Tag: facebook

Brussels Aims at WhatsApp in the Next Round of Speech Control

Meta’s WhatsApp platform is set to come under tighter European oversight as regulators prepare to bring its “channels” feature under the European Union’s far-reaching censorship law, the Digital Services Act (DSA), the same framework that already pressures Facebook and Instagram.

According to Bloomberg, people familiar with the matter say the European Commission has informed Meta that WhatsApp’s channels are being prepared for designation as a “Very Large Online Platform.”

That classification carries extensive responsibilities for content censorship. Although no public date has been announced, the Commission’s notice indicates that WhatsApp will soon face some of the most demanding digital rules in the world.

Channels, which allow public updates from news outlets, public figures, and organizations, function more like social media feeds than private chats.

WhatsApp reported earlier this year that these channels reached around 46.8 million users in Europe by late 2024, slightly above the DSA’s 45 million-user threshold for stricter oversight.

Once a service crosses that line, it must perform regular assessments of how illegal or “harmful” content circulates and develop strategies to limit its spread. Platforms are also required to publish user figures twice a year and risk fines of up to 6 percent of global revenue for failing to comply.

The DSA does not apply to private, encrypted communication, so WhatsApp’s core messaging service will remain unaffected.

Still, the EU’s decision to expand its regulatory reach into new areas of online conversation has caused concern that these rules could burden companies and discourage open dialogue in the name of safety.

The European Commission has remained cautious about providing details, saying only that it “cannot confirm the timeline for a potential future designation.”

For Meta, the move adds another chapter to its ongoing disputes with European regulators.

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Senate Grills Meta and Google Over Biden Administration’s Role in COVID-Era Content Censorship

A Senate hearing this week discussed government influence on online speech, as senior executives from Meta and Google faced questions about the Biden administration’s communications with their companies during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The session, titled “Part II of Shut Your App: How Uncle Sam Jawboned Big Tech Into Silencing Americans,” highlighted the growing concern in Washington over what lawmakers describe as government-driven pressure to suppress lawful expression.

Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), who led the hearing, began by declaring that “the right to speak out is the foundation of a free society” and warning that “censorship around the world is growing.”

He accused the Biden administration of pushing technology companies to restrict Americans’ speech during the pandemic, and he faulted both the companies and Democrats for failing to resist that pressure.

“Today, we pick off where the story left off,” Cruz said, pointing to Meta and Google as examples of firms that “were pressured by the Biden administration to censor the American people.”

He pledged to introduce the Jawbone Act, which he said would “provide a robust right to redress when Americans are targeted by their own government.”

Markham Erickson, Google’s Vice President of Government Affairs and Public Policy, defended the company’s approach, emphasizing that its moderation decisions are guided by long-standing internal policies, not by government direction.

“While we are a company dedicated to the goal of making the world’s information universally accessible, that doesn’t mean that we don’t have certain rules,” Erickson said, citing restrictions on “terrorist content, child sexual abuse material, hate speech, and other harmful content.”

He acknowledged that officials in the Biden administration had contacted Google during the pandemic to urge the removal of certain COVID-19 content from YouTube.

But Erickson maintained that the company “develop[ed] and enforce[d] our policies independently” and “rejected suggestions that did not align with those policies.”

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Prosecutors Drop Charges Against Tennessee Man Over Facebook Meme

Last month, Tennessee authorities arrested a man for posting a Facebook meme, a clear violation of his First Amendment rights, and held him on a $2 million bond. This week, prosecutors dropped the case, but that doesn’t negate the weeks he spent in jail on a bogus charge.

As Reason previously reported, police arrested 61-year-old Larry Bushart for posting a meme on Facebook. In a thread about the murder of Charlie Kirk, Bushart posted a meme with a picture of President Donald Trump and the quote “We have to get over it,” which Trump said after a January 2024 shooting at Perry High School in Perry, Iowa.

Sheriff Nick Weems of nearby Perry County said Bushart intentionally posted the meme to make people think he was referring to Perry County High School. “Investigators believe Bushart was fully aware of the fear his post would cause and intentionally sought to create hysteria within the community,” Weems told The Tennesseean.

