The Australian government plans to introduce a levy on social media companies and search engines to force them to pay for journalism after Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, walked away from an existing arrangement, Financial Times reported.

In the proposed amendments to current regulations, any social media platform or search engine that derives more than $250mn in revenues a year from Australia would be subject to a “charge”. That levy would be offset against any payments made directly by tech companies to publishers. The move is intended to encourage them to negotiate with the media industry over commercial deals.

It is the latest move by Canberra to tackle the tech sector’s power after introducing a law last month that would ban anyone under 16 from using social media services. It also took X to court this year in an attempt to block violent videos being carried on its platform and has proposed laws on online scams and misinformation in the past year.

Meta and Google struck deals in 2021 to pay Australian media companies, including News Corp, Nine Entertainment’s newspaper arm Fairfax and a host of smaller media companies, more than A$200mn (US $128mn) a year for use of their content. That followed the introduction of the world-first legislation to force tech companies to negotiate with publishers.

Meta said this year it would stop paying media companies as part of a retreat from news feeds globally. That triggered a furious reaction from the Australian government, which pledged to force the company back to the negotiating table and close “loopholes” in the law.

BBC reported Australia’s government says it will create new rules to force big tech companies to pay local publishers for news.

The long-awaited decision sets out a successor to a world-first law that Australia passed in 2021, which was designed to make giants like Meta and Google pay for hosting news on their platforms.

Earlier this year Meta — which owns Facebook and Instagram — announced it would not renew payment deals it had in place with Australian news organizations, setting up a standoff with lawmakers.

The new rules, announced on Thursday, will require firms that earn more than A$250m ($160m; £125m) in annual revenue to enter into commercial deals with media organizations, or risk being hit with higher taxes.

The design of the scheme is yet to be finalized but will apply to sites such as Facebook, Google, and TikTok.

Reuters reported Australia’s centre-left government said on Thursday that it planned new rules that would charge big tech firms millions of dollars if they did not pay Australian media companies for news hosted on their platforms.

The move piles pressure on global tech giants such as Facebook-owner Meta Platforms and Alphabet’s Google to pay publishers for content or face the risk of paying million to continue operations in Australia.

“The news bargaining initiative will … will create a financial incentive for agreement-making between digital platforms and news media businesses in Australia.” Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services Stephen Jones told in a press conference.

In my opinion, Meta Platforms and Alphabet’s Google should pay the ‘News Tax”. Doing so could make this entire situation be so much easier.

Two weeks before the U.S. presidential election, the Oversight Board says it has “serious concerns” about Meta’s content moderation systems in “electoral contexts,” and that the company risks the “excessive removal of political speech” when it over-enforces its rules. The admonishment came as the board weighed in on a case involving a satirical image of Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, Engadget reported.

Meta originally removed the post, shared on Facebook in August, that showed an edited version of a movie poster from Dumb and Dumber. The original 1994 movie poster shows the two main characters grabbing each other’s nipples through their shirts. In the altered version, the actor’s faces were replaced by Harris and Walz.

According to the Oversight Board, Meta cited its bullying and harassment rules, which includes a provision barring “derogatory sexualized photoshops or drawings.” The social network later restored the post after it drew attention from the Oversight Board, and the company acknowledged the satirical image didn’t break its rules because it didn’t depict sexual activity.

The Oversight Board posted the following:

In August 2024, a Facebook user posted an altered picture on the poster for the 1994 comedy film “Dumb and Dumber.” In the altered image, the faces of the actors are replaced with the U.S. presidential candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris, and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. 

As in the original poster, the two figures are grabbing each other’s nipples through their clothing. The content was posted with a caption that included the emoji 🤷‍♂️🖕🖕. Meta initially removed the user’s post from Facebook under its Bullying and Harassment Community Standard, which prohibits “derogatory sexualized photoshop or drawings.”

After the user appealed Meta’s decision to remove their content to the Board, the Board brought this case to the company’s attention. Meta then determined its removal was incorrect, restoring the post to Facebook.

The Washington Times reported Meta’s Oversight Board rebuked the tech giant Wednesday after the company removed a satirical post depicting Vice President Kamala Harris and Tim Walz as the duo from the film “Dumb and Dumber.”

The Oversight Board, which operates independently from Meta, ruled that the company acted rashly by removing the post writing that it was obviously a political parody.

“This post is nothing more than a commonplace satirical image of prominent politicians and is instantly recognizable as such,” the board ruled.

Meta’s justification for taking down the post was that it violated the platform’s rule against derogatory sexualized photoshops. The rule is intended to target deep-fake pornography of non consenting parties. Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, restored the image once it was informed that the Oversight board would investigate the incident.

In my opinion, this satirical image of Vice President Kamala Harris and Tim Walz was created by someone who clearly didn’t like either one of them. The movie “Dumb and Dumber” was released in 1994, which indicates the age of the person who posted this on Facebook.

