meta – Page 3

Meta will release a new consumer grade VR headset next year • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 26, 2022Posted in Hardware, meta, Quest 2, Virtual realityNo Comments

A follow-up to the Quest 2, Meta is launching another consumer grade virtual reality headset next year. The company announced this during today’s Q3 earnings call, in which the company marked yet another $3 billion quarterly loss to its metaverse investments. But CFO David Wehner says that some of this continued cost can be explained via Meta’s continued investment in new hardware development, including another consumer-grade headset that will come out next year. Just weeks ago, Meta unveiled the Quest Pro, a $1,499 headset that is targeted toward power users, especially those who will use it to work. But existing headsets like the Quest 2 are aimed to immerse average people in the company’s dreams for the metaverse. Right now, the Quest 2 retails for $399, but this summer, Meta hiked the price by $100 to try to make up for lost costs. We don’t know much more about Meta’s new headset, aside from the fact that… it’s in the works! But in the lead up to the Quest Pro, previously referred to as “Project Cambria,” Meta dropped a whole lot of breadcrumbs to hype up the powerful headset, so it’s only a matter of time before we learn more. “There’s still a long road ahead to build the next computing platform. But we’re clearly doing leading work here. This is a massive undertaking and it’s often gonna take a few versions of each product before they become mainstream,” Zuckerberg said on today’s earnings call. “But I think that our work here is going to be of historic importance and create the foundation for an entirely new way that we will interact with each other and blend technology into our lives, as well as the foundation for the long term of our business.”

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

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 26, 2022Posted in competition regulation, Facebook, Instagram, meta, Privacy, privacy regulation, WhatsAppNo Comments

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

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 25, 2022Posted in Apps, Facebook, meta, WhatsAppNo Comments

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

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 23, 2022Posted in Facebook, india, Media & Entertainment, meta, SocialNo Comments

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

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 18, 2022Posted in Facebook, india, meta, SocialNo Comments

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)

Big Tech and industry lobby groups accused in EU transparency complaints • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 15, 2022Posted in Amazon, EU transparency register, Google, Government & Policy, lobbying complaints, metaNo Comments