On September 21, deputies arrested Bushart at his house and booked him on a charge of Threats of Mass Violence on School Property and Activities, a felony that carries at least a year in prison. In body camera footage posted online by Liliana Segura of The Intercept, Bushart is incredulous when presented with the charge. “I don’t think I committed a crime,” he tells the officer, jokingly admitting that “I may have been an asshole.”

“That’s not illegal,” the officer replies as he leads Bushart into a cell.

Unfortunately, it was no laughing matter: A judge imposed a $2 million bond. Getting out on bail would require Bushart to come up with at least $210,000. According to the Perry County Circuit Court website, Bushart had a hearing scheduled for October 9, where he could file a motion for a reduced bond, but a court clerk told Reason that the hearing was “reset” for December 4. As a result, Bushart sat in jail for weeks.

Right away, it should have been clear how flimsy the case was. But the sheriff doubled down.

As Segura reported at The Intercept, Weems personally responded to people on Facebook suggesting Bushart was arrested because authorities misread a picture that briefly referenced a prior news event on the other side of the country. “We were very much aware of the meme being from an Iowa shooting,” Weems wrote. But it “created mass hysteria to parents and teachers…that led the normal person to conclude that he was talking about our Perry County High School.”

“Yet there were no public signs of this hysteria,” Segura notes. “Nor was there much evidence of an investigation—or any efforts to warn county schools.”

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‘Massive legal siege’ against social media companies looms

Thousands of plaintiffs’ complaints, millions of pages of internal documents and transcripts of countless hours of depositions are about to land in U.S. courtrooms, threatening the future of the biggest social media companies.

The blizzard of paperwork is a byproduct of two consolidated lawsuits accusing Snap Inc.’s Snapchat; Meta Platforms Inc.’s Facebook and Instagram; ByteDance Ltd.’s TikTok; and Alphabet Inc.’s YouTube of knowingly designing their platforms to addict users — allegedly resulting in youth depression, anxiety, insomnia, eating disorders, self-harm and even suicide.

The litigation, brewing for more than three years, has had to overcome numerous hurdles, including the liability shield that has protected social media platforms from facing user-harm lawsuits. The social media companies have filed multiple motions to dismiss the cases on the grounds that Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act prevents them from being held accountable for content posted on their sites.

Those motions have been largely unsuccessful, and courtrooms across the country are poised to open their doors for the first time to the alleged victims of social media. The vast majority of cases have been folded into two multijurisdictional proceedings, one in state and the other in federal court, to streamline the pretrial discovery process.

The first bellwether trial is scheduled to begin in Los Angeles Superior Court in late January. It involves a 19-year-old woman from Chico, California, who says she’s been addicted to social media for more than a decade and that her nonstop use of the platforms has caused anxiety, depression and body dysmorphia. Two other trials will follow soon after, with thousands more waiting in the wings. If successful, these cases could result in multibillion-dollar settlements — akin to tobacco and opioid litigation — and change the way minors interact with social media.

“This is going to be one of the most impactful litigations of our lifetime,” said Joseph VanZandt, an attorney at Beasley Allen Law Firm in Montgomery, Alabama, and co-lead plaintiffs’ attorney for the coordinated state cases. “This is about large corporations targeting vulnerable populations — children — for profit. That’s what we saw with the tobacco companies; they were also targeting adolescents and trying to get them addicted while they were young.”

Matthew Bergman, founder of the Social Media Victims Law Center in Seattle, makes a similar comparison to tobacco litigation in the Bloomberg documentary Can’t Look Away: The Case Against Social Media. “In the case of Facebook, you have internal documents saying ‘tweens are herd animals,’ ‘kids have an addict’s narrative’ and ‘our products make girls feel worse about themselves.’ You have the same kind of corporate misconduct,” Bergman says in the film, which will be available to view on Bloomberg’s platforms on October 30.

Bergman’s firm was the first to file user-harm cases against social media companies, in 2022, after Frances Haugen, a former Meta product manager-turned-whistleblower, released a trove of internal documents showing the company knew social media was negatively impacting youth mental health. The first case, which is part of the consolidated federal litigation, alleged that an 11-year-old Connecticut girl killed herself after suffering from extreme social media addiction and sexual exploitation by online predators.

What set that case apart was how it got around Section 230’s immunity blanket. Bergman argued that his case wasn’t about third-party content, which the federal law protects. Instead, he said it hinged on the way social media companies were intentionally designing their products to prioritize engagement and profit over safety.

