Meta Platforms said on Tuesday it would lift its blanket ban on the word “shaheed”, or “martyr” in English, after a year-long review by its oversight board found the social media giant’s approach was “overbroad”.

The company has been criticized for years over its handling of content involving the Middle East, including in a 2021 study Meta itself commissioned that found its approach had an “adverse human rights impact” on Palestinians and other Arabic-speaking users of its services.

Those criticisms have escalated since the onset of hostilities between Israel and Hamas in October.

The oversight board, which is funded by Meta but operates independently, started its review last year because the word accounted for more content removals on the company’s platforms than any other single word or phrase.

Meta is the parent company of Facebook and Instagram.

The review found in March that Meta’s rules on “shaheed” failed to account for the word’s variety of meanings and resulted in the removal of content not aimed at praising violent actions.

Meta acknowledged the findings of the review on Tuesday and said its tests showed that removing content when “shaheed” was “paired with otherwise violating content captures the most potentially harmful content without disproportionally impacting the voice”.

The oversight board welcomed the change, saying Meta’s policy related to the word had led to the censoring of millions of people across its platforms.

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Meta Platforms was charged by EU antitrust regulators on Monday for failing to comply with landmark tech rules as they took aim at the US company’s newly introduced pay or consent advertising model, already the target of privacy regulators and activists’ ire.

The tech giant launched the no-ads subscription service for Facebook and Instagram in Europe last November, saying users who consent to be tracked get a free service which is funded by advertising revenues. Or they could pay for an ad-free service.

The European Commission, which acts as the EU competition enforcer, said the binary choice breaches the bloc’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) which seeks to rein in the power of Big Tech, as it sent its preliminary finding to Meta.

It said the binary choice forces users to consent to the combination of their personal data and fails to provide them a less personalised but equivalent version of Meta’s social networks.

“We want to empower citizens to be able to take control over their own data and choose a less personalised ads experience,” EU antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager said in a statement.

Meta said its model complied with a ruling from Europe’s top court.

“Subscription for no ads follows the direction of the highest court in Europe and complies with the DMA. We look forward to further constructive dialogue with the European Commission to bring this investigation to a close,” a Meta spokesperson said.

Meta can tweak its advertising model to stave off a fine of as much as 10% of its global annual turnover if found guilty of DMA breaches. The Commission has until March next year to wrap up its investigation.

Privacy activists and privacy watchdogs have also taken issue with Meta’s advertising model.

Reuters was the first to report that the EU competition enforcer would charge Meta with non-compliance under the Digital Markets Act.

The charge against Meta came a week after the EU watchdog issued its first DMA charge against Apple for not complying with the new rule.

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New Delhi:

Meta-owned Instagram on Saturday suffered a major outage globally, including in India, as thousands of users were unable to load Reels and access other options.

As per website outage tracking website Downdetector, over 6,500 users reported issues with accessing the platform in India at the peak of an outage at around 12.02 p.m.

About 58 per cent reported problems with the feed, 32 per cent with the app, and 10 per cent with server connection.

Users from Delhi, Jaipur, Lucknow, Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, and others faced issues with the app.

Users took to X to vent their frustration as they were unable to log in to the app, load Reels, and others.

“Everyone going towards Twitter to check if Instagram is down,” a user wrote.

“I thought my Instagram got hacked cuz there’s no way my fyp looks like this. It’s all brain rot usually #instagramdown,” another user said.

One more user stated, “Me going to Twitter to check if it’s only my Instagram that’s down, or we all are suffering #instagramdown”.

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New Delhi:

Meta said that it took down over 11.6 million pieces of bad content across 13 policies for Facebook and more than 5.4 million pieces of objectionable content across 12 policies for Instagram in India in April.

In April, Facebook received 17,124 reports through the Indian grievance mechanism and said that it provided tools for users to resolve their issues in 9,977 cases.

These include pre-established channels to report content for specific violations, self-remediation flows where they can download their data, avenues to address account hacked issues, etc, Meta said in its monthly report in compliance with the IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.

“Of the other 7,147 reports where specialised review was needed, we analysed content as per our policies and took action on 4,303 complaints in total. The remaining 2,844 grievances were reviewed but may not have been actioned,” Meta added.

On Instagram, the company received 12,924 reports through the Indian grievance mechanism.

“Of these, we provided tools for users to resolve their issues in 5,941 cases,” it said.

Of the other 6,983 reports where specialised review was needed, Meta analysed content and took action on 3,206 complaints in total.

The remaining 3,777 reports were reviewed but may not have been actioned.

Under the new IT Rules 2021, big digital and social media platforms, with more than 5 million users, have to publish monthly compliance reports.

“We measure the number of pieces of content (such as posts, photos, videos or comments) we take action for going against our standards. Taking action could include removing a piece of content from Facebook or Instagram or covering photos or videos that may be disturbing to some audiences with a warning,” said Meta.

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Kota:

The Kota police have tied up with Meta to identify students exhibiting suicidal tendencies on the company’s social media platforms, Facebook and Instagram, allowing for their timely intervention.