Members of the European Parliament have lodged complaints against three tech giants, Amazon, Google and Meta, with the EU’s Transparency Register — aka, the oversight process that’s intended to track lobbying activity aimed at the bloc’s lawmakers — accusing the trio of breaching the lobbying transparency rules by using smaller front organizations to press their interests opaquely. The complaints, which were reported earlier by Politico and Bloomberg, also take aim at a series of tech industry associations and lobby groups — including a number whose names imply they represent the interests of startups and small businesses — that the MEPs allege have been involved in a Big Tech astroturfing operation targeted at two major pieces of EU digital regulation, the Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Digital Markets Act (DMA), per documents we’ve reviewed. Tech trade association the Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA), online ad industry body the IAB Europe, and SME and startup lobby groups Allied for Startups, SME Connect and the Connected Commerce Council (3C) are also named in the astroturfing complaints — which have been filed by three social-democrat lawmakers: Paul Tang, René Rapsi and Christel Schaldemose. The MEPs are calling for the accused tech giants’ access to the European Parliament to be revoked if their complaints are upheld. We understand nine complaints have been filed in total (two targeting Google). Deceiving lawmakers with fake lobby groups harms the democratic process. That’s why @SchaldemoseMEP @repasi and I tabled complaints triggering official investigations. If proven, access to parliament for involved Big Tech companies needs to be denied — Paul Tang (@paultang) October 14, 2022 While the DSA and the DMA have both now been adopted, the EU lawmakers remain concerned about the impact on future digital policymaking if non-transparent Big Tech policy influenceOps are not rooted out. The MEPs’ complaints follow a report back in April, compiled by civil society groups Corporate Europe Observatory and Global Witness using freedom of information requests, that revealed how a raft of tech giants sought to influence the two major EU digital policy files — spending big on pushing self-interested amendments to the (then) draft regulations. Some of this Big Tech lobbying activity included injecting detailed suggestions into late-stage closed-door policy discussions between EU institutions — presenting lawmakers with suggested wording for amendments aimed at watering down provisions that directly threaten their interests — such as in areas like tracking-based advertising. (In the event, the DSA and DMA were passed with some restrictions on tracking-based advertising, though not the outright ban a number of MEPs had been pushing for.) The complaints also cite a Medium post by Georg Riekeles — a Brussels-based director of the European Policy Centre think tank (which lists a few tech giants as members itself) and a former EU official himself — who warned this summer that: “As the EU debated the DSA and DMA package, front groups and other forms of hidden lobbying were swarming. I dare say never before had Brussels seen efforts at such a scale and with such brazenness. Many of practices deployed are not only totally out of line with the established code of conduct in interest representation but also with the most basic ethical and behavioural principles in society.” “As public scrutiny and research uncovered in the case of ‘Big Tobacco’, outsized vested interests create ecosystems of thought and influence to manipulate civil society and policymakers,” Riekeles’ blog post went on. “At this point, Big Tech’s interference strategies need to be systematically monitored, and actions taken to counter them. The EU’s capacity to act in defence of fundamental interests starts with the independence and transparency of EU institutions but requires also a wider societal ecosystem of tech control.” Systematic monitoring of Big Tech lobbying is exactly what the EU lacks, the MEPs’ complaints suggest, as transparency rules that are intended to spotlight corporate lobbying are being systematically circumvented by the use of a sprawling network of third parties funded by (or otherwise press-ganged into alignment with) well-resourced tech giants in order to project their interests by making their talking points resemble a grassroots lobbying campaign, rather than what is actually behind the effort: Gigantic self-interest. Such astroturfing tactics very obviously erode accountability and subvert democracy — enabling the corporate interests with the deepest pockets and greatest market power to build the most potent influence operations, by expanding the reach and interconnectedness of their third party networks through which they can channel and amplify their lobbying firepower while keeping their own brand name ‘clean’ at a safe distance. A couple of lobby campaigns cited in the complaints — one called ‘Targeting Startups‘ (which is now busy taking aim at a fresh EU digital policy proposal, the Data Act); and a second called the ‘Coalition for Digital Ads of SMEs‘, which ostensibly promoted small business interests in tracking-based advertising — are shown in one of the documents as not themselves registered in the EU transparency register but having a long list of backers/funders; some of which are in the transparency register (including some entities that list Big Tech entities as their members/backers), while others are not, so their funding sources are not declared. “You can only get an access badge for EU institutions [as a lobbyist] if you are registered [in the transparency register]. But as Google, Amazon and Meta are in the register they have agreed to abide by the codes of conduct. And the codes demand all registrees to not obstruct the register itself as well. So having another organization lobbying on their behalf is obstructing,” Tang told us, explaining how transparency concerns arise from this interlinked mesh of declared and non-declared interests lobbying EU policymakers. “What we are dealing with here is all kinds of branch organizations / national organizations / EU lobby organizations etc, that are actively promoting the narrative coming from Big Tech — and the only thing we know is that someone called the 3C contacts us and if we look them up in the transparency register they

Meta files to dismiss FTC complaint over acquisition of VR fitness company Within • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 13, 2022Posted in meta, Social, Virtual reality, WithinNo Comments

