Page 19 - Facebook

Meta soars after first-ever dividend plan, 'Year of Efficiency' pays off

The company flagged strong ad sales and a rebound in user growth during its fourth-quarter results on Thursday, while also forecasting current-quarter revenue above analysts' estimates

Meta to let iPhone 15 Pro users upload spatial videos on Quest VR headsets

Support for spatial videos is one of the several new features coming to Meta's Quest line of virtual reality headsets on February 7. Below are the details

Meta's profits, revenue surge in Q4 thanks to cost cuts, ad rebound

Meta Platforms Inc. tripled its profit and posted sharply higher revenue in the final quarter of 2023, boosted by a rebound in digital advertising as well cost cutting and layoffs in what CEO Mark Zuckerberg called the year of efficiency. "The company can talk all it wants to about AI and the metaverse, but it's still a social media company that gets nearly all its revenue from advertising, and advertisers still clearly love Meta, said longtime tech analyst Debra Aho Williamson. The Menlo Park, California-based parent company of Facebook and Instagram said Thursday that it earned $14 billion, or $5.33 per share, in the October-December period. That's up from $4.65 billion, or $1.76 per share, a year earlier. Revenue grew 25% to $40.11 billion from $32.17 billion. Analysts, on average, were expecting earnings of $4.82 per share on revenue $39.1 billion, according to FactSet Research. This was a pivotal year for our company. We increased our operating discipline, delivered strong ..

Meta, Amazon job cuts in 2023, belt-tightening pay off for investors

The question now becomes whether leaner, more focused versions of Meta and Amazon can continue to strive for the bold and ambitious tech advancements that have made them household names

Meta, X, TikTok CEOs ripped by US senators over child online safety

"These companies must be reined in, or the worst is yet to come," Senator Lindsey Graham, the top Republican on the committee, said

Meta CEO Zuckerberg apologises to parents at US Senate social media hearing

Under prodding from Republican Senator Josh Hawley, Zuckerberg stood up and addressed families who held up pictures of their children who they said had been harmed by social media

Meta, TikTok, X CEOs face questions on child safety at US Senate hearing

Senator Amy Klobuchar on Wednesday questioned what she said was inaction in the tech industry, comparing it to the response shown when a panel blew out of a Boeing plane earlier this month

Mark Zuckerberg to defend Meta's impact on teens before senate committee

Zuckerberg will defend his company's child safety practices and focus on the benefits of using Facebook and Instagram, the popular apps owned by Meta

Meta, TikTok & other social media CEOs to testify on child exploitation

Sexual predators. Addictive features. Self-harm and eating disorders. Unrealistic beauty standards. Bullying. These are just some of the issues young people are dealing with on social media - and children's advocates and lawmakers say companies are not doing enough to protect them. On Wednesday, the CEOs of Meta, TikTok, X and other social media companies are testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee about child exploitation on their platforms, as lawmakers, families and advocates are growing increasingly concerned about the effects of social media on young people's lives. While Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is a veteran of congressional hearings since his first one over the Cambridge Analytica privacy debacle in 2018, it will only be the second time for TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew and the first for Linda Yaccarino, the CEO of X. Snap CEO Evan Spiegel and Discord CEO Jason Citron are also scheduled to testify. We understand that they are companies and they have to make profit. But whe

Elon Musk's X pledges 100-person office in Texas to enforce content rules

The company aims to hire 100 full-time content moderators at the new location, according to Joe Benarroch, head of business operations at X

Meta sets stricter message settings for teens on Instagram, Facebook

These measures come as regulatory bodies across the globe have been raising questions about the safety of children on these social media platforms

Instagram, Facebook users will get more choices to comply with DMA: Meta

The world's largest social network is the latest to make changes to comply with the DMA after Google outlined efforts to comply with new EU technology rules that could hurt revenues for some companies

Meta ramps up AI efforts by building chip arsenal, consolidating teams

Mark Zuckerberg in a post on Instagram said that the company was currently training a third version of the Llama model

Meta's Director, former COO Sheryl Sandberg to leave board after 12 years

During her time at the tech giant, which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp, Sandberg was key to turning the social network into a money-making machine

Under attack from courts, Meta tightens monitoring of teens online usage

As part of the announcement, Meta said that they are bringing parental supervision to Messenger, so that parents can see how teens spend their time and who they interact with

Documents underscore Meta's 'historical reluctance' to protect children

Newly unredacted documents from New Mexico's lawsuit against Meta underscore the company's historical reluctance to keep children safe on its platforms, the complaint says. New Mexico's Attorney General Raul Torrez sued Facebook and Instagram owner Meta in December, saying the company failed to protect young users from exposure to child sexual abuse material and allowed adults to solicit explicit imagery from them. In the passages freshly unredacted from the lawsuit Wednesday, internal employee messages and presentations from 2020 and 2021 show Meta was aware of issues such as adult strangers being able to contact children on Instagram, the sexualization of minors on that platform, and the dangers of its people you may know feature that recommends connections between adults and children. But Meta dragged its feet when it came to addressing the issues, the passages show. Instagram, for instance, began restricting adults' ability to message minors in 2021. One internal document ...

Meta to restrict more content targeting teens on Instagram, Facebook

The move will make it more difficult for teens to come across potentially sensitive content or accounts when they use features such as Search and Explore on Instagram

Meta enables 'Link history' on Facebook: What it is and how-to disable it

While adding to convenience since the link history feature stores users' browsing history for 30 days, it raises concerns over Meta's disclosure that it may use the information to improve ads

Zuckerberg sells nearly $500 million of Meta stock in 2 months: Report

Marc Benioff, Zuckerberg's peer in the tech world, also sold shares nearly every day in the second half of 2023

Social media firms gain $11 bn in ads from under-18 users in 2022: Report

Social media giants like Instagram, X (formerly Twitter) and Snapchat collectively gained nearly USD 11 billion in advertising revenue in 2022 from users younger than 18 years, according to a new US-based study. Researchers said that approximately 30-40 per cent of the advertising revenue generated by Snapchat, TikTok and YouTube was attributable to young people. They found that while among users aged 12 and under, YouTube derived the greatest ad revenue of about USD 1 billion in 2022, among those aged 13-17 years, Instagram generated the highest revenue of about USD 4 billion. The team led by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Harvard University, also found that from users aged 13-17 years, TikTok derived USD 2 billion and YouTube USD 1.2 billion in 2022, suggesting that these platforms have "overwhelming financial incentives" in continuing to delay meaningful steps to protect children against the harms of using social media. The researchers said that while these socia