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Meta makes end-to-end encryption default on Facebook, Messenger platforms

Meta is rolling out end-to-end encryption for calls and messages across its Facebook and Messenger platforms, the company announced Thursday. Such encryption means that no one other than the sender and the recipient not even Meta can decipher people's messages. Encrypted chats, first introduced as an optional feature in Messenger in 2016, will now be the standard for all users going forward, according to Messenger head Loredana Crisan. This has taken years to deliver because we've taken our time to get this right, Crisan wrote in a blog post. Our engineers, cryptographers, designers, policy experts and product managers have worked tirelessly to rebuild Messenger features from the ground up. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg promised, back in 2019, to bring end-to-end encryption to its platforms after the social media company suffered a string of high profile scandals, notably when Cambridge Analytica accessed user data on Facebook. Privacy advocates again shined a spotlight on Meta after

Meta brings end-to-end encryption on Messenger, adds more functionality

Along with an extra layer of security, Meta is adding a suite of new features, including the ability to edit messages, read receipts control and disappear messages

Meta sued by New Mexico alleging it failed to shield underage users

Facebook and Instagram fail to protect underage users from exposure to child sexual abuse material and let adults solicit pornographic imagery from them, New Mexico's attorney general alleges in a lawsuit that follows an undercover online investigation. Our investigation into Meta's social media platforms demonstrates that they are not safe spaces for children but rather prime locations for predators to trade child pornography and solicit minors for sex, Attorney General Raul Torrez said in a (prepared statement Wednesday. The civil suit filed late Tuesday against Meta Platforms Inc in state court also names its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, as a defendant. In addition, the suit claims Meta harms children and teenagers through the addictive design of its platform, degrading users' mental health, their sense of self-worth, and their physical safety, Torrez' office said in a statement. Those claims echo a lawsuit filed in late October by the attorneys general of 33 states including Californi

Meta bets on new AI features across social media apps to boost appeal

Meta's core social platforms are advertising behemoths, but users on Facebook and Instagram have largely plateaued at 2 billion and 3 billion people per month, respectively

Meta to discontinue cross-app chats between Instagram and Facebook: Details

Meta had announced Messenger support for Instagram in 2020 that allowed cross-platform messaging support between Facebook and Instagram accounts

Spanish newspaper association files suit against Meta over ad practices

A Spanish association representing more than 80 newspapers has filed a lawsuit against Facebook parent Meta accusing it of unfair competition in online advertising by allegedly ignoring European Union rules on data protection. In a statement, the Information Media Association said it is demanding 550 million euros (USD 600 million) from the social media giant. The association represents dozens of newspapers including Spain's principal dailies El Pas, El Mundo, ABC and La Vanguardia. The association accuses Meta of systematic and massive non-compliance with EU data protection regulations between May 2018, when they took force, and July 2023. It said Meta has repeatedly ignored the requirement that citizens give their consent to the use of their data for advertising profiling. The company declined to comment, saying it hadn't seen the legal papers. Meta's Facebook and Instagram platforms have long used behavioral advertising to make money. The practice involves tracking individual .

Thousands of fake Facebook accounts created to polarise US election: Meta

Someone in China created thousands of fake social media accounts designed to appear to be from Americans and used them to spread polarizing political content in an apparent effort to divide the US ahead of next year's elections, Meta said Thursday. The network of nearly 4,800 fake accounts was attempting to build an audience when it was identified and eliminated by the tech company, which owns Facebook and Instagram. The accounts sported fake photos, names and locations as a way to appear like everyday American Facebook users weighing in on political issues. Instead of spreading fake content as other networks have done, the accounts were used to reshare posts from X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, that were created by politicians, news outlets and others. The interconnected accounts pulled content from both liberal and conservative sources, an indication that its goal was not to support one side or the other but to exaggerate partisan divisions and further inflame ...

