Zebeth Media Solutions

Facebook

Meta hit with antitrust breach order in Turkey for combining user data across Fb, WhatsApp, Instagram • ZebethMedia

Meta won’t be quaking at the size of the penalty it’s just been handed by Turkey’s competition authority, which announced a 346.72 million lira sanction today. The circa $18.6M fine pales in comparison to a number of recent stings hitting it from European regulators. Such as the $267M fine for WhatsApp in the European Union just over a year ago — for transparency breaches of the bloc’s data protection framework; or the $70M spank a year ago from the UK’s competition authority after it said Meta failed to comply with information requests during scrutiny of its purchase of Giphy. It was subsequently ordered by the UK’s CMA to undo that acquisition too, so the whole sorry saga will likely cost it considerably more. Plenty more data protection complaints are still hanging over its head too, such as the one targeting its EU-US data flows that could see an order to suspend those transfers — and essentially shutter its service in Europe — in the coming months unless a looming replacement for the defunct Privacy Shield framework can be rushed into place first. Still, it’s the crux of the Turkish fine — that Meta holds a dominant position in social media and sought to obstruct competitors by combining data between separate services it operates — that’s likely to send a chill down the social networking giant’s spine because its business runs on people profiling. And that runs on its ability to obtain people’s data and flesh out detailed ad profiles. So any regulatory roadblocks that cut into its ability to conduct its unfettered surveillance of Internet users poses an existential threat to its core microtargeting ad model. The Turkish action is also of note because Germany’s competition regulator has had a similar concern for years. It started investigating Facebook’s ‘superprofiling’ all the way back in March 2016 — going on to confirm an abuse finding in a February 2019 order which concluded that the company’s trampling of user privacy amounted to “exploitative abuse” and a violation of its dominant position in social networking. Hence the German FCO ordered Facebook to stop combining data on users of different products. But Meta appealed and an enforcement battle over that earlier German data separation order continues. Its appeal was referred up to the bloc’s top court in March 2021 and is still pending a judgement (likely next year). But an opinion put out by influential advisor to the CJEU last month favored allowing antitrust authorities to consider data protection compatibility as part of their assessment of competition rules — which, if the court follows the AG’s view, would be bad news for Meta across the EU, as it would open the door to more competition watchdogs taking a non-siloed, ‘big picture’, comprehensive view of what it’s doing when assessing any antitrust concerns. There is therefore a growing sense that international regulators are — gradually, inexorably — closing in on Meta’s legacy of moving fast and breaking things (or, as appears a better description of its modus operandi, hoovering up in all the data and pooling it into a massive data lake far from the reach of any user control, per leaked internal documents). “By combining the data collected by [Meta] from Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp services… it causes the deterioration of competition by making it difficult for competitors with personal social networking services operating in online display advertising markets and creates barriers to entry to the market,” the Turkish competition authority wrote in a decision published today — following the culmination of an investigation — and explaining its decision to impose an administrative fine [the decision text is in Turkish; we’ve translated it here using machine translation]. The authority’s investigation kicked off last year after a controversial change to WhatsApp’s T&Cs caused a major privacy backlash around the world. And consumer protection regulators in Europe remain concerned about its T&Cs confusing consumers. So there could be more enforcements coming down the pipe on that front, too. (In addition to the massive GDPR ‘transparency’ fine mentioned above — and potentially more GDPR enforcements on a backlog of complaints still being chewed over by the tech giant’s lead data protection regulator in the EU.) The Turkish competition authority found unanimously that Meta holds a dominant position in the social media market and unanimously concluded its behavior amounted to a breach of local competition law. As well as being issued with a fine, the tech giant has been ordered to cease the violation — and establish “effective competition in the market” — with a deadline of one month provided for it to notify the authority of the steps it will take to do that; and a maximum of six months (from today’s decision) for implementing the measures, once approved. Meta has also been ordered to report back to the regulator on the measures it’s taking for a period of five years. The tech giant was contacted for comment on the Turkish authority’s sanction. A Meta spokesperson emailed this brief line — but did not confirm whether or not it will file an objection: “We disagree with the findings of the Turkish Competition Authority. We protect our users’ privacy and provide people with transparency and control over their data. We will consider all our options.” One thing is clear: Meta’s business is facing costly regulatory incursions on multiple fronts — which are threatening its ability to keep a grip on the world’s attention by ignoring privacy laws; threatening its ability to do that through the route of acquiring/assimilating other businesses to grab data that way (as well as threatening its ability to combine data across separate services it already owns); and threatening its ability to try to evade this legacy regulatory reckoning by skating its business to where it thinks the puck is headed (aka ‘the metaverse’) — by blocking its ability to use its market muscle to buy up VR startups that are seeing some nascent success (in what may, in any case, be overhyped vaporware). Add

