HN: "Facebook podle soudních dokumentů už v roce 2019 zastavil interní studii, která ukazovala, že sociální sítě zhoršují psychický stav uživatelů. Studie zkoumala náhodný vzorek uživatelů, kteří na měsíc přestali používat Facebook a Instagram. Po prvním týdnu uživatelé hlásili nižší sklon k depresím, pocitům osamocení, nervozity a nutkání se porovnávat s ostatními.

Tyto předběžné výsledky neodpovídaly očekáváním firmy, a tak výzkum předčasně ukončila."

Zdroj: cnbc.com/2025/11/23/meta-inter…

#Meta

Meta halted internal research suggesting social media harm, court filing alleges

Meta is alleged to have halted internal research suggesting social media harm, according to court documents.

^{Jonathan Vanian (CNBC)}

Meta pitching app store age verification law to Canadian government

Me: No, no and especially not in the hands of a foreign entity

toronto.citynews.ca/2025/11/25…
- - -
Meta promouvoit une loi sur la vérification des âges par les App Store au gouvernement canadien

Moi: non, non et surtout pas entre les mains d’une entité étrangère

lactualite.com/actualites/meta…

#Meta #Canada #CANpoli #CDNpoli #Facebook #Instagram #WhatsApp

Meta pitching app store age verification law to Liberal government

OTTAWA — Meta has been lobbying the federal government for new rules to implement age verification at the app store level — which would put the burden on companies like Apple and Google, not individual platforms like Meta’s Facebook and Instagram.

^{News Staff (CityNews Toronto)}

What the actual f...k? How does a multibillion dollar company like #Meta not mitigate against this kind of historic data leak???

"3.5 Billion Accounts: Complete #WhatsApp Directory Retrieved and Evaluated"
heise.de/en/news/3-5-Billion-A…

#DigitalRights #privacy #DataProtection #DigitalSecurity

3.5 Billion Accounts: Complete WhatsApp Directory Retrieved and Evaluated

Vienna researchers retrieved all WhatsApp numbers. The 3.5 billion profiles represent the largest data leak in history—and it's worse than you might think.

^{Daniel AJ Sokolov (heise online)}

"WhatsApp flaw allowed researchers to scrape data of 3.5 billion users"

Things that can never happen in #ArcaneChat since there is no phone number or any personal data required

cyberinsider.com/whatsapp-flaw…

#meta #WhatsApp #privacy

WhatsApp flaw allowed researchers to scrape data of 3.5 billion users

Researchers uncovered a flaw in WhatsApp's contact discovery mechanism, allowing them to enumerate over 3.5 billion active accounts.

^{Alex Lekander (CyberInsider)}

I used the LINE messenger for the very first time the other day. Downloaded from the official source, my goal was simple: a single, private chat with one person, which LINE claims is protected by End-to-End Encryption (E2EE).

Our "conversation" was minimal – mostly just test messages. One single contact.

A few days later, I log in to find my account has been temporarily (for how long? =)) blocked.

This raises a cognitive dissonance for me:

Promise vs. Reality: We're told E2EE means no one, not even the company, can read our chats. If that's true, on what basis was I blocked? I have to assume it's related to something in the chat, because I literally did nothing else in the app. But if it is E2EE, how could they know? Does this mean E2EE is just a marketing buzzword and monitoring is happening anyway? I'd genuinely like to know what the real factors are.

Absolute Opacity: This is the real issue. I received zero explanation. No email, no warning, not even a vague hint at which policy I "violated." And look, I'll be the first to admit I didn't read the 100-page Terms of Service – who does? But that's not the point. Even if I did technically violate some obscure rule, the core problem is the total lack of transparency. I was left with no idea, not even a guess, as to what happened. This opaque, black-box process is the real problem.

This situation is deeply concerning. What if I lived in a country like Japan, where LINE is the default, essential messenger? I'd just be cut off from my digital life without cause or appeal. And if this happens on LINE, what stops WhatsApp from doing the same? (And let's not even talk about Telegram, which is 100% cringe and a lost cause for privacy anyway).

My takeaway: To be honest, I went into this as an experiment, and this incident 100% confirmed my expectations.

