Tag Archives: Facebook

Tech News : Meta Cuts 13% Of Its Workforce

Meta has announced that it is laying off a masive 13 per cent of its workforce globally in re-structuring market uncertainty about the Metaverse vision.

Losses Lead To Layoffs 

Meta’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, announced the 11,000-employee layoff from Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, after Reality Labs, the division building the metaverse, suffered £3.16bn losses between July and September this year (the largest loss the company has made). The previous quarter also showed disappointing results.

Expensive Re-Brand 

It should also be noted that Meta also spent around $15 billion last year on its re-brand which, coupled with the lack of growth and the losses may also have contributed to the need for re-structuring and layoffs.

Told By Email 

Mr Zuckerberg reportedly emailed staff about the layoffs, blaming his own over-optimistic view of post-pandemic demand for e-commerce. Employees were informed that the layoffs will mean:

– There will be reductions in every organisation across Meta’s Apps and Reality Labs and some teams will be affected more than others.

– Recruiting will be disproportionately affected because fewer people will be hired next year.

– The business is being restructured “more substantially.”

Thanks For The Impact

In the US, as well as being thanked for their “impact” on Meta’s business, those being laid-off were reportedly told in their emails that they would receive at least 16 weeks salary plus two weeks’ wages for each year served with company.

Remind You of Twitter? 

The big Meta layoffs are painfully similar to Twitter’s recent massive job cuts with 50 per cent of the company’s global workforce (7,500 people) being given their marching orders. Elsewhere in the big tech company world, Amazon, Alphabet and Apple are reported to have hiring freezes in place.

Ploughing On With The Metaverse 

Despite half a year’s poor financial results due to cash being shovelled into the slow-moving Metaverse vision, Mark Zuckerberg appears to be fully committed to it and ready to plough on. Also, despite little investor confidence betraying a lack of understanding of the Metaverse vision, some commentators have noted that society is moving more towards the virtual world every day. This could mean that Mark Zuckerberg is on the right track but may not be moving fast enough with it yet.

What Does This Mean For Your Business? 

Meta, like other big tech companies has faced challenges like a lack of growth and declining ad revenue since the pandemic, as well as stiff competition from the likes of TikTok. Meta, however, appears not to have been able to communicate to investors exactly what the Metaverse and its value is while at the same time appearing to plough a lot of money into a vision that is not delivering yet. This combination of the investors’ responses to a lack of certainty, tough times, plus outside competition have therefore led some people to speculate that big tech itself may be in trouble and this has prompted Meta’s need to shed jobs to steady nerves.

Security Stop-Press : Facebook Phishing Scam

Security company PIXM has warned of a Facebook scam, active since Q4 2021, which has ensnared nearly 10 million users. The credential harvesting scam uses a fake Facebook login page. When a user logs in, the threat actor gets their credentials and can then use an automated program to send out the link to the user’s Friends via Facebook Messenger. The advice is to take extra care with any messages received through Facebook Messenger.

Tech News : WhatsApp Rolls-Out Emojis and Sharing Of Files Over 2GB

Following last month’s announcement, Meta’s WhatsApp is rolling-out emojis and the ability to share files within WhatsApp up to 2GB in size.

Communities 

The new features are being added as part of WhatsApp’s “vision for Communities” where the idea is to “help people have the next best thing to an in-person conversation when they want to talk to an individual or a group of friends or family”. The Communities vision is also being introduced to cater for organisations like schools, local clubs, and non-profit organisations which may now rely on WhatsApp, and need to send updates to the entire Community, and easily organise smaller discussion groups within them.

Reactions 

On 5 May, Mark Zuckerberg posted on his Facebook/Meta wall that “Reactions on WhatsApp start rolling out today”. This refers to the announcement last month that WhatsApp beta version 22.9.0.71 would include reactions, group polls, and the ability to make communities with an increase in the size of files that can be shared to from 100MB to 2GB.