WhatsApp appears to be facing an outage • ZebethMedia

WhatsApp, the Meta-owned instant messaging app with over 2 billion users, appears to be facing an outage, according to users. DownDetector and WaBetaInfo, two web services that track the Facebook service, have confirmed the outage. The outage began about half an hour ago, according to user complaints. DownDetector shows that users in the U.S. and India are mostly impacted by the outage. (More to follow)

India’s Wire retracts reports on Meta citing discrepancies • ZebethMedia

Wire has retracted its reports on Meta after discovering “certain discrepancies” in its news pieces, the Indian outlet said Sunday, marking what should be an end to the high-profile drama with the social juggernaut that captured the interest of newsrooms and tech companies globally for two weeks. The move follows Wire, a small but gutsy Indian news outlet, setting up an internal review process to evaluate its reporting earlier this week after Meta, the subject of the original story, and the independent sources it relied on vehemently denied the newsroom’s reports. “Our investigation, which is ongoing, does not as yet allow us to take a conclusive view about the authenticity and bona fides of the sources with whom a member of our reporting team says he has been in touch over an extended period of time,” Wire said in a statement. Wire reported earlier this month that Meta gave the governing party BJP’s top digital operative an unchecked ability to remove content from Instagram and ran a series of follow-ups, asserting Meta was insincere in its public denials of the reporting. In one of the stories, Wire cited what it claimed was an internal email from Meta comms Andy Stone. In another, it cited testimonies from independent security researchers vouching for the authenticity of Stone’s email to Wire. (Both Meta and security researchers have disputed the reports.) The Indian news organization said Sunday that “certain discrepancies have emerged in the material used.” “These include the inability of our investigators to authenticate both the email purportedly sent from a*****@fb.com as well as the email purportedly received from Ujjwal Kumar (an expert cited in the reporting as having endorsed one of the findings, but who has, in fact, categorically denied sending such an email). As a result, The Wire believes it is appropriate to retract the stories.” (More to follow)

Indian news outlet Wire to review reporting on Meta • ZebethMedia

Indian news outlet The Wire said on Tuesday it is setting up an internal review to assess the documents, information, source material and people it relied on for critical stories on Meta that claimed the social juggernaut gave governing party BJP’s top digital operative an unchecked ability to remove content from Instagram and a series of follow-up pieces in which it said Meta executives were misleading people. The statement on Tuesday follows one of the security researchers that the Wire portended to rely on – and supposedly cited an email by him to confirm the authenticity of a Meta executive’s email – saying a fake email was used to suggest he had participated. Devesh Kumar, one of the tech reporters of the Wire stories, deactivated his Twitter account earlier Tuesday amid mounting criticism. BIG: It has come to my attention that I’ve been listed as one of the “independent security researchers” who supposedly “verified” the Wire’s report on FB ‘Xcheck’ in India. I would like to confirm that I did NOT DO the DKIM verification for them. pic.twitter.com/5zbsJJNCFk — Ka7an (@Kani5hk) October 18, 2022 (More to follow)

