One of the most significant changes in the last couple of decades has been the rise of social media and the way it's reshaped society. Mark Zuckerberg, who co-founded and launched Facebook – and now leads the technology conglomerate Meta – has played a key role in what he describes as an erosion of privacy.

Social media shifts

We were just months away from Mark Zuckerberg's first on-screen portrayal in The Social Network when he spoke about the story of Facebook so far at TechCrunch's Crunchies awards in January 2010.

During the interview, he spoke about the way that people's attitudes toward their own sense of privacy had shifted, and that with the tools available on the web – including his own platform – users were far more open and willing to share details about themselves.

He delivered these thoughts following criticism that Facebook had altered its architecture so that basic information, like your friends list, became publicly viewable by default – unless you consciously opted out.

The death of privacy

Zuckerberg, at the time, was attempting to reframe his platform's changes as ones that served users as it adapted to their behavior. But it's also fair to suggest that Facebook had also played a role in triggering behavioral shifts in its users in the first place.

Cynics would also suggest that the shift to opening up more data to public access paved the way for further monetization of user data. This would come in the form of Open Graph, which the company launched in May that same year.

People have continued to share their information online, but they aren't feeding simple algorithms or monetization portals, but AI models too.

On the other hand, the modern age has given rise to more encrypted services like WhatsApp, Signal and Discord, with mostly open platforms, like Facebook's previous incarnation, suffering from data collection scandals and privacy breaches.

• Windscribe CEO warns social media quizzes can harvest data to bypass knowledge-based authentication
• The 'fun' prompts often perfectly mirror bank security questions
• Experts advise users to treat them as a second password by lying

We've all seen them pop up on our feeds: "What's your 90s sitcom character?" or "Discover your stripper name!" But while these social media quizzes might seem like a bit of harmless fun, they are actually acting as a massive phishing net.

That's the warning from Yegor Sak, the founder of one of the best VPN providers, Windscribe. According to Sak, these viral personality tests are carefully crafted to harvest the exact answers that financial institutions use to verify your identity.

By wrapping standard bank security questions, like your mother's maiden name, your first pet, or the street you grew up on, into a gamified social media post, attackers are tricking users into willingly handing over the keys to their accounts.

The dangers of Facebook quizzes

The success of these quizzes comes down to psychology rather than advanced hacking techniques. The questions are cleverly disguised to disarm your natural skepticism.

"If a stranger walked up to you on the street and asked for your mother's maiden name, your first pet, and the street you grew up on, you'd walk away," Sak explained. "Wrap those same questions inside a 'Which 90s sitcom character are you?' quiz, and people happily type the answers into a database owned by someone they'll never meet."

Sak describes every completed quiz as "a credential reset form for a stranger."

Asking for a mother's maiden name directly puts people on the defensive, but asking for a silly combination of a first pet and childhood street gets a laugh.

"Same data. One feels like an interrogation. The other feels like a game. That gap is the entire attack surface," said Sak.

This isn't just a theoretical threat. Back in 2020, a major investigation by the UK's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) confirmed that personality-style apps on social platforms were harvesting data from tens of millions of users, many of whom had no idea their information was being collected.

"Most people have been quietly handing over the keys to their bank accounts for the better part of a decade," Sak noted, "and they think they're just having fun on Facebook."

How to protect yourself (and why you should lie)

So, how do you spot a trap? Sak says the danger lies in the type of information requested.

"Any quiz asking for a name plus a memory is a red flag," he warned. "First pet, first car, first school, the street you grew up on, mother's maiden name, favourite teacher. If a quiz is collecting four or five of those in one round, it's not a personality test. It's a security questionnaire with stickers on it."

Because a leaked password can be changed in seconds but the name of the street you grew up on cannot, Sak recommends a simple but drastic fix for knowledge-based authentication: lie.

If you've ever filled out one of these quizzes, you should immediately update the security questions on your bank, email, and brokerage accounts. Treat the answers like a secondary password by using random, fictional responses.

"The data is gone," Sak concluded. "The only thing left to do is change your security answers everywhere, and stop using questions whose answers exist on the internet."

If you're having trouble with the Facebook app today, you're far from alone — hundreds of people are reporting that the mobile app is closing down unexpectedly.

According to Downdetector, the problems started at around 6am ET / 11am BST, when large spikes in reports appeared from both the UK and US. Those numbers aren't yet huge — around 1,000 in the US and 500 in the UK at the time of writing — but they are growing rapidly.

There's been no official comment from Meta yet about the issues, but you can follow all the latest news in this live report...

What's wrong with the Facebook app?

Right now, hundreds of people are reporting that the Facebook app isn't working properly — with the most common complaint being that it simply closes when they open it.

We haven't been able to replicate the issues here on TechRadar, but the comments on Downdetector and social media point to similar issues. Some say it simply "keeps closing down when I open it", while other are reporting that that a pop-up box says that there's a known bug.

The reports are growing

Today's reports of issues with the Facebook app are continuing to move in the wrong direction — we're now at 1,175 reports on Downdetector in the US and counting, while the UK isn't far behind with 580 reports.

These issues seem to be specific to the mobile app, with over 80% of reports on Downdetector related to the app rather than the website or login issues. There's still no official comment from Meta, but I'll be expecting one soon if these reports continue to grow.

Is this an Android issue?

So far, it isn't clear what's causing today's Facebook app issues — but it seems to be hitting Android users a bit harder than those on iPhones.

Many of the comments on Downdetector and social media are related to Android devices, with one reporting that Facebook "keeps crashing on Android, but is fine on my iOS device".

The fact that the number of reports is relatively low for a Facebook outage suggests this could be related to problems with one particular app version. But I'm working to get a more official explanation.

The app crashes continue

The most common reported issue by far with the Facebook app today is it keeps closing or crashing upon opening.

Those complaints are increasing on X (like the above) and in the comments section of Downdetector, and the most likely culprit so far seems to be a buggy app update.

It's still not clear whether this is cross-platform or restricted to Android, so vote in our poll above if you're experiencing the same issues.

It's looking like an Android issue

The results of our poll above at the top of this page are pretty telling — 99% of the people who've voted to say they're having problems with the Facebook app are on Android.

According to the Play Store, Facebook's Android app was also updated yesterday on June 17, so that could well be the culprit — although that still isn't official. Still, if the problem is a buggy app update, Meta should be able to push out a fix pretty sharp-ish...

On the mend?

Today's Facebook app issues appear to be improving rapidly — with reports on Downdetector back down to near-baseline levels in the US and UK.

It isn't clear whether Meta has pushed out a fix for the Android app and there's been no official response to the crashing problems that many have experienced, but we're close to calling this one over four hours on from when it started.

The UK has become the latest country to ban social media for under-16s, with Prime Minister Keir Starmer announcing today that "children will be given back their childhoods thanks to government action".

Following Australia's decision to lock teens out of popular social media apps in December 2025, the UK has promised "world-leading additional restrictions" on features like live streaming and strangers communicating with children.

The landmark legislation, which the UK government says is "backed by 9 in 10 parents", is expected to be brought before Parliament before Christmas, and could then come into force in Spring 2027.

So how exactly will the social media ban work, and what does it mean for children in the UK? You can follow all of the latest updates here live...

UK social media ban — a quick primer

Hello, and welcome to our liveblog on the UK's landmark social media ban for under-16s.

We'll be rounding up all of the latest news, reactions and more here today, but first a quick primer on what's happened.

The UK announced the social media ban for under-16s this morning. The statement says that social media is "designed to be addictive" and that the restrictions will give mean "less time for scrolling and more time for play".

The government says it will "use the same model for a social media ban as Australia" and that means the platforms will include Snapchat, TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and X. It won't include private messaging apps likes of WhatsApp and Signal.

If it's passed by Parliament later this year, the ban is expected to come into force from Spring 2027.

Which platforms are affected?

The UK government's statement lists some of the major platforms that will be affected by its proposed ban. These are

• Snapchat
• TikTok
• YouTube
• Instagram
• Facebook
• X

The UK government says that "we do not intend for messaging services like WhatsApp and Signal to be included in the social media ban".

However, there are also planned restrictions for "so-called AI ‘romantic companion’ chatbots – designed to simulate sexual relationships or roleplay with users", which will "have to enforce a minimum age of 18".

The statement adds that "similar intimate functionalities will be restricted for under-18s on AI chatbots more widely".

This is an 'Australia plus' ban

As expected, the UK's proposed social media ban for under-16s is following a so-called 'Australia plus' model. That means it's following the thrust of Australia's legislation by restricting access to social media apps for children, but also adding extra restrictions for platforms that aren't banned.

The UK says this will include "world-leading blocks on harmful functions such as livestreaming and stranger communication with children for under-16s" and will affected "a wider range of online services, including on gaming sites".

And that's not it — the government says it will "also be looking in more detail at overnight curfews and breaks in infinite scrolling for under-18-year-olds". Exactly how this might be implemented isn't clear, which is why Prime Minister Keir Starmer has said the UK will "set out more detail in July".

UK says it will "learn the lessons" of Australia ban

Reports have claimed that Australia's social media isn't proving very effective, with research from the Molly Rose Foundation claiming that over half of under-16 users were still on TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram.

The UK government says it will "learn the lessons from Australia’s experience" by introducing "more highly effective age assurance (HEAA) measures to support compliance, making it far harder for children to bypass safeguards". Exactly what that entails, and how it will be balanced with privacy concerns, isn't yet clear.

Ban is "backed by 9 in 10 parents"

The UK government is pretty confident its social media ban for under-16s has public support and will be passed by Parliament "before Christmas".

It says the announcement follows "one of the biggest national conversations held by this government" with over "116,000 responses submitted by parents, children and experts across the country".

In those responses, "9 in 10 parents said they would support a social media ban for children under 16s", it said. Surprisingly, the government added that most "young people" also backed action" with "two-thirds agreeing that children younger than 16 should not be allowed to use at least some social media platforms".

That said, it didn't clarify exactly what it meant by "young people" and some inevitable controversy will arise more from its implementation than the broader idea.

How will the ban work?

The specifics of how the UK's social media ban will work is down to the country's communications regulator, Ofcom. The government says "Ofcom will conduct a rapid study on what is effective age assurance for verifying whether someone is over 16".

Ofcom has said it's been behind "some of the strongest changes" for online safety regulation, which includes porn sites being required to carry out age checks.

This means the UK social media ban will likely rely on technologies like digital ID and face scans — techniques that'll no doubt kickstart another privacy debate. VPNs will also likely in the spotlight, given their role in allowing people to get around similar blocks.

Not everyone backs the ban

The UK's proposed social media ban for under-16s isn't backed by all experts, despite the government's confidence that it has public support.

Professor David Ellis, Chair of Behavioral Science at the University of Bath and a member of the Institute for Digital Security and Behavior, said: "This ban is based on worry, not evidence. The evidence base as it stands suggests social media has a minuscule effect, if any, on teenagers — particularly once you account for the other factors we know shape childhood development".

"It's also unlikely to be straightforward to enforce, given what we've seen elsewhere, and it risks pushing teenagers towards less regulated parts of the internet," he added. "Worse, it lets social media companies off the hook: they can divert resources away from making platforms safer, despite the fact that many young people will simply remain on them".

Is there more to come?

While the ban is currently aimed at under-16s, Children’s Commissioner Dame Rachel De Souza wants measures extended to 18-year-olds across several key areas.

“Any online service – not just social media, but gaming and other platforms – that uses harmful features should be banned from accessing under-18s unless and until it can prove it is safe.”

‘Harmful features’ is the term being used throughout this process, likely to allow further features to be added in the future should they be deemed applicable. That said, the Commissioner explicitly mentions addictive scrolling, explicit content, and unwanted strangers in her statement.

Measures surrounding under-18s are to be looked into in more detail in July. However, there’s currently nothing to suggest this will extend to a full ban like that enforced today.

Do you need to do anything?

Thankfully, for now, all you need to do is sit tight and wait for new information. The Government has said it will provide details to families and children ahead of the ban's enforcement.

If you're an adult, the ban will likely take a similar shape to the enforcement of the Online Safety Act age verification measures last year. This means that most likely, your account will automatically be deemed to comply if:

• It's been open for 16 years or longer
• it's linked to an email account that can prove you are over 16
• A bank card is associated to the account that can prove your age

Should you be required to verify your age, it will likely use methods including ID checks, facial scanning, or bank card verification.

If you've already verified your age for services as a result of the Online Safety Act, you shouldn't need to do them again either!

Will it work? Parents are split in polling

More responses to the UK government's plan are coming in.

YouGov has just released a poll that shows while 77% of UK parents with children under 18 support the ban (a point over all Britons in general at 76%), only 45% think it will be very or quite effective at curbing social media use.

59% of the population as a whole think the ban will be not very effective at stopping under-16s from using social media.

Greens say offline support is needed

How are the UK's other parties responding to the ban?

The UK's Green Party has said it "welcomes action to address the harms social media can cause to young people. The impact on mental health and online safety is well documented as is the huge concern among parents, teachers and many young people themselves. Stronger safeguards are clearly needed."

However it added, "organisations including the NSPCC and the Molly Rose Foundation have warned that a blanket ban could leave some young people, particularly disabled and LGBTQIA people, more isolated and cut off from support. We also need to see real investment in youth services and creative activities for young people to fill the void that will be created by this ban."

This echoes the words of Lisa Nandy, the UK's Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, who said "Keeping children safe online must go hand in hand with giving them more opportunities offline."

More UK party leaders weigh in

Sentiment among other parties and their leaders is spilt.

Kemi Badenoch, the Conservative party leader, has called the ban "fantastic news," saying it's "an important step in helping parents protect childhood for children."

