Page 28 - Facebook

Meta sells Giphy for $53mn to Shutterstock after UK blocked purchase

Shutterstock said Tuesday it's buying Giphy from Meta Platforms for $53 million, the final step to unwind the deal blocked by British regulators, who prevented the Facebook owner from purchasing the GIF-sharing platform over competition concerns. The stock image service said it's paying cash for Giphy, which has 1.7 billion daily users and partners including Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, TikTok and Twitter. Shutterstock said it signed a deal to give Meta continued access to New York-based Giphy's content across Meta's platforms. In a statement, CEO Paul Hennessy said the acquisition will help Shutterstock expand its audience reach beyond primarily professional marketing and advertising use cases and into casual conversations. The transaction, set to close in next month, could potentially leave Meta with a big loss. Meta purchased Giphy in 2020, in a deal reportedly worth $400 million. Britain's Competition and Markets Authority opened an antitrust investigation over concerns it

Meta sells Giphy to Shutterstock to comply with UK regulator order

The company said Giphy would add minimal revenue this year and it would launch efforts to increase revenue from 2024

Meta hit with record $1.3-billion fine in EU over US data transfers

Meta given six months to stop 'the unlawful processing, including storage, in the US' of transferred personal EU data

Meta fined 1.2 bn euros for breaching European Union's privacy laws

The tech giant has also been ordered to stop transferring data collected from Facebook users in Europe to the United States of America

Meta India executive Manish Chopra resigns, 4th major exit in 6 months

Meta's director and head of partnerships in India Manish Chopra has quit the company. He joined the social media giant in January 2019. Chopra took to LinkedIn to announce his departure. However, he will help in the transition over the next few weeks. "The recent months have been trying times for everyone in so many ways. I know this team has shown so much care and has helped each other selflessly...I am now looking forward to a new phase in my professional life. I will share more in due course," he wrote. Chopra's departure comes at a time when Meta is seeking significant churn in India. In November last year, Meta's India head Ajit Mohan quit the company to join rival Snap. Chopra served as the company's interim head till Sandhya Devanathan took over as Meta's India head on January 1 this year. Within days of Mohan's exit, Abhijit Bose, who was Head of India, WhatsApp, also stepped down after a stint of nearly four years. And so did Rajiv Aggarwal, who was Meta India's Director

Meta India partnership head Manish Chopra resigns; fourth exit in a year

Manish Chopra's exit from Meta comes at a time when the tech giant is seeing tremendous churn at the top in India

Meta starts 'members-only worlds' beta test in VR platform Horizon Worlds

Meta (formerly Facebook) has announced that it started an expanded beta test of 'members-only worlds' -- in its social virtual reality (VR) platform 'Horizon Worlds'

WhatsApp tests 'edit button' for sent messages in beta: Here's how it works

It appears that there will be no upper limit on how many times a message can be edited. However, the option to edit a message may not be available after 15 minutes of a message being sent

Meta patches Facebook bug that sent unwanted friend requests to users

According to some users, Facebook sent a request to a person they were attempting to block, the report mentioned

Meta's 'AI Sandbox' to create advertisements, predict performance

Meta, which runs Facebook and Instagram, also introduced a new AI-based model that can help businesses predict the performance of ads using a bigger data set than previously

Fake verified Facebook pages luring users into clicking malicious links

Hacked verified accounts on Facebook are now impersonating Meta, purchasing ads on the social network and allegedly luring users into clicking suspicious download links.

Facebook blocks more than 10 fake ChatGPT apps trying to frame users

Once a user downloads the malicious software, the attackers can keep developing new strategies to get around security measures

Meta warns against ChatGPT imposters luring users to download harmful apps

Meta (formerly Facebook) has said that it had discovered malware creators who are taking advantage of the public's interest in ChatGPT and using this interest to entice users into downloading harmful

Meta to let users customise reels content feed to show relevant content

Meta has introduced new personalisation controls for Facebook reels, which will let users customise what they want to see more or less of, so the videos they see are more relevant to them

Social media giant Meta aims to raise $7 bn through corporate bond sale

The social-media behemoth, which reported earnings last week, is looking to raise $7 billion in a five-part deal, according to a person familiar with the matter

Mark Zuckerberg learns sewing; Starts designing, 3D printing dresses

Tech tycoon Eva Chen commented on Mark's post, "Met Gala ready!!!" Some of the followers wanted to know what kind of printer Mark is using to make such print

Facebook, Instagram to soon mandate checkout experience on Shops

Meta (formerly Facebook) has announced that it will be phasing out the onboarding of new Shops without checkout on Facebook and Instagram enabled

Meta gears up for fine and ban in clash over EU-US data transfers

The Irish Data Protection Commission, the main EU privacy watchdog in charge of Meta's Facebook, will announce the decision next month, the company said in its quarterly report

Facebook parent Meta posts solid Q1 results, revenue up 3%; stock soars

Facebook parent company Meta's first-quarter results surpassed Wall Street's modest expectations on both profit and revenue, sending its stock soaring in after-hours trading. Meta also reported that the monthly user base of its flagship platform Facebook inched close to 3 billion. Meta Platforms Inc. said Wednesday it earned $5.71 billion, or $2.20 per share, in the January-March period. That's down 19% from $7.47 billion, or $2.72 per share, a year earlier. Revenue climbed 3% to $28.65 billion from $27.91 billion. Analysts, on average, were expecting earnings of $2.02 per share on revenue of $27.67 billion, according to a poll by FactSet. Meta said it has substantially completed layoffs it first announced in 2022. It announced a second round of layoffs in March. Shares of the Menlo Park, California-based company rose $18.97, or 9.1%, to $228.37 in after-hours trading.

WhatsApp is now getting a feature Telegram has had for long. Details here

Telegram's 'Channels' feature has made it a useful tool for various individuals or organisations, and now Meta-owned WhatsApp is going to emulate it