This isn't just a LINE problem. We see it constantly from Big Tech like Meta and Google. They ban users, often with no explanation, because they have the full legal right to do so. We all agreed to this when we blindly clicked "accept" on their Terms of Service.

This is exactly why my advice is this: you must factor in this risk with all commercial messengers. When you use any private, centralized platform, you have to accept the fact that you can be denied service at any time, for any reason, and they don't even have to tell you why. That is the price of admission we all paid.

The promise of a "private chat" apparently doesn't include the guarantee of access to the platform itself.

#privacy #E2EE #LINE #messengers #transparency #BigTech #Meta #Google #ban #DigitalRights #PlatformRisk #ToS #experiment #FuckTelegram

To anyone with questions about Meta's Ray-Ban glasses and how this is problematic for privacy and consent, I highly recommend reading this excellent article from Janus Rose at The Verge:

"“One way to think about it is protecting your community and the people you care about,” said Gilliard. “When you’re wearing these glasses, when you use your video doorbell, when you record everyone’s conversations, you’re not just surveilling yourself. And there’s no consistent and foolproof way to guarantee that information won’t be used against people you care about — to hurt trans and queer people, or hurt immigrant communities. I wish people would think about it in those terms instead of ‘did my package get delivered.’”

theverge.com/tech/807834/meta-…

#Privacy #Meta #RayBan #Consent #Safety

Privacy laws can’t keep up with ‘luxury surveillance’

Legal experts explain the laws and ethics of recording other people with Meta’s new smart glasses and other wearables.

^{Janus Rose (The Verge)}

I see so many people (mostly men, this isn't random) talking about how Meta's Ray-Ban glasses are "incredible" or "still not ready" yet, I don't see anyone calling it what it is: Voyeurism.

This technology will increase voyeurism and stalking aggressions in unacceptable ways. These glasses are a voyeur's dream weapon. Also a doxxer's and stalker's dream weapon.

Why are our laws and cultures not protecting us against this?

#Privacy #Safety #Meta #RayBan #Consent

> #Meta has used back-to-school pictures of schoolgirls to advertise one of its social media platforms to a 37-year-old man

> The man noticed that posts encouraging him to “get Threads” (…) were being dropped into his Instagram feed featuring embedded posts of uniformed girls as young as 13 with their faces visible and, in most cases, their names.

> The children’s images were used by Meta after their parents had posted them on Instagram to mark their return to school.

theguardian.com/technology/202…

Parents outraged as Meta uses photos of schoolgirls in ads targeting man

Exclusive: Instagram pictures of girls as young as 13 were posted to promote Threads site ‘as bait’, campaigner says

^{Robert Booth (The Guardian)}

Folks, it's happened. AI has become *so* smart that it knows how to intentionally sabotage a live product demos by Mark Zuckerberg and leave him helplessly flailing...

#meta #metaai #AI #artificialintelligence

🤯 Instagram is testing new iOS push notifications that include a profile photo. Each time the notification is shown on your screen, it triggers a GET request to fetch that image, letting Meta track every on-screen impression.

The app still misuses push notifications to send detailed device analytics about the device (uptime, battery, volume, locale, timezone, memory, CPU, etc.)

#privacy #infosec #privacymatters #Apple #iOS #meta
More 👇🧵

Is Meta the Next Nvidia? A Deep Dive into Its AI Potential

Meta is quietly becoming a serious AI contender, with $72B in AI infrastructure spending, superintelligence labs, and open-source Llama models. Despite 30% YTD stock gains, it trades at a big discount to Nvidia. With 3.48B daily users and massive cash flow, Meta offers muted downside and huge AI upside.

Read full article here:techi.com/meta-stock-ai-potent…

#Meta #NVDA #AIStocks #StockMarket #TechInvesting #FAANG #ArtificialIntelligence

The Jury has spoken 👉 Meta stole Flo app users' intimate menstrual data. 🩸

Yep, Meta wants it all - even your most intimate data.