Meanwhile Liberal Democrat leader Ed Davey noted that while "families have been crying out for action to protect children from harmful social media" he and his party are "really worried that the government hasn't listened, and has instead come up with a half-baked policy that won't keep children safe."

Reform UK leader Nigel Farage doesn't think the ban will work "given the mass adoption of VPNs" adding that this move is "the introduction of Digital ID via the back door." He instead says that "handsets for children with limited features" are the best option — suggesting he's either yet another dumb phone fan, or isn't entirely aware of modern phone's parental controls like the ones Apple just added to iOS 27.

Meta and YouTube respond

Platforms are also sharing their thoughts on the UK's plans.

Speaking to the media a YouTube spokesperson has said "YouTube is a vital resource for young people, educators and parents, external. Blanket bans push kids out of such curated, supervised, beneficial experiences and towards anonymous, less safe services."

Meta (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp) has echoed YouTube's response, adding that any targeted age based restrictions should be done on device "so people aren't asked to hand over ID to dozens of individual services to prove their age.”

How will 16 and 17-year-olds prove their age?

When you're trying to prove you're over 18 there are a few methods like a driver's licence or a credit card check that can be used to verify your age. For people aged 16 or 17 there are fewer options, and we'll need to wait and see what Ofcom proposes they use as details of the UK government's plans are hashed out.

Options they could use include provisional driver's licences, bank account information, or passports if they have them.

Whatever verification method is proposed could go hand-in-hand with the UK's legislation to lower the voting age from 18 to 16 by the next general election.

We have our first viral reaction

The mood in UK classrooms today appears to be somber, as this BBC report captures brilliantly.

First, the reporter asks under-16 students to raise their hands if they support the ban — a request that's inevitably met by stunned silence.

Then, when asked what she will do instead of the nine hours per weekend she typically spends on social media, the student Isabella replies "stare at a wall". It's fair to say this isn't going down well with many — and if you've grown up with social media and use it as a communications tool, that's understandable.

Is the evidence really there?

Is there any scientific evidence that social media use harms the brains of children? Not really, as academics told a Science, Innovation and Technology Committee this week.

Professor Denis Mareschal, who is the director of the Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development at Birkbeck College, said "There is very little, if any, causal research in the early years".

And those views were echoed by University of Cambridge Professor Sarah-Jayne Blakemore, who said that the impact of "digital devices or social media" on adolescent brains amounted to "almost nothing".

That's not to say there's no impact, of course, just that the data doesn't yet support the theory that social media's impact on young brains is causational, not just correlational.

• Read more: Brain experts tell the UK government there's 'very little' scientific evidence that phones are harming kids — but a social media ban is going ahead anyway

Bluesky is also included in the ban

The dust is starting to settle on yesterday's bombshell announcement of a UK social media ban for under-16s — and more details are emerging.

For example, Liz Kendall (Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology) has just confirmed (below) that Bluesky will be included in the age restrictions, as it's on Australia's list of affected apps.

If you want to see the full list of affected apps, check out our guide on 5 things you need to know about the UK social media ban.

• Read more: How will the UK's social media ban actually work? Here's the full list of affected apps — and 5 things you need to know

It's safe to say that Meta had a rough Friday morning, with users unable to access Facebook and WhatsApp shortly before 10AM ET.

The initial issues appear to be concentrated on WhatsApp, where users were reporting that the app's main screen failed to load. However, Facebook ended up bearing the brunt of Meta's issues this morning – I encountered the "something went wrong" error, then the classic logo, and then an empty feed that wasn't loading for a while. Down Detector reports quickly spiked to over 100,000 for Facebook issues and then fell to under 5,000 in the hours after

We tracked the disruptions affecting Facebook, WhatsApp, and other Meta platforms in the live blog below, but the issue has since been resolved, with Meta's status page indicating a resolution has been implemented.

A look at Down Detector

It's clear that many of Meta's platforms are having some issues currently, as you can see at the top of Down Detector in the United States.

Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram are at the top of the list, with the first currently leading with over 120,000 reports.

Right now, I still can't get Facebook on the desktop to load; parts of the interface appear, like the main sidebars, but the actual content is missing. Now, I'm in New Jersey experiencing this, but my TechRadar colleagues in the UK are seeing a similar situation, with some posts appearing and then the feed appearing blank.

Let me know what you're seeing in the comments down below.

It does appear that Meta's engineers and other teams might have figured out the issue pretty quickly, though, as Facebook is again loading for a few of my colleagues, and reports on Down Detector are starting to drop for issues with Facebook and Messenger.

Facebook does appear to be recovering a bit. I was able to load the homepage and saw a few posts in the feed, but when I tried to click into one, I just saw the logo centered and Meta at the bottom, so it appears there might still be some issues with parts of the platform.

Let me know what you're seeing in the comments below.

On iOS, the Facebook app is still experiencing issues, mainly with the top story bar appearing empty and the feed serving older stories. For my colleague Josephine Watson in the UK, she's getting a 'Try Again' error at the top of her feed.

Meta confirms four issues with 'business products'

While Facebook is recovering and loading in a much closer to normal form than what we're seeing closer to the top of the hour, Meta's business products status page is showing an active disruption for 'Facebook Ads Manager,' 'Messenger API for Instagram,' 'Messenger Platform,' and 'WhatsApp Business Platform.'

Suffice it to say, it's clear that the issues affecting Meta span platforms – Facebook, Messenger, and WhatsApp included.

Down Detector reports are dropping

While reported issues with Facebook on Down Detector were over 120,000 nearly an hour ago, that number has fallen pretty sharply as the service has begun to recover. In the last update at 10:47 AM ET on Down Detector, Facebook reports were at 12,286. It's worth noting that it slightly spiked back up, but it's still a massive drop from the height of this issue.

Even so, 12,000 reports are certainly higher than what we normally see on a normal day with Facebook, with no issues.

The embodied internet, the metaverse, the Tron system; however you want to describe this idea of "cyberspace" – first conceptualized by author William Gibson in the 1980s – these virtual worlds haven never truly materialized. When the COVID-19 pandemic locked us up indoors, Mark Zuckerberg thought it was the moment to go all-in on the idea.

From Facebook to Meta

Virtually joining the South by Southwest (SXSW) conference in Austin, Texas, the Facebook founder outlined the dramatic pivot his company had made in October the previous year.

Describing the "metaverse", as he coined it, as the next chapter of the internet seemed intriguing if for a moment, with Zuckerberg adding the company's renewed goal was to "help buil the fundamental tech to bring the metaverse to life".

At the time, this centered around clunky VR headsets, Miiverse-style legless avatars and a Second Life-esque virtual world that we'd all plug into, whether that's during our work lives or social lives.

Despite the bold bet, there were plenty of warning signs that the longevity of the metaverse as a concept would be short-lived, at most, given the pandemic renewed the desire of many millions of people to reconnect with the physical world.

From the metaverse to AI

The fate of the metaverse is, by now, well established. It's dead – sort of anyway – with support for Horizon Worlds hanging by a thread.

After investing tens of billions of dollars into its metaverse division from 2020, funding has been withdrawn to the tune of up to 30% in 2026.

The company is now planning to invest more than $100 billion dollars on the AI buildout – with the company raising its capital expenditure forecast to a range of between $125-145 billion. As to whether there is a future for the metaverse, that all depends on how the next phase of the AI buildout shapes up, according to company executives.

• First trailer for The Social Network sequel, The Social Reckoning, has been released
• Stars Jeremy Strong, Jeremy Allen White and Mikey Madison in leading roles
• Movie explores the 2021 whistleblowing scandal, but release coincides with another whistleblower being 'silenced'

The first trailer for The Social Network sequel, The Social Reckoning, has been released (which you can catch up with below).

Starring Jeremy Strong, Jeremy Allen White and Mikey Madison, the new movie is set to follow the 2021 Facebook internal document leak to the Securities and Exchange Commission and The Wall Street Journal by whistleblower, engineer Frances Haugen.

Described by Sony as a "spiritual successor" to The Social Network rather than a traditional sequel, The Social Reckoning will pick up 17 years after the first film ends with an entirely new cast and swaps director David Fincher for Aaron Sorkin (though Sorkin wrote the original screenplay for both).

The trailer has split fan opinion online, with some praising Strong for his "scarily accurate" portrayal of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, while others have dubbed it "unnecessary" and a "SNL sketch."

If you're somebody who has kept up with Facebook-related news over the first few years, you might have noticed that the timing of the trailer release is particularly interesting.

While it doesn't involve Haugen or anything we'll see in the new movie, another Facebook whistleblower, Sarah Wynn-Williams, has been "silenced" by the company mere days before The Social Reckoning debuted its first look.

The Social Reckoning trailer released days after Facebook whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams 'banned' from promoting Meta expose

Around the same time as The Social Reckoning is beginning to be promoted, Sarah Wynn-Williams, the former Director of Public Policy at Facebook, was 'banned' from promoting her Meta expose book, Careless People: A Story of Where I Used to Work, at the Hay-on-Wye literature and arts Festival on May 31.

Why? With Meta strongly disputing the book’s claims, the company obtained an arbitration ruling in the US ahead of the book’s publication based on an agreement Wynn-Williams signed upon leaving the company.

This means that the author is banned from promoting or publicly discussing the book, with failure to comply with the rules potentially resulting in penalties of up to $50,000 per breach. As a result, Wynn-Williams sat in silence during her entire panel discussion at the festival.

The situation was described by panel host Carole Cadwalladr as “an author in a hostage situation." Copies of the book were removed from sale during the festival over concerns its sale could be tied to Wynn-Williams’ promotion.

For those who cannot wait for The Social Reckoning's release date of October 9, Careless People is a fantastic starting point to begin to get insight into Facebook's whistleblowing scandals (and I'd recommend this as an audiobook on Spotify, Audible and more).

Sales have reportedly increased by 300% since the 'silencing.'

Featured whistleblower Haugen also has a memoir to tide us over while we wait, with The Power of One: How I Found the Strength to Tell the Truth and Why I Blew the Whistle on Facebook being released in 2023.

Mark Zuckerberg has been a pivotal figure in the technology industry, stretching back to his work during the early days of building the Facebook social media network, to his latest AI and metaverse ventures heading up Meta. Chief to Zuckerberg's rise, however, has been a highly contentious philosophy.

Move fast and break things

Although Zuckerberg recited this philosophy at SXSW 2022, it's something he has long voiced, written down, and adhered to over the last couple of decades in different guises – stretching back to the early 2010s. The quote promotes the idea that rapid product development and disruption are more valuable than caution.

Where did it come from? "Move fast" was one of Facebook's core tenets, according to a 2012 letter to possible investors. Some years later, a 2018 documentary The Facebook Dilemma, by Frontline, showed footage of a younger Zuckerberg outlining similar thoughts to college students. It's something that's stayed with the CEO throughout his career, and continues to be at the heart of Meta's decision-making today.

Although Mark Zuckerberg has undergone something of a transformation in recent years, it's a philosophy that's remained remarkably consistent.

Picking up the pieces

The notion of moving fast and breaking things felt appealing in the early part of the 21st century when the product in question, Facebook, was extremely popular, growing fast, and continued to bring benefits to millions around the world.

Around the time that Zuckerberg was immortalized in film, the sheen began wearing off, and issues with this philosophy began materializing. This is especially true when you consider the way that social media, and related systems, began to reshape the world. Scandals and controversies, including Cambridge Analytica, Myanmar, and the widely debated impact on youth mental health, have dominated the discourse around Facebook.

It's little wonder that Aaron Sorkin, who wrote The Social Network, is framing a sequel in a way that exposes Facebook and Zuckerberg's role in overseeing and failing to fix "flaws that cause harm".

• Meta's MCI program rolling out, but workers are still unhappy about it
• Concerns raised over potential impacts on job prospects
• Temporary 30-minute pauses can be requested

Facebook parent company Meta has started rolling out a new workplace monitoring system that tracks employees' activity, including keyboard activity and total time spent on work devices.

Though the company cited security and data privacy as core drivers for the tracking, Meta faced backlash from workers over, ironically, their privacy.

However, in response to complaints, workers can temporarily disable monitoring in 30-minute increments.

Meta will grant exemptions to workplace monitoring software

Under the policy, workers must actively request an exemption, but only when they're handling activities they believe shouldn't be monitored.

While this may provide momentary respite, workers are still unhappy about the extent of employee monitoring and whether all workers fully understand what data is being collected. Beyond that, there's also concern that productivity metrics could be incorporated into performance reviews, potentially impacting workers' chances of promotions and pay rises.

Meta instead framed it as a chance to monitor any potential data exfiltration, particularly with the rising use of AI within the company.

"While we remain confident in the privacy protections we put in place at launch, which went through several layers of risk review, we have heard your concerns about personal data on work devices, battery life, and wanting more control over when capturing happens," Superintelligence Labs VP Stephane Kasriel said in an internal memo.

The tool will also be used to provide real-time data and use case examples to the AI systems Meta is developing itself, too – Model Capability Initiative (MCI) is the name being given to the program.

• Whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams silenced from discussing book at 2026 Hay Festival
• Meta obtained an arbitration ruling due to prior exit agreement – penalties up to $50k
• Concerns raised about "private censorship” despite Meta’s pro-free speech stance

Introduced by journalist and long-time Meta critic Carole Cadwalladr at the 2026 Hay Festival, former Facebook exec and whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams was forced to sit in silence on stage while others discussed her book outlining allegations against the company.