Reactions are six different emojis – a red heart, thumbs up, laughter, a sad face, a surprised face/wow, and a “thanks” emoji. WhatsApp has also said that it will add support for more emojis and skin tones in the future.

How To Use Reactions 

After users have updated their WhatsApp to beta version 22.9.0.71, to react to a message (with one of the emojis), users just need to tap and hold a chat bubble.

Particularly Useful In Group Chats 

The reactions feature may prove to be particularly useful in busy group chats by allowing a simple emoji response rather than always requiring a reply. As WhatsApp says, “they reduce overload in groups”. 

There is also speculation that it may soon be possible to use GIFs or stickers in the response options for users.

More People Being Added To Chats 

WhatsApp has also announced that, in response to requests from users, it is giving the option to add more people to a chat, and so is slowly rolling out the ability to add up to 512 people to a group.

Voice Messaging 

Back In April, WhatsApp also announced that it would soon be improving its voice messaging with new features like ‘Out of Chat Playback’, ‘Pause/Resume Recording’, ‘Waveform Visualization’, ‘Draft Preview’, ‘Remember Playback’ (if interrupted), and ‘Fast Playback on Forwarded Messages’.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?   

These reactions, increased file sharing size, and many of the other new features added to WhatsApp (and promised to be added soon) are all part of a big push by Facebook/Meta to stay at the top of the free encrypted messaging app market and compete with rivals like Snapchat. For example, in January, Snapchat announced a major update (for iOS) which included improved calling, ‘Chat Replies’, Bitmoji Reactions (to allow for more expression), and Poll Stickers to enable emoji-powered polls in Snaps and Stories to survey friends. Meta also wants to consolidate and leverage the power of its other popular apps by integrating and making Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram interoperable.

Communities is also about Meta capitalising on the fact that many non-profit organisations, as well as businesses now use WhatsApp, and that building in more engagement and loyalty among these valuable segments could also deliver competitive advantage and benefits. This follows attempts dating back to 2018 to woo small businesses (of which there is a large number) with WhatsApp Business followed by its testing of a multi-device capability to appeal to multi-device owning (business) users. The reactions announcement is, therefore, part of a ‘drip, drip’ approach of value adding features that Meta hopes will help WhatsApp compete with the likes of Snapchat and other chat apps used by individuals, businesses and organisations (such a Slack), and aspects of other collaborative work and communications platforms (Teams, Google Workspace, and Zoom).

Tech News : Trump Sues Social Media Platforms Channels For Censoring Him

Only 6 months after the storming of the United States Capitol in Washington and having his social media accounts suspended, former US resident Trump is suing Google, Twitter and Facebook, and their respective CEOs for allegedly censoring him.

Twitter Account Permanently Suspended

Trump’s presidency was characterised by his choice to constantly use Twitter as a means to bypass the mainstream media, who he often accused of spreading ‘fake news’. On January 8, Trump fell out of love with Twitter, and lost his chosen platform after Twitter imposed a permanent suspension of his account following 2 Tweets that, in the context of US events of the time, were found to be in violation of Twitter’s Glorification of Violence Policy.  The tweets were:

“The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future. They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape or form!!!”

and shortly after:

“To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th.”

Facebook

Trump was also suspended from all Facebook platforms following the 6 January US Capitol riot, and then his Facebook account was suspended until 7 January 2023, a period that could be extended if Facebook still believes there is a risk to public safety through reinstatement.

Google (YouTube)

Google and Alphabet Inc’s CEO Pichai Sundararajan (Sundar Pichai) fell out of favour with Donald Trump and now faces a lawsuit because Google’s YouTube video sharing platform indefinitely banned Trump back in in January.