Kanye West is buying ‘uncancelable’ social media platform Parler • ZebethMedia

Kanye West, the rapper who also goes by the name Ye, has reached an agreement to buy “uncancelable free speech platform” Parler, the two said in a statement Monday, in a move they said will help individuals express their conservative opinions freely. As part of the deal, financial terms of which were not disclosed, Parler has agreed to sell fully to West, but the social network will continue to receive technical support from Parlement Technologies, including access to its private cloud services and its data center infrastructure. The deal is expected to close in the ongoing quarter. West, who has accused Meta and Twitter of censoring him in recent weeks, said in a statement: “In a world where conservative opinions are considered to be controversial we have to make sure we have the right to freely express ourselves.” West, who also runs apparel and sports businesses, was locked out of his Instagram and Twitter accounts earlier this month for posting antisemitic messages. Parler, which is considered a haven for conservatives and has attracted fans of former President Donald Trump, made a return to the Google Play Store last month after it was pulled by Google following the Capital riots in January 2021 for its role in inciting violence. “The proposed acquisition will assure Parler a future role in creating an uncancelable ecosystem where all voices are welcome,” the company said in a statement. Parler, based in Nashville, was founded in 2018 by John Matze and Rebekah Mercer, the daughter of the billionaire hedge fund manager and Breitbart founder Robert Mercer. The company, which has sought to rail against censorship and presented itself as “free speech,” added a content moderation layer to the platform last year in bid to be restored by Apple’s App Store. Parler has amassed a little over 250,000 monthly active users on its iOS and Android apps, according to market intelligence platform Sensor Tower. (The data was shared to ZebethMedia by an industry executive.) In a survey of more than 10,000 people, Pew Research reported earlier this month that 38% had heard of Parler. Parlement Technologies chief executive George Farmer said in a statement: “This deal will change the world, and change the way the world thinks about free speech. Ye is making a groundbreaking move into the free speech media space and will never have to fear being removed from social media again. Once again, Ye proves that he is one step ahead of the legacy media narrative. Parlement will be honored to help him achieve his goals.”

Meta and news outlet’s spar deepens India’s trust deficit • ZebethMedia

Tech giants and news organizations sparring over news reporting isn’t new. Companies often complain to journalists about getting nuances wrong and usually air their dismay “off the record.” Journalists usually agree to include the rebuttals provided the companies can offer the same assertions on-record. The companies don’t follow through and the conversation typically ends there and the world never finds out about what is more often than not a very mundane thing. That’s one of the factors that makes Indian news outlet The Wire’s reporting this week on Instagram and Meta’s responses remarkable. Lawmakers and newsrooms in the U.S. and India are closely watching one of the strangest episodes of a newsroom and its subject publicly disputing — and doubling down on their claims. The Wire, an organization known best for holding the ruling party to account in a way that very few do, reported on Monday that Facebook has given governing party BJP’s top digital operative an unchecked ability to remove content from the platform. The report, which relies on what it claims are internal documents, appears to advance WSJ’s reporting of an internal company program called XCheck, where Facebook shields millions of VIP users from the company’s normal enforcement process. Meta insists that the XCheck program “has nothing to do with the ability to report posts” and has publicly called the documents “fabricated.” Andy Stone, Meta’s comms, tweeted: “The posts in question were surfaced for review by automated systems, not humans. And the underlying documentation appears to be fabricated.” The unexpected twist came on Tuesday, when Wire doubled down on its reporting, claiming to include a picture that appeared to show an alleged email Stone sent to internal teams where he is questioning members how the documents leaked. The picture also showed that Facebook maintains a watchlist of journalists. Wire’s response immediately went viral for several hours and most people believed it. In a way that separates it from most other companies, Facebook has earned a reputation where its denials are not really taken on face value. This is the reason why at least two major outlets in India have chosen not to acknowledge Wire’s story — nor Meta’s denials of those reporting, according to two people familiar with the matter. (Though in its credit, Facebook is suing the Indian government over right to users’ privacy.) The matter was considered closed, and it appeared that Facebook, which identifies India as its largest market by users, was trying to mislead again. But the drama’s lifespan has been extended as Meta has since doubled down on its denial, saying Meta’s Stone’s purported email in the story is “fake.” Guy Rosen, the chief security information officer at Meta, said: “The supposed email address from which it was sent isn’t even Stone’s current email address, and the ‘to’ address isn’t one we use here either. There is no such email. That same story makes reference to an internal journalist ‘watchlist.’ There is no such list.” Facebook, like many other companies, does maintain dossiers on journalists. I (Manish) know this because they accidentally sent me the link to one about five years ago. Meta also does maintain email addresses with the fb.com domain. (The generic press contact remains a fb.com email. Though that’s not proof that Stone still actively uses a fb.com email.) Wire is standing by its reporting. However, if Meta is proven right, tricking a reputable outlet into running an explosive story that could’ve been easily refuted by a big megacorp like Meta would damage press credibility across India at a time when the country’s media is increasingly grappling with a series of existential crises. Who would have the least to lose and most to gain here, especially if the goal was to undermine credibility in the press? These documents were triangulated with other elements of the story that we reported. Meta’s strategy is to try and push us in to a corner with its preposterous “fabrication” charge and force us to reveal information which may compromise our sources. This isn’t going to happen! 2/ — Siddharth (@svaradarajan) October 11, 2022