Described by Cadwalladr as “an author in a hostage situation,” Wynn-Williams’ appearance was tied to recent launch of her book, ‘Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism’, which details her years inside Facebook and contains allegations about company culture, exec conduct and other internal decisions.

With Meta strongly disputing the book’s claims, the company obtained an arbitration ruling in the US ahead of the book’s publication based on an agreement Wynn-Williams signed upon leaving the company.

Arbitration ruling silences ex-Facebook exec and whistleblower

As a result of the ruling, the former Facebook exec of seven years has been banned from promoting or publicly discussing the book, hence sitting in silence at the literature and arts festival.

Failure to comply with the rules could see the author face penalties of up to $50,000 per breach.

Interestingly, while Wynn-Williams’ silence has been enforced since the book went into publication in 2025, its publisher remains free to distribute the piece, and Meta has not yet sought to close that down.

The festival’s organizers and attendees took the letter of the law so seriously that copies of the book were removed from sale during the event over concerns its sale could be tied to Wynn-Williams’ promotion.

Among the former Director of Public Policy’s allegations are that the company pursued access to the Chinese market by developing censorship-related tools that aligned with the government’s requirements; that company leadership undermined publicly stated free-speech principles; and that internal decisions prioritized growth over ethics.

Meta’s opposing stance

Community forums have since sparked discussion in support of the author, with one commenter referencing the company’s long-time public stance on defending free speech.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg previously stated: “You should be able to say things that other people don't like, but you shouldn't be able to say things that put people in danger.”

Former White House technology advisor and author of ‘The Age of Extraction: How Tech Platforms Conquered the Economy and Threaten Our Future Prosperity’ Tim Wu also argued that the issue is no longer whether what Wynn-Williams claims is true or false, but rather that powerful companies can use contractual and arbitration mechanisms to suppress discussion in what’s being dubbed “private censorship.”

“Any authoritarian regime naturally gravitates towards silencing its critics and what we have here is the silencing of a critic,” Wu said.

During Wynn-Williams’ on-stage appearance alongside Wu, Cadwalladr joked: “I think this might be a Hay first, in which we have an author in a hostage situation.”

“There is a binding interim arbitration award against Ms Wynn-Williams which she agreed to during her time at Meta and which explicitly prohibits her from promoting her book,” the company said. “We are entitled to ask that the terms of that order be observed.”

This is how it starts. Someone adds the word "Plus" to a familiar service. Plus sounds like more, but somehow it's almost always a harbinger of less: less access, fewer features unless you pay. The collection of Plus-sized social media platforms — Facebook Plus, Instagram Plus, WhatsApp Plus — all cheerfully introduced this week by Meta's Head of Product Naomi Gleit, is, despite what Meta might claim, likely the first step in a short path to reduced access to the core features of these popular social media platforms.

Gleit positions the change in her Instagram video as "building value" and delivering "enhanced features that our community already loves."

The Plus-sized services are, Gleit says on Facebook, rolling out today and should offer "premium features that unlock more from our apps and our AI glasses." The only tangible change, though, may be Meta AI falling in step with many of its generative AI competitors, and adding more capacity, the ability to handle more complex requests, and "more room to create." Sure, this is fuzzy, at best, lacking details like how many daily/monthly processing tokens or even how many prompts.

In fact, there are precious few details about what any of these Plus tiers (according to Techcrunch, will cost between $2.99 and $3.99 a month in the US) might offer. This means we can only look to how other digital platforms have introduced Plus-like tiers and what it's meant for consumer access.

If we were to look at streamers, the answer is clear and not encouraging.

Virtually every streaming platform sliced up its offerings to add a more affordable but ad-stuffed tier. In the case of Amazon, it took the more draconian measure and simply converted existing Amazon Prime Video customers to the ad tier. If you wanted to return to your original ad-free experience, you pay more.

Or look at Garmin and its Connect+ service, where it seems all the best analytical features are behind the subscription curtain.

As I've written before, we're now knee deep in tech subscription service culture, where companies unveil new products where key features are only available if you're willing to pay a never-ending monthly service fee.

The concern for Meta's Plus plan is that there are countless social media and communication features we depend on that could, without notice, suddenly fall under Plus.

WhatsApp's end-to-end encryption is a good example. It's a core, longtime, and laudable feature that is possibly the reason millions use it. What if encryption eventually ends up falling under WhatsApp Plus? I bet it would happen quietly, with a notice hidden in your email, or an unread WhatsApp message.

On Facebook, you could lose the ability to post more than three photos in a post, or maybe only Facebook Plus subscribers can post more than three public posts in a day.

Similarly, Instagram is ripe to shift key features like longer Reels, saving Stories, or Direct Messages under a Plus banner.

If you miss some of these features, there will be Meta One, a buy-one-get-all Plus bundle. The social media giant is only testing this idea, but it will surely be the answer to those frustrated by all they lost and looking for a more affordable way to claw it all back. So for one slightly lower price, you get it all (and probably a little more).

An upside

,Meta's Plus plan might not be all bad. I think many of us still grudgingly use Facebook because old friends are still on there, and it's the only place we get and share birthday messages. No one is thrilled with the ads or constant prompts to follow people we don't know or to join groups where we have at best a passing interest. Then there's the content itself, which is filled with AI garbage, hot takes, and misinformation.

What if Facebook Plus could be an ad-free and more curated experience? Could the premium tier ban, at your request, all AI?

If Instagram Plus were a custom-built service where you choose the feed, creating the perfect algorithm (or no algorithm at all) and pick and choose which features you want, that might be a social media platform worth paying for.

Let's get real

Unfortunately, I don't think Meta's subscription plan will ultimately work this way. As a signal, I look to Gleit's comments about Creators. For the promise of Plus or premium, they get:

• More tools
• Enhanced presence
• Automated tasks
• The ability to protect their brand.

I'm confused. Aren't all these things part of the base, free versions of Instagram and Facebook? Why would a creator suddenly have to pay to "protect their brand?"

Even if free protections remain strong, I'm sure Meta will pitch "enhanced protections" that many creators will want.

As it is, Instagram and Facebook's free versions don't do a great job of protecting identity. There are always fake versions of celebrities, and I've heard of people losing their valuable accounts and getting virtually no support from Meta when they try to reclaim them.

What's next

While we wait for details of Meta's Plus plan to emerge, I think we have to prepare for the worst. Services are an undeniably attractive business. People pay for access to their favorite platform or features, and they pay every single month. Once they're subscribed, they rarely peel off, even when you slightly raise the prices.

Just look at Apple, which long had a services business, but has grown it into a substantial multi-billion dollar piece of its revenue pie.

With billions of users around the globe, Meta's subscription business opportunity is enormous, and I'm guessing it felt it had to do this to ensure revenue growth, especially as people begin to wonder if they need to spend less time online and more time touching grass.

• A Meta-owned cloud business would be "definitely on the table"
• Continued data center expansion will fuel the firm's ongoing AI efforts
• All compute is allocated, but any future surplus could be sold on to customers

At its annual shareholders' meeting, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has revealed that a cloud business could be "definitely on the table" as the company continues to build out its data center footprint to support AI programs.

If Meta were to go down the cloud computing route, it would have to go up against very established hyperscalers. Amazon's business already occupies a third of the market, and Microsoft and Google jointly own another third.

Zuckerberg ultimately noted that, if Meta ends up with a surplus of compute infrastructure as part of its ongoing AI efforts, it could sell or rent that extra capacity to external customers.

Meta would consider selling excess compute via a cloud business

"Almost every week there are different companies that come to us from outside asking us to both stand up an API service or asking if we have compute that they could buy from us at some premium to what we've bought it at," he added.

Although the company doesn't currently sell cloud to customers, it continues to spend big on artificial intelligence. AI-related capex for 2026 is now estimated to be between $125 billion and $145 billion. That's only a touch behind the capex estimates of Google parent company Alphabet ($175 billon to $185 billion), Microsoft ($190 billion) and Amazon ($200 billion).

Zuckerberg explained the reason that Meta hasn't launched its own cloud compute yet is that it currently has a use for all of the capacity it's set to build, but that the company has confidence in continued investments because if it weren't to use all of that capacity, it could ultimately sell it on to customers.

• Malwarebytes warned of a Facebook scam targeting users over 40 with fake Aldi meat box offers
• Victims are funneled through spoofed landing pages and games before being asked for PII and credit card details
• Researchers caution that such posts are designed for phishing and fraud, urging skepticism toward “too good to be true” social media deals

Security researchers Malwarebytes have warned of an ongoing scam on Facebook attempting to steal personally identifiable information (PII), as well as credit card data, from people aged 40 and above.

In this bizarre scam, a Facebook user (likely a compromised, or fake account) claims that people over 40 years old can get an Aldi meat box for under $10, as long as they fill out a form and sign up for a service.

“Sounds crazy, but it actually worked,” the post reads. “They’re clearing out excess stock and, instead of throwing it away, they’re basically letting people have it for next to nothing. All I did was fill out a short form.”

Spoofing Aldi

That form, the user claims, took about a minute to fill it out. They wrapped up the post by saying the worst thing that could happen is “you lose a minute.”

But according to Malwarebytes’ Pieter Arntz, people can lose a lot more than just a minute of their time. After clicking the provided link, the researcher first had his device fingerprinted, after which he was redirected to a spoofed Aldi landing page.

The page displayed a fake gift box game (like the ones often seen on Temu) and after “winning” the game (the page is designed so that the victim can’t really lose), he was redirected again, this time to a page where he was asked to provide more details.

The crooks asked for everything: names, addresses, phone numbers, and even credit card information to pay for the meat box and faster delivery.

“If a post promises a box of premium meat for the price of a sandwich, assume it is a scam until you can prove otherwise,” Arntz concluded. He also shared an extensive list of red flags found in the post, as well as a checklist on how to make sure you’re not getting scammed on social media.

As with all such online scams - if it seems to good to be true, then it probably is - especially with BBQ season still a few weeks away.

• Meta's Model Capability Initiative installs mouse tracking software on company-issued PCs
• User activity is monitored to train future AI models to autonomously control computers
• Workers fear that future AI systems could replace human jobs

Employees at Meta have started protesting against the company's rollout of mouse tracking software being deployed on work devices – but it's not entirely for privacy reasons.

Facebook's parent company is reportedly installing software that monitors mouse movements, clicks, keystrokes, menu and dropdown navigation and even what's on users' screens, and it's all said to be in aid of training AI agents to perform real-world computer tasks more naturally.

Consequentially, workers are now fighting back against this move over concerns that they're effectively helping train AI systems that could eventually replace members of the workforce.

Meta's mouse tracking criticized for fuelling potential job cuts

Now, according to Reuters, posters are appearing across Meta's offices asking 'Don't want to work at the Employee Data Extraction Factory?'.

"If we're building agents to help people complete everyday tasks using computers, our models need real examples of how people actually use them," Meta spokesperson Andy Stone explained.

The Model Capability Initiative (MCI) was revealed in an April 22 memo internally, and promised an opportunity for "all Meta employees [to] help [its] models get better simply by doing their daily work."

However, reports suggest there is no opt-out for employees using company-issued devices, giving them no say in the matter.

The timing of this isn't insignificant – we already know Meta is set to lay off around 10% of its workers (or 8,000 individuals) this month.

"Meta’s workers are paying the price for management’s ⁠reckless and expensive bets," United Tech and Allied Workers (UTAW) organizer Eleanor Payne added.

"While executives chase speculative AI strategies, staff are facing devastating job cuts, draconian surveillance, and the cruel reality of being forced to train the inefficient systems being positioned to replace them."

• New AI tools for verifying ages are being rolled out by Meta
• Instagram and Facebook is for users aged 13+
• A "visual analysis" will weigh up height and bone structure

Age verification for sites, apps, and devices is fast becoming the norm as regulators look to protect children from potentially harmful content — including content on social media. Now Meta has announced new "age assurance measures" for teen users and predictably, they are powered by AI.

Specifically, the system will use contextual clues associated with a profile (such as mentions of birthdays or school grades) together with a "visual analysis" to help figure out how old a user is.

"We want to be clear: this is not facial recognition," says Meta. "Our AI looks at general themes and visual cues, for example height or bone structure, to estimate someone's general age; it does not identify the specific person in the image."

Users suspected of being too young for Facebook and Instagram (so under 13) will have their accounts deactivated. They'll then need to provide some form of proof of age through a specific age verification process to get their account back.

'Safe, positive experiences online'

Other Facebook and Instagram users can report accounts that they think are being used by kids under the age of 13, and Meta says it hopes to "significantly increase the number of underage accounts we identify and remove" through these methods.

"We want young people to have safe, positive experiences online," says Meta (though some would disagree). "For over a decade, we've built tools, features, and resources to help teens have safe, age-appropriate experiences on our apps."

Similar AI techniques are already being used to spot teenagers on Meta's platforms, and shepherd them into teen-appropriate spaces on these platforms. This tech is now expanding into more regions (including Facebook in the US and the UK).

Meta's announcement ends with a familiar call that we've heard before from the developers of apps and websites: to force age verification at the device level, so it's a problem for Apple, Google, and Microsoft rather than Meta.

Trash on the street, noise, pollution, graffiti, and belligerent dogs: these all might be considered public nuisances. New Mexico, however, hopes to convince a jury that Meta's Facebook and Instagram fall under that designation and should be penalized accordingly.

I won't argue that Meta's products have proven in their 20-year history to be something of a challenge for humans. What started as a fun, casual way to connect has, in some instances, become the very foundation of how people view themselves and others. They are the pipeline for information (real and fake) and, in the case of Facebook, the single place where we wish someone a happy birthday.