Meta has begun laying off employees across various departments, including WhatsApp, Instagram, and Reality Labs, according to people familiar with the matter. Rather than a mass, companywide layoff, these smaller cuts seem to coincide with reorganizations of specific teams, The Verge reported.

Some Meta employees have started posting that they’ve been laid off. Among them is Jan Manchun Wong, who gained notoriety for reporting on unannounced features coming to apps before joining the Threads team in 2023.

“Today, a few teams at Meta are making changes to ensure resources are aligned with their long-term strategic goals and location strategy, company spokesperson Dave Arnold said in a statement shared with The Verge. “This includes moving some teams to different locations and moving some employees to different roles. In situations like this when a role is eliminated, we work hard to find other opportunities for impacted employees.”

The Guardian reported Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, has reportedly fired about 24 staff at its Los Angeles offices for using their $25 (£19) meal credits to buy items such as toothpaste, laundry detergent, and wine glasses.

The tech firm, which is worth £1.2tn and also owns the messaging platform WhatsApp, is said to have dismissed workers last week after an investigation discovered staff had been abusing the system, including sending food home when they were not in the office.

That included one unnamed worker on a $400,000 salary, who said they had used their meal credits to buy household goods and groceries such as toothpaste and tea.

The worker admitted the breach when approached as part of a human resources investigation into the practice and was later fired. “It was almost surreal that this was happening,” the person wrote, according to the Financial Times, which first reported the story.

Some employees were also found to have spent the credits on other household items, such as acne pads. Employees who had only occasionally broken the rules were reprimanded, but were able to keep their jobs, the newspaper reported.

Free food has long been one of the perks for working for large tech companies.

CNN reported Meta fired around two dozen employees from its Los Angeles office for misusing company meal credits for things like laundry detergent, wine glasses, and acne treatment pads, a source familiar with the company confirmed to CNN.

Many of the social media giant’s corporate offices feature elaborate food services to provide employees with meals as a perk. Meta’s two-year-old office near New York City’s Penn Station, for example, features a cafeteria that feels like an upscale food court, with various stalls all free for staff.

But for employees at smaller offices without food services, the company provides meal vouchers — $20 for breakfast and $25 each for lunch and dinner — so they can have food delivered to the office while on the job.

The meal vouchers are meant for employees to eat while working at the office — sometimes long hours stretching across several meals of the day, notorious in the tech world.

In my opinion, it’s great that a company as large as Meta is offering food vouchers for its workers. Clearly, Meta is not thrilled about workers using the vouchers to buy household items, and is laying people off for doing so. 

Meta has confirmed that its restarting efforts to train its AI systems using public Facebook and Instagram posts from its U.K. userbase, TechCrunch reported.

The company claims it has “incorporated regulatory feedback” into a revised “opt-out” approach to ensure that it’s “even more transparent,” as its blog post spins it. It is also seeking to paint the move as enabling its generative A! Models to “reflect British culture, history, and idiom.” But its less clear what exactly is different about its latest data grab.

From next week, Meta said U.K. users will start to see in-app notifications explaining what it’s doing. The company then plans to start using public content to train its AI in the coming months — or at least do training data where a user has not actively objected via the process Meta provides.

Meta posted: Building AI Technology for the UK in a Responsible And Transparent Way

We will begin training for AI at Meta using public content shared by adults on Facebook and Instagram in the UK over the coming months. This means that our generative AI models will reflect British culture, history, and idiom, and that UK companies and institutions will be able to utilize the latest technology. We’re building AI at Meta to reflect the diverse communities around the world and we look forward to launching it in more countries and languages later this year.

Since we paused our generative AI models in the UK to address regulatory feedback, we’ve engaged positively with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) and welcome the constructive approach that the ICO has taken throughout these discussions. This clarity and certainty will help us bring AI at Meta products to the UK much sooner. We welcome the ICO’s guidance supporting Meta’s implementation of the legal basis of ‘Legitimate Interests’, which can be a valid legal basis for using certain first party data to train generative AI models for our AI at Meta features and experiences….

The Information Commissioner’s Office posted the following:

Stephen Almond, Executive Director Regulatory Risk at the ICO, says:

“In June, Meta paused its plans to use Facebook and Instagram user data to train generative AI in response to a request from the ICO. It has since made changes to its approach, including making it simpler for users to object to the processing and providing them with a longer window to do so. Meta has now taken the decision to resume its plans and we will monitor the situation as Meta moves to inform UK users and commerce processing in the coming weeks.

We have been clear that any organization using its users’ information to train generative AI models needs to be transparent about how people’s data is being used. Organizations should put effective safeguards in place before they start using personal data for model training, including providing a clear and simple route for users to object to the processing. The ICO has not provided regulatory approval for the processing and it is for Meta to ensure and demonstrate ongoing compliance.”

In my opinion, it seems clear that Meta is not really giving people in the UK the opportunity to “opt-out” of having their data stolen by Meta. I wonder how many will stop using Facebook and Instagram as a result.