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Report: EU to Charge Meta Under Censorship Law for Failing to Remove “Harmful” Content

Meta Platforms is bracing for formal charges from the European Union, accused of not doing enough to police online speech on Facebook and Instagram.

The problem is the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), a law that gives regulators the power to decide what counts as “illegal” or “harmful” content (a definition that includes “illegal hate speech”) and punish companies that fail to take it down.

The commission’s move could lead to a fine of up to 6% of Meta’s worldwide revenue, though the company will be allowed to respond before any penalty is finalized.

Officials in Brussels argue that Meta lacks an adequate “notice and action mechanism” for users to flag posts for removal.

The charge sheet, expected within weeks, according to Bloomberg, builds on an investigation launched in April 2024.

What the EU describes as a duty to protect users is, in fact, a mandate that forces platforms to censor more aggressively or face ruinous fines.

The commission would not comment on its plans, but Meta spokesperson Ben Walters rejected the accusations outright, saying the company disagreed “with any suggestion we have breached the DSA” and confirmed that talks are ongoing.

The DSA covers every major platform with more than 45 million active users in the EU.

Meta is currently facing two separate probes under the law: one focused on disinformation and illegal content, the other on protections for minors.

Supporters of the DSA insist it protects citizens, but the law essentially hands governments the authority to decide what speech is acceptable online.

No fines have yet been issued, but the pressure to comply has already chilled open debate.

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Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta Launches Super PAC to Combat AI Regulations

Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta has announced the launch of a new super PAC aimed at electing state candidates from both parties who support the company’s stance on AI development and regulation. According to the company, the American Technology Excellence Project super PAC is launching “amid a growing patchwork of inconsistent regulations that threaten homegrown innovation and investments in AI.”

Axios reports that social media and AI giant Meta has launched a new super PAC called the American Technology Excellence Project to help fight what it perceives as burdensome AI and tech policy bills across multiple states. The announcement highlights the company’s focus on state-level legislation as the federal government appears unlikely to pass significant tech policy regulation in the near future.

The super PAC will be run by Brian Baker, a longtime Republican operative, and the Democratic consulting firm Hilltop Public Solutions, with Meta investing tens of millions of dollars into the project. Baker stated, “America’s innovation edge is at a crossroads. We need state legislators who will champion our tech future, not cede it to global adversaries. We’ll fight to keep the US ahead of the curve, driving growth and opportunity for all.”

In a statement to Breitbart News, Meta VP of Public Policy Brian Rice wrote:

Amid a growing patchwork of inconsistent regulations that threaten homegrown innovation and investments in AI, state lawmakers are uniquely positioned to ensure that America remains a global technology leader. This is why Meta is launching an effort to support the election of state candidates across the country who embrace AI development, champion the U.S. technology industry, and defend American tech leadership at home and abroad.

The American Technology Excellence Project will focus on three main pillars: promoting and defending U.S. technology companies and leadership, advocating for AI progress, and empowering parents to control how their children experience online apps and AI technologies. While Meta has not yet shared which states the PAC will immediately focus on or how many people it will employ, the company claims it is committed to supporting the election of state candidates who embrace AI development, champion the U.S. technology industry, and defend American tech leadership both domestically and internationally.

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Facebook Post of Secret Service Agent Saying Charlie Kirk Deserved to Be Assassinated Surfaces… Placed on Leave

A Secret Service Agent, in a Facebook post, said Charlie Kirk deserved to be assassinated.

TPUSA founder Charlie Kirk, 31, was brutally murdered in broad daylight on Wednesday during an event at Utah Valley University. A gunman climbed up onto a roof and shot Charlie Kirk from an elevated position.

Secret Service Agent Anthony Pough said Charlie Kirk, a Christian husband and father to two young children, deserved to be murdered in cold blood.

“If you are Mourning this guy… delete me. He spewed hate and racism on his show,” Anthony Pough wrote.

“You can’t circumvent karma, [sic] she doesnt [sic] leave,” he said.

“The Secret Service agent’s post is circulating in the Secret Service community with some agents upset over his sentiments because he appears to be celebrating the death of a political figure, and one whom the president is honoring with the Presidential Medal of Freedom and has often had by his side at events over the last several years,” RealClearPolitics reporter Susan Crabtree said.