Meta announces legs • ZebethMedia

Meta didn’t hold back with their announcements at Meta Connect this year. As Facebook has done every year or so, the company is shaking up their avatar products. This year as Meta focuses more heavily on the metaverse, the company made a big addition to their updated higher-detail avatars: legs. The announcement that the avatars, which were previously floating torsos with arms and heads, now have evolved to walk was something Zuckerberg was very excited about with his avatar jumping for joy during the keynote. Alongside announcements around the appearance and movements of the new full body avatars, Meta also announced that there will soon be an avatar store where people will be able to spend real money to buy accessories for their Meta avatar. There was notably no mention of NFTs.

Brands are spamming WhatsApp users in India, Facebook’s largest market • ZebethMedia

As Meta makes deeper inroads with businesses on WhatsApp, its biggest bet to monetize the instant messaging app with over 2 billion users, we are getting an early glimpse at how user experience might change on the free app. It’s not great. Scores of people in India, WhatsApp’s largest market by users with over 500 million accounts, have complained about getting too many spam texts from businesses in recent months. WhatsApp, which quickly displaced the SMS app in the country by offering free texts, is increasingly looking like that SMS app, users say. Thousands of brands in India have signed up for WhatsApp, consistently succeeding in reaching eyeballs of more than 80% users, a person familiar with the matter said, a figure miles ahead of campaigns run on emails and traditional texts. What’s more annoying is that even after users have blocked some businesses, many return to the inbox from different phone numbers, according to author’s account. WhatsApp for business is fast becoming WhatsApp for spam. 🙄 Blocking a couple of accounts every day, these days. PR agencies are also now spamming on WhatsApp. pic.twitter.com/dvgbqx7cz8 — Nikhil Pahwa (@nixxin) September 15, 2022 WhatsApp is the new spam machine, it has become what it intended to solve with SMS. Ola / Uber services are no where close to what they were to replace… taxi / cabs. Every domain, brings up an opportunity to innovate every few years. — pj (@BeingPractical) June 27, 2022 In many ways, the issue doesn’t come as a surprise. Google offered businesses in India the ability to use RCS to supercharge their communication with customers in the country, the company’s biggest market by users. Rich Communication Services, or RCS, is the collective effort of a number of industry players to supercharge the traditional SMS with modern features such as richer texts and end-to-end encryption. The company had to halt the service in the country after some businesses started to abuse the company’s anti-spam policies to send promotional messages to users in India. Read more about WhatsApp’s rampant spam issue on Rest of the World. A Meta spokesperson offered the following comment: “Messaging is the new way to get business done, better than an e-mail or phone call. Our rule is that people always need to request to receive updates before a business can message them, and we empower people with easy ways to block a business or report a problem at any time. We constantly work with businesses to ensure messages are helpful and expected, and we have limits on the number of messages they can send per day. Getting this right is important for us as well as the businesses and most importantly the people we serve.” Updated, 10/10/22, 5:30 PM ET with Meta comment.

business and solar energy