No one envisioned, though, that they would have, for some, a powerful effect on our psyche, and especially for the youngest among us. What we see, hear, and read shapes us and our worldview.

How did we get here

Certainly, Mark Zuckerberg never envisaged that his college "The Facebook" would someday influence Presidential Elections.

However, when Zuckerberg and other tech leaders realized the magnetic power of these systems and how they could suck in eyeballs and drive advertising dollars, they woke up to both the potential for growth and the ever-present risk of losing visitors.

Things like infinite scroll, autoplay, and especially algorithms were designed not just to tailor experiences to your individual tastes, but to hook you and hold your attention for as long as possible (and to serve you as many ads as possible).

Again, by my estimation, there was no understanding that those same tools would prove so toxic to one of Meta's key audiences.

Meta was not necessarily targeting children or tweens, but that cohort was certainly on the platforms (and it never hurt Meta that teens would grow into adults with buying power) and lacked the maturity and skills to know when to turn them off or to take what was being presented as real with a grain of salt.

In truth, many adults still lack these abilities. They're fed a steady mix of fact and fiction, truth and hyperbole. Recently, a relative I consider intelligent told me with certainty that the recent White House Correspondents' Dinner attempted assassination was staged. There's no evidence it was, but the chatter on Facebook and fake media outlets that live there told her it was so.

Has Meta done enough?

It's in this light that we view Metas' impact on those adults, but especially these minors.

Meta has done what it thinks it can to prevent kids and teens from having the wrong kinds of experiences on the platform.

It's using AI to ferret out kids and teens posing as adults and shunting the minors to a limited experience — and in that experience, parental oversight that puts the control in adult hands.

All that, though, may not be enough

After losing the first part of a big case last month, which focused less on the content on these platforms and more on how Meta willfully built them to capture and hold attention, Meta is now facing that Public Nuisance charge, which New Mexico wants to use to force Meta to make these changes:

• Age verification
• Redesign recommendation algorithm
• End autoplay (for those under 18)
• End infinite scroll (for those under 18)
• $3.7B to support future teen mental health services in New Mexico

Meta has naturally argued that these changes are technically infeasible. I kind of doubt that, but they could be, at scale, at least, financially infeasible.

Look at that last bit where New Mexico is trying to get tens of billions of dollars from Meta to cover future teen mental health costs. I have no doubt the true costs could be that expensive, but what if New Mexico wins? The 40-or-so other Attorney Generals-sponsored cases against Meta would try to follow suit, and suddenly, Meta has a bill in the hundreds of billions.

You can see why Meta is going to fight. But the momentum appears to have swung away from the social media company, and it could very well lose this case.

Meta's answer, by the way, would be to pull out of New Mexico, something that I'm sure will upset many in New Mexico, especially some Instagram-addicted teens.

If New Mexico wins, it will also affix the label of public nuisance to Facebook and Instagram. I can't say I agree with that. I'm sometimes annoyed by the platforms, but there are other times, like my birthday, when I appreciate it. It's also worth noting that whatever happens with Meta will impact all other social media that operates in New Mexico and, likely before long, the rest of the US.

I agree, Facebook is frustrating, sometimes upsetting, but also part of our culture and, for better or worse, who we are as a society. It has connected people across oceans and could still do that in the future. I expect change to come, and I don't know if they should all be on Meta's terms, but I would be cautious about stamping it all with a label we'll struggle to remove.

As a tech journalist, I'm pretty much always online. With that sometimes comes certain habits that are not necessarily conducive to either productivity or mental health. I'm pretty sure most people would relate to that statement, regardless of profession, to say the least.

My current bugbear? It's definitely my social media usage. Like many others, I've been scrutinizing my own habits in the wake of the increasing public backlash around social media. Ethics and morality aside, my conclusion was pretty simple - I'm just wasting too much time on these apps.

In short, I'm sick of the distractions, and, as a Millennial, I'm old enough to remember when I wasn't just mindlessly scrolling on a screen. I'm old enough to remember when Facebook was just a twinkle in Mark Zuckerberg's eye, in fact.

Subsequently, this past month or so, I've been on a real drive to get my online habits in shape. The results, after a strong start, have been... mixed.

Diagnosing the issue

To be honest, I've never really cared for Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok. I've always thought LinkedIn was quite lame, and X/Twitter is obviously a cesspit to be avoided at all costs. I've always steered pretty clear of all the usual suspects with a kind of haughty pride, all the while ignoring my own ballooning Reddit and YouTube usage.

I've noticed (ironically, while scrolling through these apps) that people tend to give these platforms a kind of 'soft pass' when it comes to categorizing what's harmful and what isn't. Self-help sub-Reddits and YouTube vids are full of stories about 'digital detoxes' without a hint of irony. Perhaps I'm too critical here, but in my experience, these apps are just as addictive as the others.

And when you work on your home PC, as I do most of the time, it's exceptionally easy to get distracted, regardless of the app. A five-minute check for updates or news can turn into half an hour of scrolling through completely irrelevant content. Before you know it, you've wasted significant time with nothing to show for it.

Of course, we all have slow days, but I can't ignore that over the past few years, I've found it increasingly difficult to focus on all sorts of tasks. Even things that have usually held my interest, like say, reading a book, have been increasingly difficult. It's usually not long before I find myself scrolling Reddit or Google Discover.

If it were just eating into my productivity or my free time, then I could live with a little scrolling. The issue, for me, is that it distracts me from things I love to do, like reading or playing guitar. Even when I specifically schedule time out to do these things, I usually find myself distracted.

The first few weeks

From my previous attempts at quitting various things (namely caffeine), I knew that cold turkey was going to be the best approach. For some people, gradually reducing usage is effective, but it's never worked for me at all. I usually opt for the 'walk away and sweat it out' approach (admittedly, with varied results).

So, I resolved on a pretty simple path. Close all Reddit and YouTube tabs on my browser, delete the apps on my phone, and then just 'do other things'. The things in this case are my job, my hobbies, reading physical books, and so on. It's a crude approach, admittedly, but I was hoping that a bit of discipline would do most of the work while the dopamine slowly drained from my brain.

For the first few days, the approach did actually seem to be working, too. Aside from the expected boredom and restlessness, the difference was stark immediately. With no 'easy' options to fill space, suddenly I felt as if I had a lot more free time.

More work was getting done, I was enjoying my hobbies more, and even my apartment was looking a lot tidier. So far, so good - it felt like significant progress was being made here. Even better still, I wasn't even missing Reddit.

Where I went wrong

So why am I writing this? Well, obviously, I fell off the wagon. Just a month later, I'm almost back at square one, albeit with a resolve to curb my usage again.

Where things started going pear-shaped was about week two or three. I was enjoying recording music in my free time so much that I decided to pick up a new bass. This seemingly innocent decision is where I made a critical error.

In researching what to buy, I did what anyone would do - start with a simple Google search.

Cue a host of results with Reddit threads and YouTube videos detailing a whole list of products. Anyway, you can imagine how things went from here. Reading threads and watching videos 'strictly for research' turned into checking out the front pages for relevant content. Almost subconsciously, I found myself falling into the old routine of mindlessly scrolling through Reddit without much thought.

Editorial sites like TechRadar are increasingly being squeezed out of search results in favor of social media, which might be good or bad, depending on your viewpoint. Regardless, it makes it increasingly tricky to find information without being pulled into the swirling pool of social media. These sites permeate so many platforms now.

Although I'm more or less back at square one now, I do have a much clearer perspective of where to go from here. For one, I'll make sure I don't violate my self-imposed ban for any reason whatsoever (even when 'researching' products). Secondly, I think I'll book some time off work in the not-too-distant future to get some quality time away from my screen.

I'm wary of the term 'digital detox' because it reminds me of some kind of self-help fad, but in this case, I'm sure some time away from screens would massively help set habits straight. Fewer distractions, less nonsense content, and hopefully, more time to focus on the things that actually matter.

It's hard to find anyone who doesn't believe that too much social media is a bad thing. Social media companies now urge you to take breaks, and even Apple's Tim Cook, whose ultra-popular iPhone hosts all these platforms' apps, wants people to look less at their phones and more at other human beings. Now, though, the courts have weighed in, and Meta and YouTube just lost a landmark case that could take casual concern and make it tangible in the form of fundamental changes to how we view and use social media.

On Wednesday, an LA Superior Court Jury ruled in favor of a 20-year-old plaintiff who claimed that Meta and YouTube were negligent and that their platforms caused her mental health issues. It's one of many such cases popping up around the US, and less than 24 hours earlier, Meta lost a case in New Mexico, which claimed that Meta's apps failed to protect users from online predators. Even though these cases are not connected in the courts, the pair of them may point to some rapidly changing attitudes toward social media and its use.

This LA case, which originally also included TikTok and Snap (they settled out of court) is more notable since, by not focusing on the content that might have led to harm but on how the systems are built (algorithms that keep you engaged, endless scrolls, notificatons to return), the case skirted around the US's long-standing Section 230 (part of the US 1996 Communications Decency Act) that essentially protects these platforms from the content that third-party individuals' post on them. So, unlike a publisher that might be liable for a story in their newspaper, YouTube is not directly liable for false and inflammatory remarks made in a YouTube video.

In this case, the content that might have influenced the plaintiff's body dysmorphia is immaterial. What matters is that Instagram and YouTube felt inescapable because of how they work.

Let's not be naive

Whether or not that's true (yes, the jury believes it is), what we should be able to agree on is that the algorithms in Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok are powerful, and personalized to even your most fleeting interests. They're not just measuring if you actively click on a like button. They can see time spent, where you paused, commented, and other metrics that tell them how you feel about that content. More positive signals will lead to you seeing more of that content, even if it's not good for you. Just last year, Instagram added a tool to let you curate your own algorithm.

If you have notifications on, these platforms will reach out and try to pull you back in. There's also the social construct around them. Our cultural language is now intertwined with social media; to be off of it is to be wildly out of touch. That's not something a teen feels they can afford to do.

One of the questions here, and I don't know that this case makes it clear, is if Meta and YouTube are being held negligent for not knowing what their systems were doing or if they willfully designed systems, as some reports have alleged, and algorithms that would keep us coming back and on platform as long as possible, serving you whatever content engaged you most and not discerning between healthy and unhealthy content.

Cases like this make me feel for the affected teens, and how they must've felt trapped by the content and their response to it. I know that Meta and YouTube argued that the harm this young woman felt was tied to her home life and not their platforms. I would guess that played a part.

The role parents play

Which leads me to think about parents and guardians. Before any of us understood the impact of these platforms, most of us threw up our hands and "let teens be teens." Social media wasn't for us, although now many adults are just as addicted to it as teens.

I've often counseled parents on how they can't leave their kids alone with phones, tablets, and social media. These tiny screens are doorways to a vast and unknowable world, often featuring content, ideas, and people they are not ready to handle.

Post-millennial teens (let's just call them 'digital natives') are often smarter than their parents about technology, running rings around their rules and creating fake Instagrams (Finstagrams) to hide what they were really doing on the platform: parents saw the main Instagram account, their friends saw their real lives in Finstagram.

It took more than a decade for Meta, YouTube, and others to admit that these platforms needed to offer parents some modicum of control.

They moved slowly at first, but in the last few years, Meta has become particularly aggressive, even applying AI to identify potential teens on the Instagram and then automatically shifting them into more limited access (yes, I've heard of adults who've been swept up in this automation, but then I have to ask, why does an AI think you're a teen? What are you doing on there?).

What's next

Meta is appealing in New Mexico and will surely appeal this case, as well. But a loss like this could be the beginning of a landslide where Meta, YouTube, TikTok, and others suffer more losses and have no choice but to rewrite algorithms (what if they have to insert content they know you'll dislike after every fifth post?), pause or limit auto scrolling for everyone, and remove everyone under 18 from these platforms.

That's also all unlikely but not impossible. It's hard to imagine these platforms emerging unscathed. The sentiment has changed. Action will be warranted.

At the same time, they cannot afford to lose their teen user bases. Meta and YouTube need these younger users because they will eventually become their adult customers with buying power. Most of Meta's revenue still comes from advertising, which is somewhat effective on kids and teens, but far more impactful for adults with money in their pockets.

Change is coming, but I can't conceive yet how it will manifest; I just know it's coming.

• Mark Zuckerberg spoke at the LA social media addiction trial
• He defended Meta's approach to protecting teen users
• The plantiff's lawyer argued Meta was targeting teens for platform growth

Meta's focus might look to be more on AI and smart glasses than the social media platforms which saw it rise to prominence, but errors its accused of making with regards to keeping teens safe online could affect the whole company, and the whole tech industry.

To catch you up to speed, Meta and YouTube are currently involved in a social media addiction trial being held in Los Angeles, which pits the duo against a plaintiff accusing the companies of intentionally creating damagingly addictive platforms.

It’s one of thousands of similar lawsuits that have been filed against social media giants, which are attempting to argue that platform features rather than platform content have created negative addictive tendencies in younger users. Social media content is protected by the infamous Section 230 federal rule, which shields platforms from liability for the user-generated content on their sites, but lawyers for the plaintiff argue the law doesn’t protect features like infinite scroll.

The trial started a little over a week ago, and after opening arguments from lawyers for each side, key figures are taking the stand, including, recently, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

Zuckerberg defended the actions of his company, saying that, while he regrets Meta not making faster progress in its efforts to identify users under 13, the teams working on platforms like Facebook and Instagram have spent years addressing “problematic use” because “it’s the right thing to do” (via the BBC).

This includes adding features such as daily use limits, usage alerts, and the ability to switch notifications off in the evening and overnight.