Meta Platforms' paid ad-free service targeted in Austrian privacy complaint

The ad-free service cost 9.99 euros ($10.90) monthly for Web users and 12.99 euros for iOS and Android users

Judge denies Meta's bid to push US FTC into court on privacy settlement

US District Judge Timothy Kelly in Washington ruled Monday that the federal court didn't have jurisdiction over the FTC settlement with the parent company of Facebook and Instagram

Meta knowingly designed platforms to hook kids, claims US court document

Facebook parent Meta Platforms deliberately engineered its social platforms to hook kids and knew but never disclosed that it had received millions of complaints about underage users on Instagram but only disabled a fraction of those accounts, according to a newly unsealed legal complaint described in reports from The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times. The complaint, originally made public in redacted form, was the opening salvo in a lawsuit filed in late October by the attorneys general of 33 states. According to the reports, Meta said in a statement that the complaint misrepresents its work over the past decade to make the online experience safe for teens and said it doesn't design its products to be addictive to younger users. Meta didn't immediately provide a comment on the unredacted complaint following a request from The Associated Press. Company documents cited in the complaint described several Meta officials acknowledging that the company designed its products t

Russia puts Facebook owner Meta's spokesman Andy Stone on a wanted list

Russia has added the spokesman of US technology company Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, to a wanted list, according to an online database maintained by the country's interior ministry. Russian state agency Tass and independent news outlet Mediazona first reported that Meta communications director Andy Stone was included on the list Sunday, weeks after Russian authorities in October classified Meta as a "terrorist and extremist" organisation, opening the way for possible criminal proceedings against Russian residents using its platforms. The interior ministry's database doesn't give details of the case against Stone, stating only that he is wanted on criminal charges. Meta didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. According to Mediazona, an independent news website that covers Russia's opposition and prison system, Stone was put on the wanted list in February 2022, but authorities made no related statements at the time and no news media reported on the matter unti

At Meta, millions of underage users were an 'open secret,' say states

the social media giant "routinely continued to collect" children's personal information, like their locations and email addresses, without parental permission

German soccer fed limits Facebook comments after racial slurs at players

The German soccer federation has had to limit comments on the Facebook page of its junior teams following a slew of racist and discriminatory comments against its Under-17 players. The federation posted a picture of four players from the Germany U17 team, all Black, celebrating Tuesday's 3-2 win over the United States in the round of 16 at the U17 World Cup in Indonesia. But the post was met by a torrent of racist comments from a host of Facebook users about the players Charles Herrmann, Almugera Kabar, Paris Brunner (all from Borussia Dortmund) and Fayssal Harchaoui (Cologne). The federation responded by switching off comments and posting a statement of its own. We're proud of the diversity in our Under-17s, who are currently playing their hearts out in Indonesia, the federation said. The commitment to diversity is firmly anchored in the federation's statutes as are the values of tolerance and respect. If you don't share these values, please unfollow us. Discriminatory and racis

Meta lets users download Reels from public accounts on Instagram; check how

This feature was made available in the US earlier this year, but has started to roll out globally starting November 23

I-T department discovers Rs 10,000 crore tax evasion by online retailers

Several companies have received I-T notices for either not paying their taxes properly or for underreporting their revenue

WhatsApp channels cross 500 million monthly active users mark: Zuckerberg

Recently launched as a feature on WhatsApp, channels allow users to get updates from people, organisations, and teams that they follow on the messaging platform

Threads let users delete profile without wiping out linked Instagram

Users have the option to either deactivate their profile temporarily or delete permanently

Instagram testing personalised options for responding to Notes: Details

The feature will let users react to Notes using audios, photos and more apart from text responses

Threads rolls-out option to disable suggestions on other platforms: Report

The feature was intended to drive engagement on Threads but has faced criticism from users as Threads posts kept popping up on other users' Instagram and Facebook feeds

All global tech giants follow a warning policy for state sponsored hacking

Opposition MPs have accused the government of spying on them, an allegation that has been denied though it has prompted the government to start an inquiry