TWEAKS AND UPDATES

Associated Press: Meta quieter on election misinformation as midterms loom. “Facebook owner Meta is quietly curtailing some of the safeguards designed to thwart voting misinformation or foreign interference in U.S. elections as the November midterm vote approaches.”

Bloomberg: Meta Among Companies Making Summer Interns Nervous About Job Offers. “Internships at Meta Platforms Inc., the Facebook and Instagram owner, are coveted for their selectivity, high compensation, lavish perks — and most of all, the potential job offer waiting at the end of the summer. This year, that’s more elusive.”

Bloomberg: Metaverse Jobs Are Disappearing as Hiring Slows at Google, Facebook . “Meta Platforms Inc., grappling with its first-ever quarterly sales slump, now has another problem: Jobs in the metaverse are disappearing.”

AROUND THE SEARCH AND SOCIAL MEDIA WORLD

BusinessWorld (Philippines): Facebook took down 5 million pieces of content leading up to PHL elections — Meta. “Facebook, the Meta-owned social media platform, removed five million pieces of content on Facebook and Instagram in the four months leading up to the Philippine national elections and the week following (Jan. 9–May 16).”

Poynter: How Facebook pages exploit Russia’s war in Ukraine with false videos. “Twin Facebook pages advertise themselves as providing newsy and up-to-the-minute coverage of Russia’s war in Ukraine. But on a given day, their followers might see videos claiming Norwegians raided Russian ships, Vladimir Putin was defeated on ‘all fronts,’ or that a single British ship blocked a Russian fleet. None of those headlines are true. But that doesn’t stop the pages Fios Vinks and Fiosl Liesi from earning clicks, views and a monetizable following through false reporting on the war.”

Engadget: Facebook faces suspension in Kenya over ethnic-based hate speech. “Kenya’s National Cohesion and Integration Commission (NCIC), a government agency that aims to eradicate ethnic or racial discrimination among the country’s 45 tribes, has given Facebook seven days to tackle hate speech related to next month’s election on its platform. If the social media fails to do so, it faces suspension in the country.”

SECURITY & LEGAL

San Diego Union-Tribune: Administrators of popular Facebook page Tijuana 664 gunned down outside their home . “Anonymous Facebook pages in Tijuana often purport to be offering news, but the content can run the gamut from memes to copy-and-pasted stories from mainstream news organizations to insider crime blogs that offer explicit details about violence in the border city. Many local journalists have publicly spoken out about how the existence of these anonymous pages puts their safety at risk by both encouraging violence and by creating confusion among the public about the role of journalists.”

Bloomberg: Meta Asks Court to Force Snap to Hand Over Data as It Fights FTC Antitrust Lawsuit. “Meta Platforms Inc. is asking a judge to force Snap Inc. to hand over data it says is needed to help the Facebook owner defend against a US government antitrust lawsuit.”

Bleeping Computer: Meta, US hospitals sued for using healthcare data to target ads. “A class action lawsuit has been filed in the Northern District of California against Meta (Facebook), the UCSF Medical Center, and the Dignity Health Medical Foundation, alleging that the organizations are unlawfully collecting sensitive healthcare data about patients for targeted advertising.”

Ohio Attorney General: Ohio Selected as Lead Plaintiff in Class-Action Lawsuit Against Facebook. “A federal judge in California yesterday agreed to consolidate a series of lawsuits against Facebook and appointed Ohio the lead plaintiff in the securities class-action case against the social-media giant. Attorney General Yost will lead the class action on behalf of Ohio and any other affected investors.”

RESEARCH & OPINION

San Diego Union-Tribune: Opinion: Instagram is a cult by every measure. Here’s why you’re not going anywhere.. “I’ve personally been on Instagram for about 11 years — starting at the age of 13 — and I now have a career that requires me to run numerous social media accounts. I’m somebody who’s unhappy with their weekly screen time, my tendency to ‘doom scroll’ and the way social media impacts my self-perception. I know my life would be better if I deleted it, but I don’t. And I won’t.”

Washington Post: Facebook wants to be more like TikTok. That’s a bad idea.. “The thing about network effects is that they work both ways. When your network is growing, it keeps getting steadily more valuable. But if it starts to shrink, each departing user makes the service slightly less attractive to those who remain. This is why Facebook has been so aggressive (too aggressive, the trustbusters murmur) about acquiring potential competitors and adding features that are popular on other apps. It needs to protect that nice, wide moat — which is frankly looking a bit stagnant.”

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