Find out why here: tuta.com/blog/meta-guilty-flo-…

#FloApp #FlowMenstrualApp #Meta

Apparently, if you have facebook or Instagram installed on your phone, #Meta was able to track your browsing habits and link them to your real identity even if you never logged in on the web, used incognito mode or a VPN. I hope Meta gets hit with every fine in the book.

zeropartydata.es/p/localhost-t…

“Localhost tracking” explained. It could cost Meta 32 billion.

You just can't finish off Zuckerberg.

^{Jorge García Herrero (Zero Party Data)}

As an add on to the post above, if you don't think speaking out against Israel's genocide in Gaza and on behalf of the people being slaughtered there matters, then why is the Netanyahu government working so hard with multi-billion dollar social media companies like Meta to suppress pro-Palestinian speech online?

dropsitenews.com/p/leaked-data…

Leaked Data Reveals Massive Israeli Campaign to Remove Pro-Palestine Posts on Facebook and Instagram

"A sweeping crackdown on posts on Instagram and Facebook that are critical of Israel—or even vaguely supportive of Palestinians—was directly orchestrated by the government of Israel, according to internal Meta data obtained by Drop Site News. The data show that Meta has complied with 94% of takedown requests issued by Israel since October 7, 2023. Israel is the biggest originator of takedown requests globally by far, and Meta has followed suit—widening the net of posts it automatically removes, and creating what can be called the largest mass censorship operation in modern history.

Government requests for takedowns generally focus on posts made by citizens inside that government’s borders, Meta insiders said. What makes Israel’s campaign unique is its success in censoring speech in many countries outside of Israel. What’s more, Israel's censorship project will echo well into the future, insiders said, as the AI program Meta is currently training how to moderate content will base future decisions on the successful takedown of content critical of Israel’s genocide."

As I've noted elsewhere, it's very clear that the pro-genocide Pig Empire establishment used the sham ceasefire Trump supposedly brokered in Gaza as an excuse to reset the discourse and resume the genocide at pace. We've returned to a pre-2024 media environment of silence and minimization of crimes against humanity, particularly in America, and these folks are working overtime to keep you from talking about, and hopefully (for genocidal monsters) thinking about Gaza while Israel attempts to wipe out the Palestinians there before we wake up and realize what's going on.

The only way to fight this, is to keep talking about it, and resisting both the genocide and the US government's support for it. We've been here before and broke through the cone of silence; in fact that's the whole reason the ruling class establishment is trying to rewind the discourse around the genocide in Gaza to a pre-2024 state. We must not let them get away with it by contributing to that cone of silence.

#Fascism #Israel #Gaza #Genocide #Trump #Meta #Facebook #Instagram #Censorship #Imperialism #SettlerColonialism #CrimesAgainstHumanity #Propaganda #Mark Zuckerberg #OnlineCensorship #Zionism #Netanyahu

Leaked Data Reveals Massive Israeli Campaign to Remove Pro-Palestine Posts on Facebook and Instagram

^{Waqas Ahmed (Drop Site News)}

"For now, the most comprehensive protection against Meta Pixel and Yandex Metrica tracking is to refrain from installing the Facebook, Instagram, or Yandex apps on Android devices."

That's exactly what I do.

arstechnica.com/security/2025/…

#Meta #Yandex #tracking #privacy

Meta and Yandex are de-anonymizing Android users’ web browsing identifiers

Abuse allows Meta and Yandex to attach persistent identifiers to detailed browsing histories.

^{Dan Goodin (Ars Technica)}

🚨Only until May 27 🚨

Meta users in the EU - Object now, or Meta will use your data to train Meta AI.

Here's how: 👉 tuta.com/blog/how-to-turn-off-…

#MetaAI #Meta

What is my stance on the Meta Ray-Ban smart glasses? It's good, helpful, and a more affordable assistive technology device than what's currently available... but it has it's challenges... I have never thought of connecting it to WhatsApp and using ChatGPT with it! Thanks Tim Dixon for sharing lots of insights! ⬇️
timdixon.net/blog/2025/04/blin…

#Accessibility #Meta #A11y

Blind Meta Ray Ban Review 2025 - TIM DIXON

A Blind Meta Ray Ban Review 2025 covering new AI features, WhatsApp bots, and how they support the blind and low vision community.