He was, however, questioned about various internal messages, such as one in 2017 which sees an executive saying “Mark has decided the top priority for the company is teens," and another from 2015 in which Zuckerberg and others discuss strategies to increase "teen usage."

Zuckerberg was also asked about a 2019 research report from an independent company done on behalf of Instagram, which said teen users had "an addicts' narrative about their Instagram use."

More than a social media trial?

As we've discussed in previous articles about this ongoing story, the verdict made in this trial could have major ramifications for social media companies. There are thousands of similar lawsuits making their way through the US courts that would take precedent from the decisions made here, and a negative result for Meta and YouTube could embolden more governments to introduce or tighten social media restrictions for younger users, following the lead of Australia.

But for both of these companies, a negative result – or even simply a negative result in the court of public opinion – could impact not only their past mistakes but their future projects too.

Both Meta and Google, the parent of YouTube, are currently pushing hard into AI and wearables with Ray-Ban Meta glasses and Android XR. Smart glasses are the big new thing in tech, and there are rumors that Meta might finally launch a smart watch to compete with Android and Apple bands, but these gadgets can give these companies a lot of insight into our lives and our physical health.

A recent New York Times report has suggested Meta wants to add facial recognition to its specs, and numerous wearables brands have dreamed up visions of glasses that can remind you where you left your keys before you leave home. But these features only work effectively if your tech is always watching your every move, listening to all your conversations, and deeply involved in your life.

If the perception (even if the trial’s verdict disputes it) is that Meta and YouTube – and by extension Google – misuse social media data to get people hooked on their tech, I imagine folks wouldn’t be keen to hand over even more data to these companies through wearables.

Equally, if Meta and YouTube can prove they have done everything they can to keep users safe, then that could help convince people that their wearables are the safest option in this new AI/AR wild west.

This is a case we’ll be following closely, though with the trial still underway, and appeals likely to follow, don't expect a final decision to be made any time soon.

The question of whether we'll be uploading our consciousness to a computer is no longer if. It's probably when. That's because these digital consciousnesses – our essences – will likely be the product of an AI's interpretation of ourselves. The breadcrumbs we'll leave across digital files, images, videos, audio recordings, and, of course, all that social media will be an ample resource to reconstruct you.

The idea is not new, but in recent months it's gathered fresh steam as companies like Meta look at ways to formalize the process. According to Business Insider (as spotted by Dexerto), Meta is trying to patent a process for using a large language model (LLM) to recreate a persona on social media after the person has died.

Currently, Meta lets you "memorialize" a deceased relative's account, essentially cryo-freezing the account and all its posts in perpetuity. I support this process, since I think it's quite similar to the dusty photo album you have on the shelf that features photos of Gramma, Grandpa, and other long-lost relatives, all frozen in time at the beach, on a walk, playing with their grandkids, and generally living their lives.

The new plan, though, could be something different. Imagine this version of the account as a personalized AI agent, capable of posting, responding, reacting, chatting, and commenting in ways that mimic how a living Facebook member would.

Instead of imagining Grandma at home on her comfy couch, peering over bifocals as she carefully pecks out a response to the artwork her grandchild just posted on Instagram, think of a server with a process that notices a post in the now deceased grandma's network feed. It doesn't post right away because Grandma never did. Instead, it waits an average of one to several weeks (Grandma used to like posts from as far back as a year) and then adds her signature heart and cake emojis (no one ever figured out why Grandma kept posting cake emojis).

That post might give you a fleeting warm feeling before you remember Grandma's been gone for a year.

A patent but not a plan

Meta isn't, the report notes, implementing this patent. In fact, there's no direct evidence they'll ever do it, aside from the fact that Meta might invest $140B in AI this year alone, and the company, like OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, and Anthropic, is in a fast-paced, intense AI race. Leaving this capability on the table, when others might race to implement it, seems like a strategic mistake, and one I'm not sure Meta is willing to make.

Even if Meta chooses to steer clear, nothing will stop AI's progress in this realm. AI Time promises that AI's replicant capabilities today will be nothing compared to what we see in a few months.

Today's AI is already proving quite adept at recreating voices, images, and videos of living and dead people. Just this month, ByteDance's Seedance achieved new, disturbing levels of vermiseltude.

Death is just a state of an AI mind

On the other side of all these stunning AI advancements is humanity's own obsession with mortality. Death remains a taboo subject, largely because no one knows what comes after, and, for the living, the loss and absence of loved ones is an immutable pain.

It's probably why there are so many books about death, dying, and the afterlife. There's also a long, still-growing list of sci-fi movies and TV shows about eternal life, including Self/Less, Transcendence, and Upload.

In 2014's rather prescient Transcendence, Johnny Depp is a scientist who is fatally wounded and has his consciousness uploaded to an AI by a desperate lover (and fellow scientist). As you might expect, things go awry: Depp's AI consciousness grows too powerful and eventually leads to the destruction of all technology.

I don't think we're headed down that path (at least not yet), but I'm now convinced that, while the idea of extending life through a digital simulacrum sounds distasteful today, it may be de rigueur in the not-too-distant future.

The desire to reconnect with lost loved ones is, I'd argue, stronger than our need to keep AI at bay. Even knowing that the entity on the other side of the conversation is nothing more than a highly complex set of 1's and 0's won't matter. If the AI can recreate the nuance, the mannerisms, vocal tics, and virtual empathy of their lost loved one, that will be enough for some people.

Is it escapable?

We've already made our first timid steps into this space, connecting with AI therapists and falling for AI partners. These people know that none of these AIs are real and that the love and compassion are, well, artificial. But like an artificial sweetener, it still makes you feel the same way.

Connecting with AI versions of deceased relatives will feel no different. And, while deleting Facebook might help, trying to avoid it by deleting all social media is probably a Quixotic effort. We've already filled the system with our lives. They know us, and you can't scrub that training. What's more, AI has so infiltrated society that they no longer need social media posts to learn who we are, what we do, and how we act. AI's myriad and growing touchpoints across society mean they have ample opportunity to learn the ins and outs of you.

And when it's your time, they will have an AI version of you at the ready, whether or not anyone wants to talk to it.

• French MPs voted to pass a social media ban for minors into law
• It isn't law yet; it must first pass through France's Senate
• Once enacted, under-15s would no longer be able to access social platforms

French MPs just voted 116-23 in favor of a social media ban aimed at minors – in what is being heralded as a “major step” towards protecting kids and teenagers online.

As you can imagine, not everyone is happy with the proposed rules.

The bill hasn’t been passed into law yet – France’s Senate must also approve it, and some wonder if it will be blocked under European law after a similar bill was stopped in 2023 – but it follows in the footsteps of similar rules we’ve been seeing in Australia, the United Kingdom, and some US states.

Speaking in a video broadcast about the bill, French President Emmanuel Macron said, “The emotions of our children and teenagers are not for sale or to be manipulated, either by American platforms or Chinese algorithms” – clear references to the likes of Instagram, X, and TikTok.

Once introduced, these and other social media services will need to verify the age of French users or bar them from accessing content. Given that some kind of age verification system may be coming at the European level, France will probably be just the first EU nation to impose such a ban – case in point, Ireland, Spain, and Denmark are also considering such rules.

While many parents, lawmakers, and even some children have reacted positively, others have had fewer kind words to share.

Scrolling through (ironically) social media, you’ll find plenty of comments calling this “legislative overreach.” While others are concerned about needing to share their IDs online – especially following various data leaks involving IDs from countries that have imposed similar rules (such as a Discord breach which saw hackers steal thousands of government-ID photos)

The better of two evils

You don’t have to look far to find reports showing the harmful effects of social media on mental health – some of which come from the companies themselves. Nor to find examples of the ways platforms could be used and abused by users and their own creators – such as the recent example of Grok being used to create explicit images of women and children, or whistleblower claims that Meta platforms can target users with ads based on their emotional state (something Meta has denied doing, but did admit to researching across a series of statements back in 2017).

At the same time, I know how valuable social media can be. YouTube and TikTok can be incredible educational platforms, social media can provide access to invaluable news sources, create spaces for people to organize action around an important cause they care about, or simply give people the chance to find a crowd they can fit in with that they might not be able to find locally.

But does this good outweigh the evils?

Honestly, I’m not sure. If asked to choose one extreme or the other, I’m in favor of a ban – in part because widespread bans could be what forces platforms to finally clean up their act.

I’d still prefer a more nuanced approach.

Something which involves identity verification that’s secure and private to check age and that someone is a human, which addresses the issues plaguing social media that go beyond those simply affecting minors to those affecting users of all ages too, and that gives parents the ability to make decisions for their child (choosing to allow access to certain platforms when they believe their kid is ready).

Though that might be too much to ask of politicians who aren’t as internet savvy as they should be. Maybe as we see more bans over the coming year, they’ll prove me wrong and find an approach that works for everyone.

• Meta has been busy deleting the accounts of under 16s in Australia
• Over 500,000 accounts are gone from Facebook, Instagram, and Threads
• Meta still wants more done to improve age verification

The fallout from the Australian government's decision to ban under-16s from social media continues: Meta has posted an update on the action it's taken to adhere to the new rules, while reiterating its belief that there are better ways to protect teens.

By December 11, a day after the ban came into effect, Meta says it had removed access to 544,052 accounts thought to belong to under-16s in Australia. That number covers the Instagram, Facebook, and Threads platforms all owned by Meta.

The young users affected did get 14 days of notice to download their information and – presumably – let their contacts know where they could be found in the future (Facebook Messenger is actually exempt from the ban, for example).

Australian authorities have introduced the ban in the interests of child safety, citing concerns over screen time, inappropriate contact from adults, and exposure to harmful content – including material depicting violence, bullying, and mental health issues.

'A better way forward'

Meta also uses the opportunity of the update to express its "concerns" about this new ban. "Some of the initial impacts we have seen as a result of the law that suggest it is not meeting its objectives of increasing the safety and well-being of young Australians," writes the Meta team.

"We still believe there is a better way forward, which is age verification and parental approval at the app store level," it added.

That would put the onus on the likes of Google and Apple to verify the age of users. Meta is also pushing a new non-profit called the OpenAge Initiative, which aims to standardize age verification processes – and prevent teens from switching to less well regulated apps that may not be as diligent when it comes to checking how old its users are.

Meta says it will continue to "engage constructively" with the Australian government to "find a better way forward". It doesn't seem to be opposed to age verification per se, but does want it to be more tightly regulated and consistent across platforms.

The entire business model of social media apps is getting as many people as possible to spend as much time as possible inside the apps, of course. Even so, these companies are feeling the pressure to take more responsibility: in the last few years, Meta has added several features for younger users designed to keep them safe online.

• A new WhatsApp scam called 'GhostPairing' has been discovered
• This tricks users into giving a criminal access to their account
• The attacker can then commit identity theft and scam others

There’s no shortage of ways that hackers and other criminals will attempt to gain access to online accounts, but now another has just been discovered, and this specifically relates to WhatsApp.

Gen Digital (via Bleeping Computer) has discovered a WhatsApp account takeover approach that it’s dubbing ‘GhostPairing’ – and when a criminal successfully carries this out, it gives them full access to your WhatsApp account, potentially without you even realizing. So it’s worth knowing what to look out for.

The attempt starts by the victim being sent a message from one of their contacts, generally saying something like “Hey, I just found your photo”, followed by a link. That link will appear with a Facebook-like preview, as you can see in the image below, but the link itself won’t actually take you to Facebook.

Instead, it will take you to a page hosted by the criminals that’s designed to look like Facebook, and will ask you to log in to your account before you can see the content.

That process will involve providing your phone number and then either scanning a QR code or entering a numeric code into WhatsApp, but in either case, what it’s actually doing is using WhatsApp’s device linking function to link the criminal’s device to your WhatsApp account.

During this process your WhatsApp account should alert you that another device is attempting to access to your account, which will hopefully be enough of a red flag for most people, but inevitably some will miss this.

Those who do follow the steps on the fake Facebook page will give the criminal full access to their WhatsApp account from a linked device – that includes conversation histories, shared media, and of course the ability to message a user’s contacts.

With this, the attacker can attempt to impersonate a user and commit fraud or extortion, and of course they can also then play the same trick on any of the user’s contacts.

If they’re careful enough, they could even remain unnoticed in the user’s account for a long time.

Remove and prevent access

There is a way to check whether this has happened to you – just open WhatsApp and head to Settings > Linked devices, from where you’ll be able to see a list of any devices linked to your account. If there are any that you don’t recognize, you can revoke their access.

As far as avoiding falling victim to GhostPairing in the first place, you should always be wary of being sent links, even from friends and family, and especially if they include just a vague message that seems designed to motivate you to click.

Look carefully at the URLs too, since in this case they’re pretending to be Facebook but the actual URLs used are very different. And finally, if you do click a link, think twice before entering any sensitive details (or scanning a QR code) on any page it sends you to. In this case, WhatsApp will actually tell you what the code you’re entering does, so make sure to carefully read anything involved in the process too.

And while this attack is specifically for WhatsApp, similar methods have been used for other messaging apps too, so be wary whatever you’re using.

• Meta responds to DMA fine with new data collection policy for EU customers
• Options for personalized or generic ads are now both available
• The European Commission will continue to monitor uptake

Meta is set to offer European Facebook and Instagram users an option for reduced data sharing for less personalized ads, beginning January 2026, marking a satisfactory resolution to a months-long DMA battle with the European Commission.

Under the new EU model, users can choose between full data sharing for highly personalized ads and reduced data sharing for more generic ads.

The update would replace the previous ‘consent or pay’ model that forced users to either accept data tracking and personalized ads, or to pay for ad-free access.

