A UK charity is urging Facebook to disclose its internal research on child abuse incidents, after it discovered that police in the UK recorded 5,120 child grooming crimes on Facebook-owned apps since 2017. According to the research, which was published by children’s charity the NSPCC on Monday, 53% of all online grooming crimes took place …
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Facebook plans to break out its VR, AR business
Facebook didn’t get a new name as widely expected, but the social network did unveil a new reporting structure. On Monday, the social media giant said it would begin reporting results as two businesses: its core family of social networking apps and its Facebook Reality Labs, which houses its augmented and virtual reality efforts. Under the new structure, which will …
Read More »Facebook disputes report that its AI has barely reduced hate speech
Facebook on Sunday responded to a news report that its artificial intelligence program has had little effect at curbing and removing violent content from the social network. The Wall Street Journal cited internal documents from 2019 in its reporting that the social network’s engineers estimated the company’s algorithms remove only a small fraction of problematic content that violate rules. “The problem …
Read More »Facebook reportedly limiting access to some internal message boards
Facebook is reportedly trying to reduce insider leaks by making some of its internal online discussion groups private instead of public. Facebook told employees on Tuesday that it’s limiting who can view and participate in some “Integrity” groups focused on platform safety and protecting elections, The New York Times reported Wednesday. The move comes after Frances Haugen, a former Facebook …
Read More »Facebook execs including Zuckerberg show off prototype VR headsets ahead of developer conference
A year after Facebook released its Oculus Quest 2 VR headset, and weeks before Facebook’s VR and AR-focused Connect conference, CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook CTO-to-be Andrew Bosworth showed off prototype VR headsets on social media. Whether these are anything related to products to come remains to be seen. I spent the day with the Facebook Reality Labs research team in …
Read More »Facebook, WhatsApp outage shows danger of relying on one company for messaging
Facebook’s worldwide outage this week of its key services, including Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, was annoying for some — and a cause for celebration for others — but it represented a breakdown in a critical line of communication. WhatsApp, with more than 2 billion users on its service, serves as a primary form of communication, especially for family and friends …
Read More »Facebook is ‘bullish’ about bringing more people online despite scrutiny
A day after Facebook experienced a massive outage, the social network’s executives and engineers gathered via video to chat about the company’s efforts to bring more people online. The impact of the six-hour outage wasn’t lost on Facebook Chief Technology Officer Mike Schroepfer. People couldn’t message their family and friends and businesses couldn’t promote their products. “It is a good …
Read More »Mark Zuckerberg rejects profits claim, slams ‘false picture’ of Facebook
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Tuesday broke his silence about a scandal plaguing the company in an email to employees, complaining of the “false picture” being painted of the social networking giant. The email, which was also posted to Zuckerberg’s Facebook account, follows a congressional hearing about Facebook’s effects on users. “I’m sure many of you have found the recent …
Read More »Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram coming back online after widespread outage
Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram are starting to come back online after a widespread outage lasted more than six hours on Monday, disrupting communications for the company’s roughly 3 billion users. “To the huge community of people and businesses around the world who depend on us: we’re sorry. We’ve been working hard to restore access to our apps and services and are happy to …
Read More »Facebook’s massive outage costs the company an estimated $60 million in revenue
Facebook’s massive outage is reportedly putting a big dent in the social network’s pocket. Fortune and Snopes estimate that the world’s largest social network has already lost at least $60 million in revenue since its apps, including Instagram and WhatsApp, went offline at about 8:30 a.m. PT/11:30 a.m. ET on Monday. Both outlets estimated the revenue loss for Facebook as …
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