Since the collaboration a week back, the police claim they have already prevented a student from Jhunjhunu from committing suicide in this coaching hub, where young people from across the country come to prepare for competitive exams.

Nine students have taken their lives this year, with the most recent case reported on April 30. In 2023, 26 cases of suicide among coaching students were registered in the city, marking the highest number recorded so far.

Under the collaboration, however, Meta will share such information not only with the city police but with the entire state of Rajasthan.

A dedicated team, working round the clock on eight-hour shifts, has been deputed at Abhay Command Centre in the city to monitor red-flag tags indicating suicidal tendencies, as shared by Meta. This will be used to sound alerts to respective area police allowing them to intervene timely.

Kota City SP Amrita Duhan said she approached Meta for this collaboration after realising that in some suicide cases, students had expressed their distress and suicidal thoughts on social media and timely intervention could have potentially averted these tragic incidents.

Meta was happy to oblige but said they cannot specifically concentrate only on Kota rather they would provide such information from across Rajasthan, SP Duhan said. Subsequently, the Kota police, with approval from the DGP Police Headquarters in Jaipur, decided to take up this responsibility for the entire state, she said.

If a student from Kota posts content related to suicide or self-harm, a red-flag tag will flash on Meta’s system, SP Duhan said, adding that their account information will then be shared with the Kota police.

In case, the student is from outside Kota, then these details will be passed on to Abhay Command Centre or the relevant district’s Control Room for timely action, she added.

Since the launch of this collaborative initiative, no such red-flag tags have been reported in the city, but “the police have prevented a possible suicide by a student hailing from the Jhunjhunu district”, the SP said.

Currently, the initiative is active in the city but plans are underway to expand it to the Police Headquarters in Jaipur, she said. 

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New York:

Meta and Call of Duty (CoD) game developer Activision have been sued by the families of the victims killed in a US school shooting over alleged promotion of the use of firearms to minors.

In May 2022, an 18-year-old Salvador Ramos opened fire at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, killing 21.

According to the lawsuit, filed in the Los Angeles Superior Court in the US, both the companies “knowingly exposed the shooter to the weapon, conditioned him to see it as the solution to his problems, and trained him to use it.”

The families of the victims accused Meta and Activision of “grooming” young men and putting them on a path toward violence.

“Ramos played ‘Call of Duty’ obsessively, developed skill as a marksman, and obtained rewards that become available only after a substantial time investment,” alleged the lawsuit.

The lawsuit also claimed that the game features the AR-15 used in the shooting.

Apart from Meta and Activision, the families of the Uvalde victims are also suing Daniel Defense, the company that made the AR-15 used in the shooting.

In a statement given to media, Activision said that “millions of people around the world enjoy video games without turning to horrific acts.”
 

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Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg took home a salary of just $1 in 2023, the lowest among all Meta employees. However, he received about $24.4 million in other compensation, primarily covering security costs.

Details on the exact amount spent on his security were not revealed, but Meta increased its budget for his security to $14 million in 2023, up from $10 million in previous years. 

Zuckerberg’s security pre-tax allowance increased by 40% compared to 2018. This came after a year of cost-cutting for Meta, during which the company laid off around 11,000 employees.

Meta, at the time, stated that Zuckerberg could use the increased allowance for various safety-related needs, including “additional personnel, equipment, services, residential improvement”, according to the NY Post.  

A portion of Mark Zuckerberg’s $24.4 million compensation in 2023 covered costs related to his private jet, reported Fortune. 

The 39-year-old reportedly deliberately kept his salary at $1, as per his request, and did not want to be included in Meta’s Bonus Plan nor receive any equity awards. 

Zuckerberg’s wealth has increased by over $47 billion this year alone, despite receiving a nominal salary of $1 since 2013.

As per Forbes, he currently ranks as the fourth richest person globally, with a net worth of $155 billion, trailing behind Bernard Arnault, Elon Musk, and Jeff Bezos. 

Meta Profits Soar

Facebook owner Meta this week said that its quarterly profits soared last quarter. 

The company said that net profit in the January to March period rose to $12.4 billion with total revenue, mainly from selling ads, up an impressive 27 percent, at $36.5 billion.

“We estimate that more than 3.2 billion people use at least one of our apps each day and we’re seeing healthy growth in the US,” Zuckerberg told analysts on an investor call.

Meta said its global workforce now stood at 69,329, slightly more than last quarter, but down from a peak of more than 87,000 employees in 2022.

Tokyo:

Four scam victims in Japan sued Facebook on Thursday after being hoodwinked by fraudulent online investment ads that used images of celebrities without their consent, their lawyer said.

Online hoaxes posted on Facebook and other social media channels in Japan led to 27.8 billion yen ($178 million) in losses last year, according to the National Police Agency.

The four filed the case with Kobe District Court demanding Facebook Japan, owned by US group Meta, pay 23 million yen ($148,000) in damages, according to their lawyer.