Meta submitted a request to dismiss the Federal Trade Commission’s complaint about its acquisition of Within. The Los Angeles virtual reality firm makes Supernatural, a rhythm game-turned-workout app that, in our humble opinion, is a legitimately excellent use of VR. It makes sense why Meta wants to absorb the company, but the FTC has raised concerns that it may be an anticompetitive acquisition. “Meta and [CEO Mark] Zuckerberg are planning to expand Meta’s virtual reality empire with this attempt to illegally acquire a dedicated fitness app that proves the value of virtual reality to users,” the agency wrote in July. Today, Meta filed a request in the Northern District of California court to move forward with the deal despite the FTC’s complaint. At first, the FTC argued that the acquisition would limit competition in the VR fitness market. The agency wrote, “Meta already participates in this broader market with its Beat Saber app, as does Within with its premium rival app Supernatural. The two companies currently spur each other to keep adding new features and attract more users, competitive rivalry that would be lost if this acquisition were allowed to proceed.” But the FTC filed a new complaint last week and removed these allegations. If we want to get technical about it, Beat Saber isn’t really a fitness app — some people just break a sweat because the game requires a lot of fast arm movement, but Beat Saber wasn’t built with exercise in mind. The games just draw comparison because they’re both rhythm games. In any case, Meta capitalized on the FTC’s less intense filing by arguing that the complaint shouldn’t stand in the way of the acquisition. If Meta were to acquire Within, then the FTC would have a much more difficult time forcing the merged companies to separate. “Having abandoned its claim that Meta and Within compete for fitness consumers, the FTC proceeds only on the claim that Meta and Within could compete, and that the fear of such competition drives Within and others to compete more strenuously,” Meta’s filing says. But the company’s lawyers argue that, per legal precedent, “perceived potential competition” hasn’t stood up in court as grounds for blocking a vertical merger. “The FTC alleges only that generalized fear of possible entry by Meta is a spur to competition,” the filing says. Meta has waged an enormous bet on virtual reality; in 2021, the company spent over $10 billion in its Reality Labs division, and it’s not seeing anywhere near that amount in revenue. At its developer conference this week, the company formerly known as Facebook unveiled its high-end VR headset, the Quest Pro, which retails for $1,499.99. Meta Motion to Dismiss by ZebethMedia

Meta partners with Microsoft to bring Teams, Windows apps and games to Quest devices • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 12, 2022Posted in Apps, Gaming, meta, Meta Connect 2022, Microsoft, Quest, Quest Pro, xboxNo Comments

Meta today announced a partnership with Microsoft to bring new content, including Windows apps and Teams tie-ins, to Meta’s metaverse hardware efforts. During Meta’s Connect conference this morning, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said that Microsoft Teams will integrate with Quest devices and that Microsoft will provide a way to stream Windows apps to Meta’s headsets. Nadella also revealed that Microsoft’s streaming game service, Xbox Cloud Gaming, will arrive on Quest devices sometime within the coming months. Image Credits: Meta “We’re bringing the Microsoft Teams immersive meeting experience to Meta Quest in order to give people new ways to connect with each other,” Nadella said, noting that custom avatars will eventually come to the experience. Horizon Workrooms, Meta’s VR space for collaboration, will connect with Teams, he added — allowing people to join a Teams meeting directly from Workrooms. “Now, you can connect, share and collaborate as though you are together in person,” Nadella added. On the Windows end, Nadella said that Microsoft 365 will come to Quest in a way that lets users interact with content from productivity apps like Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook. The Verge’s Tom Warren notes that these aren’t full-blown versions of apps designed for VR, importantly; They’re Progressive Web Apps, rather. “You [will] have a new way to securely stream the entire Windows experience, including all the personalized app content settings to your VR device with the full power [of Windows,]” Nadella said. “We’ve been thinking about how to bring the power of Microsoft 365 and Windows 365 to 3D spaces to really help drive productivity and enable you to create, communicate and collaborate in completely new ways.” Image Credits: Meta As for Xbox Cloud Gaming, on the Quest, it’ll stream games to a 2D VR screen, supporting existing Xbox controllers. But Nadella hinted that additional features might arrive down the line. Microsoft’s team-up with Meta comes as the former dials back its internal VR and AR hardware projects, including HoloLens. Windows Mixed Reality platform, Microsoft’s software foundation built into Windows 10 to support VR headsets, never quite took off in the way the company hoped. Early this year, Business Insider reported that Microsoft scrapped plans for the third generation of HoloLens in favor of partnering with Samsung on a new “mixed-reality” device. Microsoft pushed back on the HoloLens assertions. But then, one of the executives leading HoloLens’ development, Alex Kipman, resigned after allegations of misconduct including inappropriate sexual behavior, leaving the division in flux. That being said, Microsoft has shown a keen interest in investing in creating software for the metaverse — whatever form it might take. At its Ignite conference last year, the company announced Mesh for Teams, which combines the company’s Mesh platform for powering shared experiences in virtual reality, augmented reality and elsewhere with Teams and its built-in productivity tools.

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

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 12, 2022Posted in Facebook, india, Media & Entertainment, meta, SocialNo Comments

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

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 12, 2022Posted in Facebook, Gaming, meta, Meta Connect 2022No Comments

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.