Australia’s consumer watchdog is taking Meta to court, alleging the company “aided and abetted” celebrity scam ads on Facebook that have cost some Australians hundreds of thousands of dollars.The ads, which include the promotion of investment in cryptocurrency, have plagued the platform since 2020. Each ad depicts an image of a prominent Australian such as…
As the war in Ukraine rages on, Russia is ramping up one of its most powerful weapons: disinformation. Social media companies are scrambling to respond.False claims about the invasion have been spread by users in Russia as well as official state media accounts. Russia frequently frames itself as an innocent victim and has pushed disinformation…
Facebook and Instagram users are not allowed to call for the death of Vladimir Putin, according to an update issued by their parent company.Meta had issued new guidance on Friday allowing content that condoned the harm of Russian soldiers, with media reporting at the time that it also permitted content urging violence against the Russian…
Russia has moved to block Instagram after its parent company, Meta, said it would allow calls for violence against Vladimir Putin and Russian soldiers involved in the invasion of Ukraine to appear on the social media platform.Russian prosecutors demanded that access to Instagram be blocked on Friday after media reports of the relaxation of its…
On Wednesday, my therapist set me a task: to record every time I logged on to Twitter, what I posted, and how I felt in the process. This embarrassing piece of homework was in response to an impassioned rant I’d embarked on, during our session. “Everyone just keeps trumpeting their opinions like they know anything,”…
In the days after Vladimir Putin’s invasion of his country, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, used his Telegram channel to send a defiant video message from the centre of the capital, Kyiv, calling on the nation to unite and resist the Russian attack.The WhatsApp-like messaging service, co-founded by exiled Russian billionaire brothers Pavel and Nikolai Durov,…
Last month, Facebook – now renamed Meta – CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the promotion of Nick Clegg, the former UK deputy prime minister, to lead Meta on all policy and public relations matters globally.What will Clegg do with his new position? If history is any guide, he’s likely to continue to be one of Facebook’s…
Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest has ridiculed the idea that by signing up to a Facebook account he signed away his rights.After years of attacking Facebook’s refusal to remove scam ads featuring his face, Forrest launched civil proceedings against the social media behemoth in California.He alleges the company’s failure to stop cryptocurrency-related scam ads were “negligent” and…
I’ve been praying for Facebook’s collapse ever since it attained liftoff. In a 2007 article, I predicted that “your creepy ex-co-workers will kill Facebook” by demanding to know why you won’t “friend” them, prompting an exodus to the next platform. That was the social network cycle back then: a new network opens, and you and…
When the former British deputy prime minister Nick Clegg joined Facebook in 2018, the company was immersed in a number of scandals. Cambridge Analytica had been harvesting personal data from Facebook profiles. UN human rights experts said the platform had played a role in facilitating the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya in Myanmar. Its policies…
A year ago this morning Australians woke to discover the company formerly known as Facebook had unfriended them, a globally significant strike on democratically elected lawmakers attempting to regulate in the public interest.For catch-up viewers Facebook removed all news content, along with a trove of pages from civil society and government, including a domestic violence…
It would hardly be hyperbole to say that since its founding in 2004, Facebook has taken over the world – counting more than 50% of the global population as its user base. But after years of domination built on advertising revenue, the company has nearly overnight tried to knock down that empire and build anew.In…