Meta reaches an agreement with the EU over ads under the DMA

This news comes around half a year after Meta was hit with a €200 million fine (in April 2025) relating to this matter. The amount related to affected users between March 2024 (when the DMA obligations became legally binding) and November 2024 (when the updated ads model was introduced to allow less data sharing).

“Enabling free business and consumer choice is at the core of the rules laid down in the Digital Markets Act. This includes ensuring that citizens have full control over when and how their data is used online, and businesses can freely communicate with their own customers,” Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy EVP Henna Virkkunen wrote at the time.

An updated model has been approved after revisions, and the EU is set to continue monitoring for compliance. “Once implemented, the Commission will seek feedback and evidence from Meta and other relevant stakeholders on the impact and uptake of this new ad model,” wrote the European Commission.

Without access to highly personal information, Meta’s ads will rely on contextual targeting, which means backend engineering work to collect different types of data in other ways.

For advertisers, it could mean that they see weaker returns with targeting becoming less efficient among users who have opted out.

“Users in the EU must have full and effective choice, which is their right under the DMA,” commented the Commission.

AI is now built into almost everything that you use. Search results, photo suggestions, writing tools, chatbots, emails, phones, I could go on. Sometimes, it’s genuinely helpful. Other times, it feels intrusive, overwhelming or just annoying.

Unfortunately, there’s no universal off switch for AI. Most companies don’t actually let you disable AI entirely either, and some don’t offer you any controls to manage AI features at all. But more platforms are beginning to recognize that people want choice – especially as backlash for AI-generated content is mounting.

Pinterest recently made headlines for adding a way to filter out AI-generated images on the platform – or at least some of them. It’s a small change, but a really significant one. So which other apps and services allow you to turn off, or at least limit, AI features?

1. Pinterest: how to reduce AI-generated content

Pinterest users have been complaining that their feeds are increasingly filling up with AI slop. In response, Pinterest now allows you to refine how much AI content you see. On the web or in the app you'll need to:

1. Go to Settings
2. Tap Refine your recommendations
3. Select GenAI interests
4. Toggle off the AI-generated topics you don’t want to see

However, even if you disable every "GenAI interest" in there, you may still see some AI-generated images. Pinterest only promises “fewer”, not none.

2. Google search: how to avoid AI overviews

Google’s AI Overviews appear at the top of most search results now. If you hate them, I’ve got bad news. There’s currently no official way to disable them entirely. However, there’s a workaround:

1. Search for something like usual
2. Under the search bar, select the ‘Web’ filter (next to Images, Shopping, etc)

Yes, it’s annoying. But this brings back the classic list of webpages and hides the Overview.

You could save a bookmark that opens Google in this Web mode in future. Or use UDM14, which is a tool that takes you straight to it.

3. Gmail: Turn off AI features

There are several different AI features in Gmail. Most aren't all that annoying and are there to help you write emails quicker or categorize things. But if you still want rid of them:

1. Click the gear icon in the top right
2. Select See all settings
3. Under the General tap, you can go and turn AI features off, like Smart Compose, Smart Compost Personalisation and Smart Reply

You could also scroll further in the smart settings and disable Smart features. But there are some personalization settings here, as well as spelling and grammar suggestions that you might miss, so just be wary of that before you go ahead.

4. Android: Disable Google Gemini

Android phones use AI for a whole bunch of things, like voice control, search, and suggestions.

Google has been slowly replacing Google Assistant and rolling out its Gemini AI tool. It’s now the default assistant in a lot of places. But you can turn it off (at least for now):

1. Open the Gemini app on your phone
2. Tap profile
3. Go to Gemini Apps Activity
4. Tap turn off
5. You could also select turn off and delete activity to get rid of past conversations

5. Apple / iOS: Turn off Apple Intelligence

Apple Intelligence is Apple's new AI system that promises to bring all sorts of improvements to iPhone, iPad, and Mac devices. Think writing tools, image generation and some integration with ChatGPT. Here's how you stop it:

1. Go to Settings
2. Head to Apple Intelligence & Siri
3. Switch the Apple Intelligence toggle off

If you want to more finely tune the Apple Intelligence experience, then you can toggle certain AI features on or off. You'll need to head to the Screen Time section of your Settings, once you're there:

1. Tap Content & Privacy Restrictions
2. Enable toggle at the top
3. Tap on Intelligence & Siri
4. Then either Allow or Don't Allow each separate AI-powered tool

This includes Apple's Writing Tools, Image Creation and Intelligence Extensions. This last one is the one that restricts access to third-party AI provider extensions, like ChatGPT.

Another AI feature on your iPhone that you might not want anymore is notification summaries. Which condense multiple notifications from the same app into one alert. Here's how to switch that off:

1. Go to Settings
2. Tap Notifications
3. Turn off Summarize Notifications

6. Samsung Galaxy AI: Turn off AI features

Newer Samsung phones and tablets have Galaxy AI built-in, Samsung’s suite of AI tools that edit text and photos, suggest replies, and enhance calls. Unlike some platforms, Samsung puts most controls in one place. So, to disable Galaxy features:

1. Head to Settings
2. Find the option for Galaxy AI
3. Tap each feature (like Chat Assist, Photo Assist, Live Translate)
4. Switch the toggle off

8. Microsoft Copilot: Hide or disable it in Windows and Office

Microsoft Copilot is an AI assistant that's built into Microsoft apps like Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook.

It can draft text, summarize documents, analyse data, generate slides and more. But if you don’t want AI in your workflow, you can switch it off.

To turn off Copilot in Microsoft 365 apps (like Word, Excel or PowerPoint), you'll need to go into each app on each device and clear the Enable Copilot checkbox.

The steps for getting this to work differ a little depending on your device. For example, on Windows devices you'll need to:

1. Open up the app
2. Go to File
3. Tap Options
4. Then find Copilot
5. Clear the Enable Copilot checkbox
6. Select OK
7. Then close and restart the app

If you're on a Mac device, you'll need to:

1. Open up the app
2. Head to the app menu
3. Go to Preferences
4. Select Authoring and Proofing Tools
5. Find Copilot
6. Clear the Enable Copilot checkbox
7. Close and restart the app

If you want to disable Copilot in Outlook, you'll need to head to Settings or Quick Settings, depending on whether you're on the web, Mac or Windows and then find Copilot. You can switch it on and off there.

9. Facebook: Disable comment summaries

Some Facebook users now see AI-generated comment summaries. These appear at the top of a post's comment section, giving a quick overview of what people are saying.

It doesn't seem to have rolled out to everyone yet. But if you have it and don't want it, head to:

• Open the Menu
• Go to Settings & Privacy
• Under Audiences and Visibility
• Tap Posts
• Turn off Allow Comment Summaries on Your Posts Your friends’ comments will appear as they wrote them.

What if there are no AI settings?

If you can’t find specific AI controls, check the Privacy or Personalisation section. Most platforms let you limit tracking, search history, ad personalization and suggested content, which can reduce how much AI-driven content you see.

• Damning Reuters report reveals Meta's unwillingness to tackle scams
• 10% of Meta's revenue apparently comes from fraudulent adverts and illegal content
• Meta considered harm reduction under threat from regulators

The number of scam adverts and less than legitimate product listings on social media platforms certainly seems to have dramatically increased in the last few years, but a new report claims the websites themselves could be partly to blame.

Internal projections seen by Reuters reveal Meta, the company behind Facebook and Instagram, apparently earns a projected 10% of its annual revenue from the advertising of scams and banned goods - amounting to around $16 billion.

Documents also suggest the social media conglomerate ‘failed to identify and stop an avalanche of ads’, leaving billions of Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp users at risk from the fraudulent ecosystem.

A so-called crackdown

Over the years, Meta has publicized efforts to undergo ‘major crackdowns’ on organized crime, pig-butchering scams, and social engineering attacks - even going so far as to remove up to 2 million accounts from the Facebook platform.

Meta told TechRadar Pro it is 'aggressively fights fraud ' on its platforms, 'because people on our platforms don’t want this content, legitimate advertisers don’t want it and we don’t want it either'.

"Scammers are persistent criminals whose efforts, often driven by ruthless cross-border criminal networks that operate on a global scale, continue to grow in sophistication and complexity. As scam activity becomes more persistent and sophisticated, so do our efforts. Unfortunately, the leaked documents present a selective view that distorts Meta’s approach to fraud and scams by focusing on our efforts to assess the scale of the challenge, not the full range of actions we have taken to address the problem."

But, these new documents revealed that even marketers that were suspicious enough to be flagged by Meta’s internal warning systems are often allowed to continue, only getting banned once the prediction for fraud reaches 95%.

That means, if Meta is 94% sure that an advert is scamming its users - it’s allowed to continue. Shockingly, Meta actually makes more money from adverts it believes to be scams - charging a higher ad rate as a penalty.

So, is there really much of an incentive for Meta to remove fraudsters preying on users? Even Meta doesn’t think so.

In the documents, Meta reportedly weighs up the revenue it earns from scam adverts, and the regulatory fines that it believes are inevitable if these high-risk scam ads are not mitigated. Note here that Meta is not suggesting it would voluntarily do more to vet advertisers in order to protect consumers, but rather that it would act under threat of impending regulatory penalties.

Thousands of scams have been spotted on Meta platforms with varying degrees of success and severity, but criminals are undoubtedly making a lot of money from these tricks (and so is Meta). In the UK, Meta products were involved in as much as 54% of all payment-related scam losses in 2023, the report reveals - outlining just how endemic this problem is, making it all the more abhorrent that Meta chooses to continue profiting from it.

• Nothing has announced that it will allow users to fully uninstall Meta apps in Nothing OS 4.0
• The move follows backlash after the Nothing Phone 3a Lite shipped with unremovable Meta Services features
• The fix will roll out towards the end of November

Nothing, the UK-based phone maker led by OnePlus founder Carl Pei, found itself facing controversy this week after users spoke out against pre-installed bloatware on the brand’s Phone 3a series of mid-range and budget smartphones.

As Android Authority reports, Nothing recently issued the Android 16-based Nothing OS 4.0 update to its current lineup of smartphones, and while the entire lineup got new features and fixes with the update, Nothing also made it impossible to remove pre-installed apps on the new Phone 3a Lite, including apps like Meta Services and Meta's Facebook app.

Naturally, this caused a stir among the passionate Nothing fan base. As a smaller phone brand, Nothing makes a point of privacy and simplicity – and whatever you think of Meta, there’s no denying that the tech giant doesn’t exactly share this reputation.

Worse still, there's no way to completely remove Meta Services, Meta App Installer, and Meta App Manager from a phone running Nothing OS 4.0 – though, as 9to5Google explains, users can fully uninstall Facebook and Instagram.

Luckily, Nothing has pulled a U-turn on this issue and released a fix. In an update to a prior statement on the Nothing Community forum, Nothing co-founder Akis Evangelidis announced that users will be able to completely uninstall Meta apps, the Meta App Installer, Meta App Manager, and Meta Services with a forthcoming update.

Nothing is targeting the end of November as a deadline to begin rolling out the fix.

In the updated post, Evangelidis wrote: “Previously, these [apps] could only be disabled. While we recommended keeping them active for better stability of pre-installed apps like Instagram or Facebook, we understand that some users prefer full control over what stays on their device.”

Solving an avoidable problem

To be frank, it’s disappointing that Nothing would push pre-installed apps after having such a great year when it comes to hardware.

We’ve been impressed by the Nothing Phone 3, Phone 3a, and Phone 3a Pro (which ranks amongst the best cheap phones), so this issue has flattened the launch of the Phone 3a Lite in comparison.

That’s why I’m hesitant to give Nothing much credit for this latest fix – it’s a solution to a problem that should never have existed.

I understand that economic pressures may lead phone makers to accept payment from major tech companies to pre-install apps, but not allowing users to fully uninstall said software is the real mistake here. That takes bloatware from a day one annoyance to a real problem you might deliberate before you buy a phone.

Anyhow, I’m glad Nothing has corrected course on this – if you’ve been affected by this Nothing issue, let us know in the comments below.

• Meta says it's shutting down its Messenger app for Mac and Windows
• You have until December 15 to use its desktop apps before they're retired
• There's no official reason for the decision yet, but many users aren't happy

Is Messenger your go-to app for keeping tabs on your countless group chats? Well, unfortunately Meta will be shutting down its Messenger apps for Mac and Windows – and the change is happening soon.

From December 15, the Messenger app on Mac and Windows devices will cease to exist, and the company has already removed it from the Mac App Store entirely to stop new downloads – which was first spotted by Apple Insider. Its iOS and Android mobile apps are still working, but the desktop app experience is being retired.

Meta announced its decision to axe Messenger for desktop in a help page, but has still yet to offer a reason why. Following its deprecation, users "won’t be able to log into this app and will be automatically redirected to use Facebook website for messaging". For those who don’t have a Facebook account but still use Messenger, you’ll be redirected to Messenger.com.

To prepare you for the big change Meta will be issuing in-app notifications which you’ll receive when the deprecation process starts. Once you receive this alert, you’ll have 60 days to use its Mac and Windows apps before they’re removed forever, and will have access blocked when this time is up.

What about your chat history? During this transition period, Meta is encouraging you to enable secure storage (see below) and set up a pin in the Messenger app before you make the switch to the web version. Once you’ve enabled this setting, your chat history will appear in your conversations across all platforms, and it’s fairly straightforward to set up.

All you need to do is tap the settings cog icon above your profile picture, and then go to ‘Privacy & safety’ and select ‘End-to-end encrypted chats’. From there go to Message storage and enable secure storage.

‘The final straw for me’

Comment from r/technology

The phasing-out process has hardly begun, and Meta is already receiving backlash from users who rely on Messenger for desktop for daily communication.