^{Tim Dixon (TIM DIXON)}

What is the best "impact assessment" for an NGO? If a huge Big Tech company like #Meta publicly says your work should be prohibited.. 😂

If you wanna join @noybeu and make us even more "powerful" click here: support.noyb.eu/join 😜

(From a paywalled MLex Article)

You just know you're doing something right when #Meta 's data protection officer talks about your ‘power’ and how she wants the #EU to ban you from doing your work.🤡

Want to help us become even more ‘powerful‘? Click here to find out how: noyb.eu/en/support-us

Source: mlex.com/mlex/artificial-intel…

Original Art: pixiv.net/en/artworks/55975367

In 2010, #AaronSwartz downloaded 70 GB of articles from JSTOR. He faced a $1 million fine and 35 years in prison
➡️ Aaron took his own life in 2013.

#Meta illegally downloaded over 80 terabytes of books from LibGen, Anna's Archive, and Z-library to train its #AI models
➡️ facing no consequences.

Information is power, knowledge is power.

Beware and fight against those who want to keep you ignorant, unaware, and misinformed.

#digitalrights #openknowledge #opendata #privacy

⚠️ IMPORTANT FEDIPACT ANNOUNCEMENT!!!⚠️

THREADS HAS CHANGED DOMAINS TO THREADS.COM!!!!!

in a deleted article techcrunch confirmed threads would be moving from threads.net to threads.com

zero clue why it was deleted because threads.net already redirects to threads.com as of right now

sooooo yeah!!! new domain to block. check out fedipact.online/why if you're wondering why

#fediblock #FediPact #meta #threads

Hello Fediverse admins, Meta's platform Threads has now switched to a new domain so it's time to add this to your defederation list:

threads.com

Here's how to defederate a server from the Mastodon admin interface: fedi.tips/how-to-defederate-fe…

(via @TechCrunch at mstdn.social/@TechCrunch/11439… though they seem to have just deleted the article... 🤔 Was this an embargoed announcement?)

EDIT: ...and now the post is gone too. Weird.

#Meta #Threads #FreeFediverse #Zuckerberg #FediPact

How to block (defederate) a server on Mastodon | Fedi.Tips – An Unofficial Guide to Mastodon and the Fediverse

An unofficial guide to using Mastodon and the Fediverse

^fedi.tips

Is your teenager on Instagram? 🙈 And are they using a Meta Teen's account? 🤔

If so, you should read this 👉 tuta.com/blog/instagram-teen-a…

#Meta #MetaTeens #InstagramTeens #DataPrivacy

#XSF Announcement

Today the #XMPP Standards Foundation publishes an Open Letter to urge #Meta to adopt XMPP for messaging #interoperability.

It’s time for real interoperability. Let’s make it happen.

xmpp.org/announcements/open-le…

#jabber #chat #rtc
#opensource #decentralization #standard #dma

Hey, if you, like me, are a US citizen who's had your books/stories/articles stolen by Meta to train AI, you can submit your name to the class action suit using this easy contact form for one of the law firms involved:

saverilawfirm.com/meta-languag…

#ai #meta #writing

#Panoramax - das neue #StreetView!

Vor einigen Jahren wurde #Mapillary an #Meta verkauft. Und auch #Google StreetView möchte vielleicht nicht jeder nutzen.

Mit Panoramax gibt es nun eine #FOSS Alternative. Sie soll dezentral organisiert werden. Dies ist meines Wissens die erste Instanz:

panoramax.openstreetmap.fr
Kleiner Tipp:
Falls man das AdOn #ClearURLs verwendet, kommt man eventuell über die Animation wegen Blockierung von ETags nicht hinaus. Deshalb nutze ich Panoramax als #Firefox-PWA am Desktop.

#OSM #OpenStreetMap

As Facebook Abandons Fact-Checking, It’s Also Offering Bonuses for Viral Content
—

Meta decided to stop working with U.S. fact-checkers at the same time as it’s revamping a program to pay bonuses to creators with high engagement numbers, potentially pouring accelerant on the kind of false posts the company once policed.
propublica.org/article/faceboo…

#News #Facebook #Meta #Zuckerberg #Tech #Technology

Facebook Boosts Viral Content as It Drops Fact-Checking

^ProPublica