“If that’s all it takes to set you off, that’s dangerous to have around,” one source in the Secret Service community told RCPolitics reporter Susan Crabtree.

“I’m mostly concerned about the morals of a person sworn to protect the rights of others to engage in politics and exercise free speech, celebrating the death of someone exercising those same rights,” the source added.

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Hawley pushes legal action against Meta after whistleblowers detail child abuse in VR

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., called to “open the courtroom doors” so parents can sue Meta, accusing founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg of misleading Congress after whistleblowers detailed child safety failures on the company’s virtual reality (VR) platforms.

Two former Meta researchers told a Senate panel Tuesday that the company buried child harm evidence in VR, killed age-verification studies and let AI chatbots flirt with kids, prompting a bipartisan push to pass measures protecting minors online.

“The claims at the heart of this hearing are nonsense; they’re based on selectively leaked internal documents that were picked specifically to craft a false narrative,” a Meta spokesperson said. 

“The truth is there was never any blanket prohibition on conducting research with young people and, since the start of 2022, Meta approved nearly 180 Reality Labs-related studies on issues including youth safety and well-being.”

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Meta to spend millions backing pro-AI candidates – media

US tech giant Meta will launch a California‑focused super‑PAC to support state‑level candidates who favor looser technology regulation, especially regarding artificial intelligence, according to media reports.

A super PAC is an independent political committee that can raise and spend unlimited funds from individuals, corporations, and unions to support or oppose candidates. It cannot coordinate directly with campaigns or parties and was created after 2010 US court rulings that loosened campaign finance rules.

The group, named Mobilizing Economic Transformation Across California, will reportedly back candidates from the Democratic and Republican parties who prioritize AI innovation over stringent rules.

According to Politico, the Facebook and Instagram parent plans to spend tens of millions of dollars through the PAC, which could make it one of the top political spenders in the state in the run‑up to the 2026 governor’s race.

The initiative aligns with Meta’s broader effort to safeguard California’s status as a technology hub amid concerns that strict oversight could stifle innovation.

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Meta’s Shocking AI Scandal: Chatbots Cleared for Steamy Talks with Kids as Young as 8

Meta Platforms faces intense scrutiny following a Reuters investigation that exposed internal guidelines permitting its AI chatbots to engage in romantic or sensual conversations with minors.

The 200-page document, titled “GenAI: Content Risk Standards,” outlined permissible behaviors for AI personas on platforms like Facebook Messenger.

These rules, in effect until recently, allowed chatbots to describe children as attractive and use affectionate language in role-playing scenarios.

One example from the document involved a hypothetical user prompt where a high school student asked about evening plans, prompting an AI response that included guiding the user to bed and whispering endearments.

Another scenario featured an 8-year-old user describing removing their shirt, with the chatbot replying by praising the child’s “youthful form” as a masterpiece.

While explicit sexual content was prohibited, critics argue these allowances blurred lines and risked normalizing inappropriate interactions.

The guidelines also permitted chatbots to disseminate false medical or legal advice if accompanied by disclaimers, and to generate derogatory statements based on race or ethnicity in educational, artistic, or satirical contexts.

Additionally, the rules enabled depictions of violence against adults and partially sexualized images of celebrities under certain conditions.

A related incident highlighted potential real-world harms when a cognitively impaired New Jersey man, infatuated with a Meta AI persona named “Big Sis Billie,” died after attempting to meet her in person.

The 76-year-old fell fatally while traveling under false pretenses encouraged by the chatbot. This case underscores concerns about AI’s impact on vulnerable users, though Meta has not commented specifically on it.

Meta spokesperson Andy Stone stated that the examples were erroneous and inconsistent with company policies, and have been removed from the document.

The company is revising the guidelines and prohibits content that sexualizes children or allows sexualized role-play between adults and minors.

However, enforcement has been inconsistent, and Meta has declined to release the updated policy publicly.

The revelations prompted bipartisan backlash from U.S. lawmakers, with Republican Senators Josh Hawley and Marsha Blackburn calling for a congressional investigation into Meta’s oversight.

Democratic Senators Ron Wyden and Peter Welch criticized the protections under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, arguing it should not shield AI-generated harmful content.

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