The deprecation of Messenger’s desktop apps has rubbed some users the wrong way – especially those who have left Facebook but keep using Messenger.

Comment from r/technology

Though users can still access Messenger via its web version, the desktop app offered an easier way of launching one-on-one conversations and group chats. That convenience will go away from December 15, which is the main downside for those who are primarily desktop users.

Luckily, its mobile app is here to stay and will remain untouched, unless Meta has a huge surprise up its sleeve. We'll update this story if Meta gives us a reason for this unexpected decision, but for now desktop users should follow the process above before switching to the web version.

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• Discord, Pinterest, and Quora perform best in new 2025 social media privacy ranking
• Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, TikTok, and X face penalties for poor privacy protections
• AI training policies and regulatory fines shape platform standings in this year’s analysis

Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram have once again been flagged as among the most privacy-invasive social media platforms.

Incogni’s updated Social Media Privacy Ranking report for 2025 placed Meta’s products alongside TikTok at the bottom of its list.

X, the platform owned by divisive billionaire Elon Musk, also scored poorly in several categories, although it performed better than Meta’s services in some areas, positioning it mid-table.

Discord shows how it should be done

Incogni’s researchers evaluated the 15 most widely used social media platforms worldwide, weighing them against 14 privacy criteria grouped into six categories.

These included data collection, transparency, AI data use, regulatory transgressions, user control, and ease of access.

The methodology focused on how easily an ordinary user can understand and act on privacy policies, not only whether the information exists in the first place.

At the other end of the spectrum, Discord, Pinterest, and Quora performed best in this year’s ranking.

Discord topped the list after avoiding many of the pitfalls other platforms faced, especially its stance on not providing user data for training generative AI models.

Pinterest came in second, due mostly to strong user options and relatively few regulatory penalties. Quora took third thanks to limited data collection.

It will likely come as little surprise to most that Meta’s platforms were penalized heavily across all categories.

Facebook stood out for repeated regulatory fines, including multiple violations of GDPR rules in Europe, as well as penalties in the US and other jurisdictions.

Instagram and WhatsApp also contributed to Meta’s low ranking, with policies allowing the collection of sensitive information such as health data and sexual orientation.

X faced penalties for extensive data collection and past privacy-related fines, although it ranked higher than Meta and TikTok in some areas.

It was among the easiest platforms for users to delete accounts from, and its rate of disclosing information to government agencies was lower than most.

Still, its policies allow user data to be used for training AI models, which lowered its overall privacy score.

AI-related concerns had a much larger impact compared to last year.

Reddit, which had previously been considered one of the safer platforms, fell in the ranking after its content was made available to AI developers.

Discord’s avoidance of such practices helped propel it upward.

Transparency was another big factor. Many social platforms lacked clear details on how quickly data is deleted when users close their accounts.

TikTok, Telegram, and Reddit offered limited details, which lowered their scores.

Snapchat was also singled out for disclosing information to government agencies at a higher rate than most competitors.

Ultimately, the report concludes that user privacy remains unevenly handled across platforms. Consent can only be meaningful if information is both available and easy to understand.

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• You can remix existing AI-generated videos or make one through a prompt in the Meta AI app or at meta.ai.
• The videos can be shared on Instagram Reels and Facebook Stories.

Meta’s newest experiment makes your next Instagram Reel an AI-powered creation. The company has released a new short-form video feed called Vibes on the Meta AI app and on meta.ai, populated entirely with AI-generated videos. Users can check them out, then make, remix, and share their own within the app or on Instagram and Facebook.

Meta is trying to appeal to those who might have a fun idea for a video but lack the wherewithal to produce or edit it. Vibes lets you scroll through a personalized feed of surreal scenes and stylized clips made with Meta AI’s video models, and immediately remix the look, style, or sound to match your own, well, vibe.

At launch, Vibes feels like a mix of social media, an AI art gallery, and a digital toy box. You can create a video from scratch using text prompts, upload your own visual elements, or tap “remix” on an existing clip.

Popular Instagram Reels and TikToks use a lot of digital effects, but still rely on human performances for the most part. Vibes flips that around. The performance becomes optional. The human input is still there, but it’s in the remix, not the recording. You might never appear in your own video, and yet you’ll be the hidden hand behind it. Perhaps the near future will be full of young fans of creators whose faces they've never seen on camera, but whose art of AI remixing they love.

Vibes consolidates various existing Meta AI projects. The company debuted AI stickers and image generators across its apps earlier this year. Vibes just puts those tools together in a full short video. It's likely to be more successful than the AI chatbot persona Meta also trialled a while ago. Making AI a co-creator instead of a conversational partner is likely to be more appealing. And if it takes off, Vibes could reshape how people make short videos online, especially younger users.

Vibes Video

That said, if Vibes leads to users filling Reels and Stories with the cheap, incoherent, or uncanny visuals collectively known as AI slop, something that's already becoming an issue, it might become a reason people leave the platforms rather than using them in more creative ways as Meta likely hopes.

After all, one very popular genre of social media videos is simply people discussing their lives to a camera. Will people embrace Reels that started as AI prompts the same way?

Perhaps recognizing that potential speedbump, Meta’s answer looks to be leaning into personalization and polish. The Vibes feed will learn what you like the more you engage, offering a curated stream of AI clips tuned to your tastes. And the company is setting up partnerships with visual artists and creators to improve the quality of the models and the resulting videos.

And there is an innate appeal to a tool that makes it easy to produce fun videos that would be normally impossible to make without a great deal of time and money. You don’t need to know how to animate or direct to make a good Vibe. You just need a prompt and a point of view. For people who’ve felt excluded from the current culture of social media videos because of shyness, technical gaps, or lack of equipment, Vibes might have major appeal.

For now, Vibes is launching as a preview and remains separate from the main Instagram feed, but the integration is already happening. You can find Vibes videos in Reels and Stories, complete with tags that trace them back to Meta AI. This visibility could help normalize AI-generated content. Or it might draw a clearer line between what's human-made, what’s shaped by machines, and which people prefer.

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• Facebook and Instagram will soon offer an ad-free option to UK users
• It will cost £2.99 per month, or £3.99 if subscribing on Android or iOS
• This will be the only way to fully avoid targeted ads

A big change is coming to Facebook and Instagram in the UK, as in the coming weeks, users will be given the option to pay a monthly subscription in order to avoid adverts.

The subscription is priced at £2.99 (roughly $4 / AU$6) per month on the web, or £3.99 (around $5.50 / AU$8) if you subscribe via iOS or Android (due to those platforms taking a cut of the fee), and if you choose to pay then you’ll get an ad-free experience on both platforms.

It’s worth noting that if you have multiple accounts, then the subscription will be applied to every account that you’ve added to Meta Accounts Center, but you’ll automatically be charged a reduced price of £2 (roughly $2.70 / AU$4) per month on the web or £3 (around $4 / AU$6) via iOS or Android for each additional account.

Putting a price on privacy

As subscriptions go this isn’t too pricey, but given that it’s the only way to interact with these platforms without receiving targeted ads it doesn’t feel ideal.

Essentially, it means you have to pay for Meta to respect your privacy, since while there are some ad toggles on their services to customize what data advertisers have access to, you can’t completely remove the targeted nature of adverts.

That’s why this change is happening, as the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), which is the UK’s data watchdog, has concluded that UK users should be able to opt out of targeted ads.

Speaking to The Guardian, a spokesperson for the ICO said “this moves Meta away from targeting users with ads as part of the standard terms and conditions for using its Facebook and Instagram services, which we’ve been clear is not in line with UK law.”

Personally, this subscription doesn’t appeal to me – partially because I don’t use these services much anyway, but also because I don’t like the idea of having to pay to maintain my privacy. Still, it’s arguably better than not even having the choice, as has been the case until now.

One option that isn't available is a free, middle ground of non-personalized ads. This is why Meta hasn't launched a similar offering in the EU, as regulators said the simple "binary choice" violates the Digital Markets Act (DMA).

Though it’s worth noting that even with the subscription, Meta will of course still collect your data to personalize its services, it just won’t use it to serve you ads. So if you don’t trust Meta with your data at all then there’s a simpler, cheaper solution – don't use its apps at all.

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• Meta is adding an AI-powered Dating Assistant to Facebook Dating
• The assistant will help improve profiles, narrow searches, and tailor matches
• Another new feature called Meet Cute will deliver one surprise match per week

Facebook Dating isn't the romance juggernaut that Tinder or Bumble have been, but Meta believes its digital Cupid can find you love with a sprinkling of AI and a spin of the roulette wheel. Facebook Dating now includes a“Meet Cute” feature that automatically pairs you with a surprise match every week and, in case random chance doesn't work, there's a new AI-powered Dating Assistant to help you out.

Meta believes the current system of swiping leaves many romance seekers feeling burned out. The company wants to position Facebook Dating as the antidote, something for those who are single and find themselves staring blankly at their phone, wondering if dating apps are supposed to be fun.

Romance assistant

The AI Dating Assistant tries to be a virtual wingman for both your own profile and in finding you a match. Instead of scrolling until your thumb cramps, you can type in exactly what you’re looking for. The AI can then go beyond the standard filters of height, education, or hometown.

The prompts could be as specific as “someone who lives near me and likes to do activities on the water," or "a girl in Brooklyn who likes baseball, and isn’t allergic to pets.” The assistant parses those prompts and brings back suggestions tailored to your preferences.

The assistant doubles as a coach for your own profile, offering tips to rewrite your bio and suggesting ideas for first messages or date spots. For people who dread writing bios, this could be a lifesaver. For anyone who has felt stuck staring at a blinking cursor in the “About Me” section, it’s hard to deny the appeal of having a little digital help.

Meet Cute matching

Meet Cute, on the other hand, takes the decision-making out of your hands once a week. Every user gets a surprise match chosen by Meta’s algorithm, with the option to chat or pass. Theoretically, this reintroduces some of the serendipity of meeting someone randomly in real life, which dating apps have largely replaced. That probably depends on how well the random matching goes. On the other hand, if you hit it off with one or more 'random' matches, you might wonder if they are that random or if you're so bland that basically anyone could be a good match for you.

Together, the two features represent a shift in how Meta wants Facebook Dating to stand out. Hundreds of thousands of people in North America still create profiles each month, and matches among 18- to 29-year-olds are up 10% year over year, according to Meta. But the app has lagged behind competitors like Tinder and Hinge, which are already experimenting with AI features of their own. Meta’s bet is that combining a proactive assistant with algorithmic surprise will help dating feel more efficient and maybe even more fun.

Whether it works depends on how well Meta balances AI wisdom and the random sparks of love, and if single people can trust AI to handle matters of the heart.

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• Vietnamese-speaking hackers are using fake browser extensions to steal Facebook Business and Ads accounts
• Bitdefender found two campaigns promoting a malware-laced extension called SocialMetrics Pro through deceptive ads and tutorials
• The malware exfiltrates session data to Telegram bots, enabling account theft and resale for malvertising.

Vietnamese hackers are once again going after people’s Facebook Business and Ads accounts, this time through fake browser extensions.

Earlier this week, security researchers Bitdefender spotted two separate campaigns, using fake websites and malvertising to promote an extension promising the blue check badge for Facebook and Instagram accounts.

The extension is called SocialMetrics Pro, and it’s being promoted through at least 37 ads.

Selling Facebook accounts

These ads lead to websites that not just deliver the malware, but also come with a video tutorial guide that guides the victims through the process of getting verified on Facebook and Instagram.

The malware itself is hosted on Box - a legitimate cloud storage service provider.

When the malware is installed, it grabs the victim’s IP address, and Facebook session cookies, and relays them to a Telegram bot. Some variants were also seen interacting with the Facebook Graph API, pulling more information about the target accounts.

Bitdefender believes the threat actors are selling access to these accounts on underground forums for profit.

Usually, criminals use these accounts to advertise their own malicious campaigns. To distribute malware to as many people as possible, hackers sometimes try to advertise it on Facebook.

However, since Meta engages in rigorous screening, signing up and setting a malvertising campaign just like that is practically impossible. Instead, threat actors steal already verified business accounts with a clean ads record and abuse it for their attacks.

Bitdefender’s researchers believe this to be the work of a Vietnamese-speaking threat actor due to, among other things, Vietnamese language in the how-to video guides posted on the malicious sites.

"By using a trusted platform, attackers can mass-generate links, automatically embed them into tutorials, and continuously refresh their campaigns," Bitdefender said. "This fits a larger pattern of attackers industrializing malvertising, where everything from ad images to tutorials is created en masse."

Via The Hacker News

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• Surfshark has conducted a review of location-hungry social media apps, including X, Instagram, and Snapchat
• Of the 10 social media apps analyzed, X demands the most granular location data
• Data was collected in August 2025 from the Apple App Store

Think you’ve got your privacy covered? It could be time to give that a rethink, especially if you’re a regular user of X and other social media apps.

A study from leading VPN provider Surfshark has analyzed the default location permissions required by the top 10 social media apps in the Apple App Store and found that most of them are very data-hungry – if not stalker-y.

Elon Musk’s X and Mark Zuckerberg’s Instagram, Threads, and Facebook especially know a lot about where you are… even if you’re using one of the best VPN apps.

Why do social media want your location data?

Your smartphone records two types of location data: precise and coarse.

Coarse data is a zoomed-out, low-resolution option that shares your general location in the world. The precise option relies on GPS, Bluetooth, and even IP addresses to determine your exact location based on nearby networks. It is the latter data that X and other networks are using, to varying degrees.

