators the world over have been exhibiting antitrust leanings in an effort to temper Big Tech’s unfettered growth, but the UK’s unprecedented move ordering Meta Platforms to sell animated images platform Giphy nearly a year after the purchase has shocked many. The surprise is due not only to the timing, but also for its U.S. implications, and because Giphy’s modest stature has triggered the realization that no deal is too small to escape scrutiny. Meta’s Giphy deal is being described as a “killer acquisition,” wherein an innovative startup is purchased with an intent to quash future competition. Continue reading UK Regulator’s Order for Meta to Sell Giphy Shocks Big Tech

Last month, Meta Platforms announced it would delay until 2023 the introduction of end-to-end encryption (E2EE) by default on Messenger and Instagram. Now the company is shedding light on its decision, which walks the line between issues of privacy and public safety. Child advocates said the change would help abusers avoid detection. Since the purpose of encryption is to shield sensitive information for things like financial and health information, it wouldn’t do to have human monitors poking around there. Meta is using artificial intelligence in an attempt to prevent bad behavior before it happens. Continue reading Meta Says User Safety Prompts Delay for Default Encryption

Meta’s Reality Labs division has previewed a haptic glove designed to give the user sensation of handling a real object when manipulating things that only exist digitally in virtual space. Reality Labs, a division of Facebook prior to that company’s renaming as Meta Platforms, has spent seven years working on a haptic glove prototype, now rolled into Meta’s announced 2021 spending of $10 billion to develop hardware, software and apps for the metaverse — an AR/VR fused world conjured through digital sight, sound and touch. Companies including HaptX, Hi5, Manus and SenseGlove have also demonstrated haptic gloves, an increasingly competitive field. Continue reading Meta Reality Labs Haptic Glove Aims for VR Touch Sensation

Social media platforms, which have had challenges maintaining a safe, socially conscious online environment — as the year’s spate of whistleblower disclosures and global regulatory hearings proves — may face an even tougher time maintaining civility in the metaverse. The shift from monitoring text, images and video to supervising a live 3D world will be orders of magnitude more complicated, observers say. According to a 2020 safety video for “Horizon Worlds,” a game Facebook developed for its virtual reality platform Oculus Quest, the company plans to record what happens in the metaverse, storing data that transpires in users’ VR headsets. Continue reading Meta Building a Safe Metaverse While Expanding VR Holdings

About 76 percent of adults believe Facebook makes U.S. society worse while 11 percent say the social network makes society better and 13 find it neutral, according to a new CNN poll by SSRS. Roughly 50 percent said they know someone who bought into a conspiracy theory they read about on the site. Meanwhile, Facebook parent Meta Platforms says that beginning January 19 it will discontinue advertisers’ ability to target users based on their history of accessing content about health, ethnicity, politics, religion, sexual orientation and myriad other topics. The change applies to Facebook, Messenger and Instagram. Continue reading Facebook Negatively Impacts Society, According to CNN Poll

Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen’s meetings with European Union officials have accelerated the lawmakers’ plans to tamp down Big Tech. Officials are calling for quick action to strengthen and enact measures of a 2020 bill that would impose strict obligations on social media companies. As currently drafted the bill would require technology platforms to monitor and mitigate risks from illegal content or suffer stiff fines. Likening Europe to “a digital Wild West,” EU digital commissioner Thierry Breton said, “Speed is everything” and EU members must pass the new tech legislation in the first half of 2022. Continue reading FB Whistleblower Testimony Accelerates EU Regulatory Push

Facebook parent Meta has announced it is shutting down the social network’s facial recognition technology program, deleting more than a billion individual face templates. Even users who have opted in will no longer be automatically recognized in photos and videos, according to the company. Meta vice president of artificial intelligence Jerome Pesenti emphasized the technology’s helpfulness in auto-generated image descriptions for the blind and visually impaired, conceding it was necessary to weigh “the positive use cases for facial recognition against growing societal concerns, especially as regulators have yet to provide clear rules.” Continue reading Meta Halts Face Recognition Opt-In, Continues Development