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Meta is working on providing end-to-end encryption across all of its messaging apps. Since last year, the company has been testing end-to-end encryption for group chats, including voice and video calls. Mark Zuckerberg recently announced that all Messenger users will now be able to implement encryption in all group chats in the app.

 

This step towards improved security and privacy on Messenger is part of Meta’s broader plan of cross-communication among its messaging apps WhatsApp, Messenger and IG Direct. The inboxes in each app will be synchronized and the same data protections will be applied to each.

 

While Meta is ensuring better security with these updates, it is also a concern among people as the approach may be against law enforcement policies that are responsible for tracking potential criminal activity. Increased security in the form of encryption limits the capacity to track perpetrators of crimes, hence becoming a hinderance in investigative processes. Nevertheless, Meta persistently believes in providing more freedom to users in terms of choosing whom they share their data with and to what extent.

Meta’s Latest Security Initiative: End to End Encryption on Messenger Group Chats

Facebook announced its new name - Meta

On Thursday, at a Connect event of Facebook, the company’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced its new name i.e., “Meta”. On Twitter, Mark Zuckerberg owns a handle named @meta whereas, the website “meta.com” now redirects the users to Facebook’s Welcome page.

Facebook announced its new name - Meta

 


Facebook has announced a big plan, which is to change the company’s name by next week. The purpose behind doing so is to make Facebook known for more than just a social media company. CEO Mark Zuckerberg is expected to talk about the company’s new name at the annual Connect conference on October 28th, although it may be revealed sooner than that.

 

“We will effectively transition from people seeing us as primarily being a social media company to being a metaverse company,” Zuckerberg had previously mentioned.

Facebook to be Known by a New Name as Soon as Next Week

 


Facebook plans to launch a new test where it will take the focus away from political posts and updates about current events in Feeds and limit the amount of political content that people see in their News Feeds.

 

It has been reported that the Facebook will also de-emphasize certain engagement signals, such as the probability of a user sharing or commenting on a post, in its ranking algorithm. The company will instead place more emphasis on other types of user feedback, like responses to surveys about the content that they wish to see or not see in their Feeds.

 

The social media company’s plan is an extension of its previous experiment, with which it reduced the amount of political content in some user News Feeds. The experiment was done after receiving feedback from users which suggested concerns about the impacts of divisive political debates on the platform.

 

After collecting sufficient data, Facebook is now ready to work on putting up less political content in users’ News Feed. It is expanding the test to users in Costa Rica, Sweden, Spain and Ireland.

Facebook to Lessen Political Content in News Feed Through a New Experiment

 


Facebook had announced its plans of creating a version of Instagram exclusively for children under 13, and the social media company is now receiving a warning from an international coalition of children's health advocates to not pursue the plan.

 

An open letter was organized by the youth advocacy non-profit Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, in which several groups, individual advocates, and researchers called on Mark Zuckerberg to abandon the plan, saying that it would put young people at risk, hence doing more harm than good.

 

The letter also quotes researches, suggesting that excessive use of digital devices and social media is harmful to adolescents.

Mark Zuckerberg Pressurized to Ditch Plans of Launching Instagram’s Version for Kids

Facebook's user base grew incredibly over the years

One of the biggest social media websites, Facebook, was launched by a 19-year old student, Mark Zuckerberg, along with his classmates from Harvard University back on February 4th, 2004. Seventeen years ago, the website was called as “Thefacebook” and had one aim, i.e., to find your schoolmates and connect with them via the platform. The infographic below reveals how Facebook has grown over the years.

During the first year of launch, Thefacebook grew incredibly, was attracted by students of various other colleges, and by the end of 2004, the company was a family of 1 million users. The newly-found company also achieved a milestone of entering Silicon Valley. Moreover, the co-founder of PayPal, Peter Thiel, invested a massive amount of $500,000 into the company.

Facebook's user base grew incredibly over the years #infographic


Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg received a lot of criticism and controversy after he stated in 2008 that Facebook would not ban holocaust deniers from its platform. He later explained that such content would not be removed or blocked, but its distribution across the platform would be limited, so as to stop the spread of misinformation.  


Today, 12 years later, Zuckerberg seems to have changed his belief and stance on the matter as he has announced a revised policy regarding holocaust denial. According to the updated policy, Facebook will be completely removing such content from its platform now.  


Zuckerberg explained that his own thinking has evolved during this time as he has observed a rise in anti-Semitic violence, which has resulted in increased ignorance towards the Holocaust, especially among young adults.  


According to a survey recently conducted in the U.S., about a quarter of adults aged between 18-39 years said that the Holocaust was a myth or that it had been exaggerated, or they had no knowledge of the event.  


Zuckerberg's change in the policy was much needed, as Facebook is being constantly highlighted as a potentially damaging platform with respect to promoting the spread of incorrect, misleading, and violent content.  

