I have so much Meta news for you this week that I decided to house it all in a dedicated section, as to not flood the “Other e-commerce news of interest” section below. Here's what's new at Meta this week. SPOILER: Lots of lawsuits!
- Instagram is rolling out updates to its direct messaging service, including message translation (a feature Facebook Messenger has had since 2018), music stickers, and the ability to schedule messages. Additionally, group chats will be assigned a QR code that can be shared to invite other folks to join.
- Facebook announced that live videos will only be stored on the platform for 30 days, previously having been stored indefinitely. All the videos that are currently older than 30 days will be removed from the platform as well as part of the change, however, before the videos are deleted, users will receive a notification and be given 90 days to download their videos or convert the content into a reel.
- Meta is hosting its first-ever “LlamaCon” conference on April 29th, where it will share updates on open source AI developments to help developers create apps and products. The company also announced the dates of its annual Connect conference, which will be held this year on September 17th and 18th.
- Meta settled its Israeli privacy lawsuit for $338,000, which alleged that the company collected and used phone numbers provided for two-step verification for other purposes. The plaintiffs and Meta reached a settlement without Meta admitting the claims, and last week, the Central District Court approved the agreement. Wow, Meta got off cheap!
- Meanwhile in the US… Meta is urging a federal judge to throw out a lawsuit by two Facebook users who say they lost money after responding to fraudulent ads on the platform. The users claim in a class-action complaint that Meta violated its terms of service by failing to remove deceptive ads that were placed by outside companies. Meta countered by claiming that its TOS impose rules on users, but don't create “affirmative obligations” on the company.
- Meta has been hit with a new privacy lawsuit for allegedly collecting location data about Facebook users via tracking software embedded in thousands of mobile apps. California resident Lisa Tsering alleges in a class-action complaint that Facebook collects the data through a software development kit that “enables backdoor access to consumers' devices and opens a direct data collection pipeline” to the company, and that Meta is violating a California anti-hacking law by accessing consumers' mobile devices without their permission, as well as violating state restrictions on collecting metadata associated with electronic communications.
- Meta is cracking down on users buying and selling Instagram accounts and unauthorized account reinstatement services via two separate lawsuits, marking the first time the company has taken this type of legal action in the US. One suit alleges that a photographer named Daniel Folger sold Instagram usernames at prices ranging from $700 to $50,000, and cites documentation of content posted to his accounts, including a list of usernames for sale. A second suit is against Idriss Qibaa for allegedly selling unauthorized Instagram reinstatement services and fake engagement services intended to artificially inflate followers of Instagram users.
- Meta approved executive earning bonuses of up to 200% of their salaries after posting strong Q4 earnings, increasing its “target bonus percentage” for execs from 75% of their base salary to 200% of it. The bonus increase comes just one week after Meta laid off 5% of its workforce, or around 3,600 employees, for being “low performers” — in case you were wondering where the bonus money came from.
- Meta is setting up a new office in Bengaluru, India and currently hiring for 41 positions, primarily between software and machine learning engineer jobs, according to its careers webpage. The new center is part of Meta’s Enterprise Engineering team, which focuses on custom internal Meta tools, rather than Meta's public-facing products like Facebook and Instagram.
- Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg lobbied US senators on AI intelligence last week, seeking to earn a voice in any potential AI regulation, given that he's spending $65B on AI this year. Zuckerberg has previously pledged to work with Trump to “push back on governments going after American companies and pushing to censor more,” hoping for support from the White house as the company faces a regulatory crackdown in Europe.