Announced at News Conference

The news that Donald Trump had launched a class-action lawsuit against the 3 social media companies and their CEOs came at a news conference held at Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey last Wednesday. On the same day, Mr Trump’s Republican allies in Congress announced their intention to “take on Big Tech” and get rid of the Section 230 law that protects social media companies from being liable for the things that users post.  Following the news conference, which was also attended by those with links to not-for-profit America First Policy Institute, messages appealing for money were sent out, with one reportedly including a link to the fundraising entity ‘Save America’, which also raises money for other Republican political initiatives.

Criticism

News of the lawsuits has prompted criticism from a variety of legal commentators, some of whom have dismissed any chances of success for the actions, highlighted how Trump appears to have a habit of instigating litigation, and suggested that the lawsuits may be more of a PR exercise.

What Does This Mean For Your Business?

The views expressed in the press appear to indicate that the lawsuits have little chance of success and are, therefore, unlikely to trouble the CEOs of the 3 named big tech companies. It is well-known that Trump, his supporters, and other Republicans appear to believe that Silicon Valley is somehow working behind the scenes to censor and silence conservative and far-right messages.

Trump himself though is facing a number of criminal and civil lawsuits and investigations and just days ago, the Arizona Secretary of State called for a criminal investigation into alleged efforts by Trump, his lawyer Rudy Giuliani, and others to put pressure on Maricopa County supervisors following Trump losing Arizona in the presidential election. Also, the Trump Organisation and its finance chief have just been charged with tax-related crimes, which Mr Trump has, of course, dismissed as a “political witch hunt”.  It seems, therefore, that with all the trouble that Mr Trump appears to be facing, and with limited hope of success in his latest lawsuits against the tech giants, that not much will come of this, apart from some more publicity for Mr Trump, which may please some of his supporters.

Tech insight: What is happening about the huge Facebook data leak?

Facebook has recently informed over 530 million users that, in 2019, they were exposed to a data breach. The criticism that followed has prompted some to ask: what is happening? 

What data breach? 

The details of 530 million Facebook users were reportedly exposed on a hacker’s forum. The data breach included phone numbers, Facebook IDs, names, and birthdates. However, it did not include financial information, health information or passwords.  

Hackers were able to gain access due to a bug in Facebook’s contact importer code, according to the company. Most of the data reportedly came from US users, but 18 million records were from UK users. 

Who is to blame for it? 

Facebook appears to place the blame on the ‘malicious actors’. It said the story is old news and not about a recent hack of its systems. 

After the data breach in 2019, Facebook said it made changes to the contact importer to prevent similar incidents. 

Criticism after the data breach 

With the Cambridge Analytica data still casting a shadow over Facebook, the re-surfacing of this data breach has not helped. In addition, Facebook’s apparent attitude towards it has drawn a lot of criticism. 

Although Facebook sees this as old data, it may still be used by cybercriminals. If a phone number is connected to email addresses, it can be used to obtain SMS codes to sign in. 

It is unclear whether Facebook has notified all users whose data had been stolen. There is no simple way for these users to tell if they have been affected by the data breach. People do not often change their details, so they could still be at risk. 

The platform’s dismissal of the data breach as ‘old news’ sparked an apparent culture of impunity. It also raised questions about its attitude to its users’ data. 

Facebook has also faced questions on whether it should be doing more, under GDPR, to respond to European regulators. Also, there are calls for Social media companies to be more open and improve security measures. 

Other criticism includes allowing privacy and security issues to continue, because of Facebook’s market dominance.  

Have you been victim? 

It is not always clear to see if you have been victim to a data breach. However, users can check if their details have been taken on HaveIBeenPwned. 

What does the data breach mean for your business? 

The size of this breach has place Facebook under the spotlight again. Many people, particularly European regulators, are calling for greater accountability. It is another blow to user trust and could fuel action in Washington.  

For users, it’s a case of not really knowing if their data has been stolen and sold on. They will feel powerless in their relationship with the social media giant as regards to their data privacy security.  Many feel that more pressure from organisations and tougher action from regulators may be the only way to force changes. 

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