The plaintiffs say they fell victim to adverts posted on Facebook offering high investment returns and which used images of wealthy celebrities like Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa.

Maezawa, the founder of Japan’s largest online clothing retailer, became famous internationally after paying to go to the Moon on a future mission operated by Elon Musk’s SpaceX.

His image is commonly used without his permission by online fraudsters, with one typical advert using the caption: “Started with 10,000 yen. Gained 1.3 million yen in four days.” 

Maezawa has previously urged the Japanese government to take action and has said he is working with lawyers in the United States to bringing a lawsuit of his own against Meta. 

Contacted by AFP about the Japanese lawsuit, Meta was not immediately available for comment.

The adverts in this case used only photos but other countries have seen more elaborate scams using “deepfake” videos of celebrities urging people to invest in fraudulent schemes.

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Ted Leonard, Chief Executive Officer of Photobucket. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

At its peak in the early 2000s, Photobucket was the world’s top image-hosting site. The media backbone for once-hot services such as Myspace and Friendster, it boasted 70 million users and accounted for nearly half of the U.S. online photo market.

Today only two million people still use Photobucket, according to analytics tracker Similarweb. But the generative AI revolution may give it a new lease of life.

CEO Ted Leonard, who runs the 40-strong company out of Edwards, Colorado, said he is in talks with multiple tech companies to license Photobucket’s 13 billion photos and videos to be used to train generative AI models that can produce new content in response to text prompts.

“He has discussed rates of between five cents and $1 dollar per photo and more than $1 per video,” he said, with prices varying widely both by the buyer and the types of imagery sought. “We’ve spoken to companies that have said, ‘we need way more,’ Mr. Leonard added, with one buyer telling him they wanted over a billion videos.

Photobucket declined to identify its prospective buyers, citing commercial confidentiality. The ongoing negotiations, which haven’t been previously reported, suggest the company could be sitting on billions of dollars’ worth of content and give a glimpse into a bustling data market that’s arising in the rush to dominate generative AI technology.

Tech giants such as Google, Meta, and Microsoft-backed OpenAI initially used reams of data scraped from the internet for free to train generative AI models such as ChatGPT that can mimic human creativity. They have said that doing so is both legal and ethical, though they face lawsuits from a string of copyright holders over the practice.

At the same time, these tech companies are also quietly paying for content locked behind paywalls and login screens, giving rise to a hidden trade in everything from chat logs to long forgotten personal photos from faded social media apps.

“There is a rush right now to go for copyright holders that have private collections of stuff that is not available to be scraped,” said Edward Klaris from law firm Klaris Law, which says it’s advising content owners on deals worth tens of millions of dollars apiece to license archives of photos, movies and books for AI training.

Reuters spoke to more than 30 people with knowledge of AI data deals OpenAI, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Apple and Amazon all declined to comment. Many major market research firms say they have not even begun to estimate the size of the opaque AI data market, where companies often don’t disclose agreements. Those researchers who do, such as Business Research Insights, put the market at roughly $2.5 billion now and forecast it could grow close to $30 billion within a decade.

New York:

Facebook owner Meta announced major changes to its policies on digitally created and altered media on Friday, ahead of US elections poised to test its ability to police deceptive content generated by new artificial intelligence technologies.

The social media giant will start applying “Made with AI” labels in May to AI-generated videos, images, and audio posted on its platforms, expanding a policy that previously addressed only a narrow slice of doctored videos, Vice President of Content Policy Monika Bickert said in a blog post.

Bickert said Meta would also apply separate and more prominent labels to digitally altered media that poses a “particularly high risk of materially deceiving the public on a matter of importance,” regardless of whether the content was created using AI or other tools.

The new approach will shift the company’s treatment of manipulated content. It will move from one focused on removing a limited set of posts toward one that keeps the content up while providing viewers with information about how it was made.

Meta previously announced a scheme to detect images made using other companies’ generative AI tools using invisible markers built into the files, but did not give a start date at the time.

A company spokesperson told Reuters the new labeling approach would apply to content posted on Meta’s Facebook, Instagram and Threads services. Its other services, including WhatsApp and Quest virtual reality headsets, are covered by different rules.

Meta will begin applying the more prominent “high-risk” labels immediately, the spokesperson said.

The changes come months before a U.S. presidential election in November that tech researchers warn may be transformed by new generative AI technologies. Political campaigns have already begun deploying AI tools in places like Indonesia, pushing the boundaries of guidelines issued by providers like Meta and generative AI market leader OpenAI.

In February, Meta’s oversight board called the company’s existing rules on manipulated media “incoherent” after reviewing a video of U.S. President Joe Biden posted on Facebook last year that altered real footage to wrongfully suggest he had behaved inappropriately.

The footage was permitted to stay up, as Meta’s existing “manipulated media” policy bars misleadingly altered videos only if they were produced by artificial intelligence or if they make people appear to say words they never actually said.

The board said the policy should also apply to non-AI content, which is “not necessarily any less misleading” than content generated by AI, as well as to audio-only content and videos depicting people doing things they never actually did.

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