Creators are unhappy with Meta’s decision on Tuesday to shut down its Spark platform, which allowed third parties to build augmented reality (AR) effects, TechCrunch reported.

In posts published to the Meta Spark Community on Facebook, creators are posting about their disappointment in Meta’s decision, noting that for some them, the move will put them out of work – and they only learned this from a Facebook post this morning. Others seem confused or angry about the plan to close Spark and are demanding to know the reasoning behind the company’s move.

First launched in 2017, Meta Spark debuted when augmented reality experiences were still relatively novel and new to many consumers. Since then, the AR effect have been used “billions of times” by “hundreds of millions of Meta users,” the company said in the announcement. The sizable traction had made Meta Spark one of the largest AR platforms at the time.

Meta Spark posted the following:

Following a thorough assessment, we have made the decision to shut down Meta Spark’s platform of third party tools and content, effective Tuesday, January 14, 2025.

This means that the Augmented Reality (AR) effects built by third parties — including brands and our wider community of AR Creators — will no longer be available beginning on this date. AR Effects owned by Meta will continue to be available to our users across our Family of Apps.

We are deeply grateful to the community of creators, businesses, and other key stakeholders who have been part of the Meta Spark journey. When we first launched this platform seven years ago, experiences infused with augmented reality were new to most consumers. Since then, the imagination, innovation, and creativity of our AR creator community has helped extend the reach of AR to hundreds of millions of people across Meta’s platforms.

…Those who use Spark and our third-party AR Effects can continue to use these tools across our Family of Apps until January 14, 2025. 

Reuters reported Meta Platforms will shut down the augmented reality studio that third-party creators used for making custom Instagram and Facebook effects the social media giant said on Tuesday, as it prioritizes spending in other areas including AI.

The feature, Meta Spark, will be shuttered on Jan. 14 and third-party AR effects including computer-generated filters, masks and 3D objects created on the studio will be removed.

The social media company said its first AR effects will remain available on products including Facebook, Instagram and Messenger.

In my opinion, Meta should have given warning to the creators using Meta Spark before dropping it in a blog post. It is unfair to suddenly pull the rug out from under creators who will shortly be out of work. 

Meta’s ambitious plans to develop the metaverse is still costing the company billions of dollars a quarter, CNBC reported. 

As part of the company’s second-quarter earnings report on Wednesday, Meta’s Reality Labs unit, which houses augmented and virtual reality technologies, recorded an operating loss of $4.55 billion. Analysts polled by StreetAccount were expecting a lost of $4.55 billion.

Since late 2020, the Reality Labs unit has generated cumulative losses of about $50 billion, underscoring CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s massive investments into the hardware and software that underpins what he says will be the next era of personal computing.

Revenue in Reality Labs, largely derived from the company’s Quest family of VR headsets and Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses, came in at $353 million, representing growth of 28% from $276 million a year earlier. Analysts were expecting the unit to bring in $371 million in sales.

Variety reported Meta’s social-media empire keeps minting digital-ad dollars — while its metaverse and AR/VR business continues to rack up bigger losses.

The company, which operates apps including Facebook, Instagram, and What’sApp, reported top-line revenue of $39.07 billion (virtually all of it from advertising), up 22% year over year. Net income was $13.47 billion, or $5.16 per share. Wall Street on average expected revenue of $38.31 billion and EPS of $4.73, according to financial data provider LSEG.

“We had a strong quarter, and Meta AI is on track to be the most used AI assistant in the world by the end of the year,” Meta co-founder, CEO and chairman Mark Zuckerberg said in announcing the earnings. He added, “We’ve released the first frontier-level open source AI model, we continue to see good traction with our Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses, and we’re driving good growth across our apps.”

Meanwhile, Meta’s Reality Lab segment — which houses the Quest AR/VR headset and metaverse initiative — posted a higher loss for Q2, as Zuckerberg’s passion project continues to crash and burn up cash.  The unit had quarterly sales of $353 million (up 28%) and an operating loss of $4.49 billion (versus a loss of $3.74 billion a year earlier). 

Reality Labs has now lost an aggregate of $59.5 billion since the start of 2019. The company has said that in 2024, it expects Reality Labs operating losses to “increase meaningfully” year-over-year “due to our ongoing product development efforts in augmented reality/virtual reality and our investments to further scale our system.”

The Hollywood Reporter wrote: Meta handily beat Wall Street estimates in Q2 2024, but warned investors that it continues to lose billions on its “Reality Labs” division, and added that the company expects to loose even more next year as it builds out its artificial intelligence division.

“We currently expect significant capital expenditures growth in 2025 as we invest to support our artificial intelligence research and product development efforts,” the company wrote in its  in its earnings report. It also warned of “an active regulatory landscape including the increasing level and regulatory headwinds in the EU and U.S. that could significantly impact our business and our financial results.”

In my opinion, if Mark Zuckerberg is upset about the losses in revenue that appear to be happening regarding its AI, he could just stop using it.