All articles tagged with #facebook
AP News profiles Lynette Hooker, who disappeared in the Bahamas, and recounts the couple’s years of Caribbean sailing that were chronicled on the “Sailing Hookers” social pages, including their Michigan home in Onsted and the Soul Mate sailboat they fixed up for a life at sea.
Meta is laying off several hundred employees across multiple divisions—including Facebook, global operations, recruiting, sales, and Reality Labs—as it pivots toward artificial intelligence, with some staff offered new roles or relocations.
A New Mexico jury ordered Meta to pay $375 million for allegedly allowing child predators to target young users on Facebook and Instagram, citing algorithms and weak protections; Meta plans to appeal and says it remains committed to user safety.
Creative Bloq argues Meta’s 2021 pivot to the metaverse and rebrand has backfired, with Horizon Worlds being shut down and Realty Labs layoffs signaling a retreat from the plan, underscoring how hindsight paints the branding as misguided amid a fading of the metaverse vision.
Meta’s Creator Fast Track is pitched as a program to help creators rapidly grow their Facebook audiences and monetize across Facebook and partner platforms, offering growth tools, analytics, monetization options, and dedicated support to accelerate earnings and expand reach across Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.
During a New Mexico trial over child-safety allegations, Mark Zuckerberg and Instagram chief Adam Mosseri said that despite safety efforts and teen protections, some criminal activity will inevitably occur on Meta platforms like Facebook and Instagram; prosecutors contend Meta prioritizes profits over safety, while the company points to encryption and proactive safety features as safeguards. The testimony covers the effectiveness of tools like end-to-end encryption on Messenger and the 'People you may know' algorithm, and the trial continues with deposits and internal concerns about safeguards.
Meta will retire messenger.com and discontinue the Messenger desktop app, with messenger.com no longer available for messaging starting April 2026. Web messaging will move to facebook.com/messages and be integrated into Facebook rather than a standalone Messenger platform, while Messenger remains available on mobile. The move signals Meta’s broader shift toward consolidating messaging across its apps and reducing maintenance across separate tools amid regulatory and strategic considerations.
Retired Miami-Dade police officer Danny Torres, who pulled Tyreek Hill over in 2024, celebrated Hill's February 2026 release from the Dolphins with a savage Facebook post calling him an 'entitled A-SHOLE' and saying he hopes Hill can cover his child support; Torres later told the Miami New Times he was 'pretty much crucified for doing my job.' The piece notes the 2024 stop involved body-camera footage, administrative leave for the officers, and that Hill's traffic citations were dropped after hearings were missed.
Protests erupted in Minnesota after an ICE shooting, while critics accuse TikTok and Meta of suppressing ICE-related content; California is probing TikTok for potential Trump-critical censorship, and Meta has blocked links to the ICE List, though TikTok says infrastructure issues are causing posting delays and that ICE-related videos remain accessible.
Meta is planning trials for premium subscriptions across its core apps to unlock expanded AI features and extra tools, including Vibes and Manus, while keeping the free services. Each app could have its own set of benefits, but pricing and exact details are not yet disclosed.
A Futurism article says AI-generated junk—especially text-to-video—has flooded Facebook and Instagram feeds with disturbing, racist, and bizarre clips, driven by engagement-based algorithms that amplify what users watch; YouTube's Neal Mohan says combatting AI slop is a top priority, while some creators fight back against AI theft, and the situation is expected to worsen as platforms rely on signals to determine what users see.
Facebook Reels enhances personalization by deploying the User True Interest Survey (UTIS), a survey-driven alignment layer atop the main ranking model. Daily in-context surveys measure how well videos match user interests, boosting niche content and engagement. Offline metrics improve from 59.5% to 71.5% in accuracy, 48.3% to 63.2% in precision, and 45.4% to 66.1% in recall; online A/B tests show higher engagement and fewer integrity issues. UTIS is integrated in late-stage ranking and early-stage retrieval via a Perception Layer to handle sparse feedback, with future work focusing on bias reduction and more advanced modeling.
A compilation of 14 outrageous and inappropriate Facebook mom posts from the subreddit r/ShitMomGroupsSay, highlighting bizarre, concerning, or humorous parenting moments shared online.
Facebook is testing a new feature in the UK and US that limits users to sharing only two links per month unless they subscribe for £9.99, as part of its effort to monetize more platform features and control content distribution, especially for creators and businesses.
Meta is testing a new policy where certain Facebook pages will be limited to sharing only two link posts per month unless they subscribe to Meta Verified, a paid service offering verification and additional benefits. This move aims to boost Meta Verified subscriptions and reduce spam, but could significantly impact business and publisher strategies on Facebook. The test is limited for now, but it signals potential broader changes in how links are shared on the platform in the future.