Facebook’s Revised Policy for Holocaust Denial Content Supports Banning of the Content

Facebook brings College Campus to students for better use of social networking
Facebook decides to bring the college to those who are stuck in their homes and need a platform to stay connected with their fellows in this epidemic. The Facebook campus is the latest project launched by the Facebook app through which students can stay in touch with their college community and learn newer things from the individuals that share the same interests as them. Many colleges have been working on their precautionary measures round the clock to prepare themselves for the time when all institutions get permission to reopen.

To make sure that students do not lose any more time to the hands of COVID-19, Facebook brought a unique and extraordinarily extensive approach to the table for the college students that are stuck and do not know where to go. This college space is all set to provide a brilliant venture for the students who strictly belong to the college community where they can easily build connections with each other and even use chat rooms to communicate in either groups or clubs over certain subjects.

Facebook brings College Campus to students for better use of social networking

 


On Thursday, Mark Zuckerberg announced some additional steps that Facebook is taking to help secure the integrity of the U.S. elections. The steps include encouraging voting, directing people to authoritative information, and tackling post-election confusion, among a few others. Zuckerberg mentioned his concern about the potential challenges that people could face when voting. According to him, the steps taken by Facebook reflect what the company has learnt from the elections work over the past four years and the conversations it has had with voting rights experts and civil rights auditors. 


Firstly, Facebook will put authoritative information from its Voting Information Center at the top of both Facebook and Instagram almost every day until the election. The information will include video tutorials to guide people about voting by mail, and information on deadlines for registering and voting in different states. 


Zuckerberg further stated that Facebook won't accept new political ads in the week prior to the elections. ''I generally believe the best antidote to bad speech is more speech, but in the final days of an election there may not be enough time to contest new claims. So in the week before the election, we won't accept new political or issue ads.'', he wrote. 


According to Zuckerberg, Facebook has also worked on reducing the risk of misinformation and harmful content going viral by limiting forwarding on Messenger. While users will be able to share information regarding the elections, the number of chats that they forward a message to at a time will be limited. The company used the same strategy for WhatsApp as well and found it to be effective in terms of preventing the spreading of misinformation in a number of countries.


Moreover, Facebook will delete posts containing inaccurate information such as claiming that people who participate in voting will contract coronavirus. Facebook will also guide users to authoritative information by attaching a link about the coronavirus. The link will be attached to posts that discourage voting. 


With regard to post-election confusion, Facebook will label content that discusses inaccurate information about voting methods and election outcome, such as claiming that legal voting  methods will lead to fraud. The attached labels will contain authentic information in contrast to false information posted on the platform. 


Facebook is also expanding its violence and harm policies by including election officials in the definition of high-risk people in order to help prevent any attempts to harm or pressure them. 

Mark Zuckerberg Announces New Steps Taken by Facebook to Protect U.S. Elections


Facebook Jeopardizing Public Health
Facebook has been in the fire for a lot of reason. Recently it was deemed as a home and a safe haven for people who are racist and promote hate speech. In response, Facebook mobilized its algorithms to remove such posts and comments but the damage was done.

However, Facebook is in the crosshairs again and an activist group, Avaaz, has highlighted it. The extent of misinformation that is being spread around Facebook is completely absurd. The activist group also highlighted how Facebook has kept on failing to contain false rumors and potentially keeping people safe during the pandemic. There are a lot of anti-vaccine groups/communities, conspiracy theories, false cures, and a ton of more misinformation spread on the platform.

Facebook Jeopardizing Public Health #infographic

To restrict the spread of post-election misinformation, Facebook is planning to put an end to political advertising as revealed by a source who was in direct discussion with the company.


According to the anonymous source, Facebook has spoken to experts about potential election scenarios, including the possibility of Donald Trump using the platform to dispute election results. 


It was reported by the New York Times that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and some company executives had daily meetings to discuss ways to tackle election dispute caused by the platforms. They also considered the option of completely eliminating political ads since the November 3rd elections. 


Although Facebook hasn't provided details on the matter, spokesman Andy Stone mentioned in a statement that the company is considering ''a range of political advertising options during the closing period of the election.''. 

Facebook Considers Halting Political Ads to Curb Post-Election Misinformation


The Federal Trade Commission held an antitrust investigative hearing this week, as a part of  which, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg had to testify.


According to sources familiar with the case, the FTC isn't likely to pursue an antitrust lawsuit against Facebook. The testimony was conducted under oath over the course of two days and would ultimately help the FTC and state attorneys general build a case against Facebook. 


Earlier in July, Zuckerberg had testified before a House panel as part of an antitrust probe of the tech company and its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp. Original text messages shared between Zuckerberg and Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom, and between Systrom and a venture capitalist were read out loud, hence arising questions for Zuckerberg asking him if he threatened to copy rivals if they didn't agree to sell to the tech giant. In response, Zuckerberg denied claims of threatening Systrom. 

Mark Zuckerberg Testified as Part of FTC's Antitrust Probe

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