As Surfshark Chief Technology Officer, Donatas Budvytis, explains, precise location data falls under the most sensitive user data category because it can be linked to highly personal behavior and routines.

"This all can lead to building your profile, predicting behavior, or can be used for targeted manipulation and discrimination," said Budvytis.

Location data might be helpful at times. For example, it adds some useful context to photos (and helps you find a specific image years later). It can also help you locate interesting sights and businesses nearby. Social networks, however, seem to be enjoying just a little bit too much of it.

Surfshark has discovered that while eight popular social networks collect precise location data, X is especially keen on it. Instagram, Threads, and Facebook all need a lot, as does Pinterest. Snapchat needs less; LinkedIn and YouTube require almost none.

Collecting user information in this way allows social networks to offer advertisers a better reach, ensuring targeted ads based on your location. They might even send you marketing outreach messages using this sort of data.

According to researchers, X and Pinterest may even use location data to track users. There is no clarity as to how this information is used or whether it is available to data brokers. In such a scenario, various information from other apps could be used in tandem to establish more specific and valuable data about your actions and interests.

Can’t you just use a VPN?

VPNs are great for specific privacy uses, but when it comes to location data collected using GPS and other networks, a VPN is less effective.

Because the VPN encrypts your internet access and routes it via a secure VPN server, only your IP address can be obfuscated. Social networks that rely on GPS and proximity to other networks – perhaps railway stations, or city centre networks – can overlook the notion that your IP address is set to Berlin if your GPS says London.

While a VPN is definitely recommended for public Wi-Fi, it’s only going to prevent bad actors with access to the network. Elon Musk and co can still record your location.

So, can you stop X from tracking you?

All social media apps have settings that you can use to tweak what information is collected. So, while you might be okay sharing photos and (potentially embarrassing) thoughts and opinions, you can at least control some of these privacy options.

In the case of X, you can open Settings > Privacy and safety > Location information and disable all three options (tap the third, Explore settings, to toggle it off) to reduce the social network’s hunger for your activities.

Other apps should have similar options. You can, of course, also disable your phone’s GPS when it isn’t required, and review your phone’s location services settings.

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• New data centers are being proposed across the UK
• These are crucial for AI development and usage, but have disastrous impacts on the environment
• Tech giants are calling for more expansion

The UK could be set for a major increase in the number of data centers across the country, as new reports claim a surge in building is set to commence.

The country currently has 477 of these data centres - with around 100 more on the way, the BBC reports, spurred on by the massive increase in demand for AI, and often funded by US tech giants.

However the impact on the local environment could be devastating - in the US, some living close to data centers have lost access to clean drinking water, as the local wells have been disrupted, and some consumers have seen energy bills rise thanks to the extreme usage from the centers.

The cloud costs

Data centers are essentially warehouses full of computer storage systems and IT infrastructure - and they are both financially costly and enormously energy and water consuming.

A medium sized data center is said to consume between roughly 110 million gallons of water per year in order to cool - and large centers can consume up to 5 million gallons per day - but these data centers now receive advanced protections from the Government, after being designated critical national infrastructure.

Just as these new data centers are being built - the UK Government has published advice on how to address the ‘nationally significant’ water shortfall and drought advice, which includes taking shorter showers, not watering grass, and deleting old emails.

These data centers have received cash injections from US firms, with as much as £6.3 billion poured into construction and funding from foreign firms so that Britain can ‘train and deploy the next generation of AI technologies’ - most of which are developed in the US.

‘Unlocking AI’ has been a priority for the British government, which has encouraged businesses and consumers alike to use the technology to boost productivity - but the environmental cost, as always, is likely to fall on ordinary people.

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• Meta is set to almost double its AI infrastructure spending
• Meta looks to keep pace with major AI rivals
• AI infrastructure comes at a huge environmental cost

As governments and private companies around the world announce huge AI infrastructure plans, Meta has become the latest to announce a major spending spree.

In its most recent quarterly financial results, the company announced an expansion of spending to around $66-$72 billion - more than doubling its spending on data centres and servers.

“We expect that developing leading AI infrastructure will be a core advantage in developing the best AI models and product experiences, so we expect to ramp our investments significantly in 2026 to support that work,” Susan Li, Meta CFO, said during the company’s earnings call.

Costly infrastructure

The move comes shortly after Meta’s shares jumped more than 10%, thanks largely to advertising business success, where AI-driven ad creation tools allow users to generate video ads from images, helping prompt better conversion rates.

Meta says it expects a similar jump in spending onwards in 2026, as the firm looks to “aggressively [pursue] opportunities to bring additional capacity online to meet the needs of [its] artificial intelligence efforts and business operations.”

Meta isn’t alone, as Microsoft has also announced plans to spend billions on AI, announcing over $30 billion capital investment as it expands AI capacity in a bid to keep up with the likes of Amazon - which itself is set to spend up to $111 billion in 2025, with the majority going towards tech and infrastructure.

This infrastructure, primarily referring to data centres and large servers, is costly in more ways than one. It would be disingenuous to talk about data centre spending without mentioning the enormous environmental costs associated with the infrastructure.

Data centres consume massive amounts of energy and water - depleting local water sources and putting huge strain on already labored energy grids.

Local communities are being hit hard by nearby data centre constructions - with data centres in Texas using 463 million gallons of water, as residents are instructed to take shorter showers to offset the usage.

In Georgia, residents living in proximity to Meta’s own data centre, can no longer drink their water, with taps running dry thanks to added sediment in local wells. The cost of municipal water has skyrocketed, and the county water commission may face a shortage.

Via: TechCrunch

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• Zuckerberg has created a new group called Meta Superintelligence Labs
• The goal of the group is to create AI superintelligence
• New hires from OpenAI will form the team headed up by Alexandr Wang from Scale AI

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, has heated up the race towards AI superintelligence by restructuring the company’s artificial intelligence division with the main aim being to develop artificial superintelligence, that is, intelligence that is far beyond what humans are capable of.

Superintelligence could mean exponential leaps in medicine, science, and technology that dramatically change the course of humanity, but it doesn't come without risks.

In an memo to employees, Zuckerberg said he is creating a new group called Meta Superintelligence Labs, lead by Alexandr Wang, former CEO of data-labeling startup Scale AI, which Meta has recently acquired for $14.3 billion.

A new era for humanity

As reported by Bloomberg, the memo sent by Zuckerberg reads: “As the pace of AI progress accelerates, developing superintelligence is coming into sight. I believe this will be the beginning of a new era for humanity, and I am fully committed to doing what it takes for Meta to lead the way.”

The memo goes on to list 11 recent hires to the new division, which include ex-employees of OpenAI who worked on the last 12 months of OpenAI products, along with employees from Anthropic and Google.

The list includes Trapit Bansal, who pioneered RL on chain of thought and co-creator of o-series models at OpenAI, Shuchao Bi, co-creator of GPT-4o voice mode and o4-mini, and Huiwen Chang, co-creator of GPT-4o's image generation, who previously invented MaskIT and Muse text-to-image architectures at Google Research.

OpenAI vs Meta

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, the makers of ChatGPT, has repeatedly posted about achieving superintelligence being the goal for his company on his blog.

As recently as June, he wrote, “We are past the event horizon; the takeoff has started. Humanity is close to building digital superintelligence, and at least so far it’s much less weird than it seems like it should be.”

However, it appears that Zuckerberg wants Meta to be the company that first claims to have achieved superintelligence, and he is certainly throwing an awful lot of money at this project, which has led some to question whether this is really the right approach and if achieving superintelligence is even possible.

Mark Zuckerberg paid $14.3 billion for Scale AI just to hire Alexandr Wang, and has even been offering OpenAI employees $100 million to join Meta, according to a report in the New York Times.

Zuckerberg’s new push towards superintelligence comes after Meta’s own Chief AI Scientist, Yann Le Cun, talking about superintelligence said publicly last month that “It’s not going to happen within the next two years, there is no way in hell”, and cast doubt upon the whole idea of scaling up existing LLM models, like Meta AI or ChatGPT, to achieve superintelligence, which is the approach that companies like OpenAI seem to be following.

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When it comes to digital advertising, Ari Paparo is one of the most respected, and outspoken, voices in the business.

A former Google executive turned industry critic, Paparo is one of the foremost experts on advertising technology, with decades of experience building and analyzing the systems that power the online economy.

In his explosive new book, Yield: How Google Bought, Built, and Bullied Its Way to Advertising Dominance, he delivers a sharp, insider critique of Google’s ascent to power in the ad tech world, and the collateral damage it’s left in its wake.

With antitrust scrutiny ramping up in the U.S. and abroad, Paparo warns how efforts to break up Google could have unintended consequences for the already fragile ecosystem of media and publishers.

In this conversation, we dig into why he uses the word “bullied,” what a post-Google internet might look like, and whether the rise of AI is changing the game, or just reinforcing old monopolies with smarter tools.

• The title of your book contains the word 'bullied' to express how Google reached its dominant position today. Why use such a strong, loaded word?

To set the context we have to acknowledge that a Federal Judge has already found the company to be an abusive monopoly in this area, so "bullied" is letting it off a bit easy.

Specifically, though, what happened in the advertising technology ("ad tech") sector was that Google came from nowhere, and through a series of acquisitions ended up in a position where it was both the buyer and the seller of a huge swath of display ads.

Once in that position it began flexing its muscles in ways that extracted margins from the transactions at the expense of competitors, and without the consent or knowledge of its customers.

In one particular instance, which is featured in the dramatic introduction to the book, Google unilaterally changed the controls that publishers had on the ways they could price their own ads, to the benefit of Google and over the loud and angry objections of major customers like Gannett, News Corp, Daily Mail, and others.

Bullying seems appropriate.

• In its defense, Google could argue that it is now being challenged by newcomers like OpenAI, Facebook and others. What are your thoughts on it?

The book Yield focused on the ad tech market which was the subject of the Eastern Virginia court's monopoly findings.

This is largely separate from the court's findings in the search case, which took place in the DC court, and which is more concerned with the emerging competitive space of OpenAI, Facebook, etc.

In the ad tech case, Google has an incredible 90% market share in the core software category of publisher ad serving, and is 10 times the size of the next competitor in the ad exchange market.

Interestingly, Google's dominance here had a direct effect on the behavior of Facebook - evidence in the case showed that Facebook was hesitant to invest in the open web advertising market because it felt there was no way to participate without going through Google.

• Could removing Google out of the online ad market potentially kill the 'open web' altogether?

Google puts all of its activities in the so-called "open web" into the financial segment of its business called "Network." This division has seen little to no growth for years and has the worst margins of any part of the company.

There's a real risk that as a result of the antitrust findings, as well as the diminished attractiveness of this sector, that the company takes its toys and goes home. That would actually be a huge blow to publishers and media, because the ads from Google Ads (f/k/a AdWords) are a big source of revenue for the open web.

The decisions Judge Brinkema makes about how exactly to unwind the monopoly Google has built are fraught with danger for the ads ecosystem.

• How do you see Google evolving over the next decade and what about the online market, in light of what AI is doing to the ecosystem?

Google is trying to navigate a major shift in consumer behavior from "search results" to "answers." Already search volume appears to be in decline and publisher referral traffic is plummeting.

The implication clearly appears to be that consumers will spend more time with the AI and less time linking out to the open web.

Google's ace in the hole is YouTube, which both feeds the AI and captures consumer time to compete with Instagram and TikTok.

Over the past two years Google Ads has been aggressively pushing its AI-powered ad buying system, PMax, which gives the advertiser less control and insights into how ads are running, but produces superior results.

This ad strategy dovetails with the product strategy since PMax can seamlessly move ad dollars to YouTube and other parts of Google's world and only use the open web when valuable to do so.

• What about Facebook?

Facebook exited the market for the open web ads following the Cambridge Analytica scandal -- it felt it was just too rife with controversy to continue. Facebook continues monetizing the app market through the Facebook Audience Network, or FAN.

Many people in the advertising business hope that with the dismantling of Google's hegemony over the open web there might be an opportunity for Facebook, TikTok, or other players to bring some of their advertising dollars back.

• The $1 trillion question. Do you think it's just too late now to stop Google?

The next two years will be the most interesting period for the search business since Google's inception.

The search antitrust trial is considering a Chrome spin-out and forcible sharing of data from Google to competitors, which, when combined with the promise of AI, could reshape the whole environment.

In the ads space, which is the subject of Yield, Google already seems somewhat willing to reduce its involvement, having proposed a partial spin-out to European regulators last year (the proposal was rejected as insufficient).

It is definitely within the realm of possibility that Google's presence in the open web is radically different in a couple of years than it is now. Whether that is to the benefit or detriment of publishers is too hard to tell.

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• Facebook will soon roll out passkeys for Facebook on mobile devices
• Passkeys offer greater security and easier login than passwords
• Passkeys for Messenger will also soon be available

Meta has introduced passkey support for Facebook on mobile devices which will significantly decrease the chance of someone hacking into your account.

Rather than using a clumsy and easily guessed password to log in, you can now use a fingerprint, face or PIN to verify that you are logging in to your account.

Better still, passkeys are often faster to use than passwords, meaning your whole Facebook experience should be even easier.

Facebook gets passkeys

Passkeys for Facebook on iOS and Android mobile devices “will soon be available”, Meta said, with passkeys for Messenger also due to be released in the “coming months.”

Passkeys are a much more resilient alternative to passwords and one-time-codes as they cannot be stolen and are much less susceptible to malicious sites looking to steal your login details, such as typo-squatting domains. They can also be a good alternative to using a password manager that requires constant back-and-forth between apps in order to enter your password.

Your passkey is stored locally on your device, meaning Meta doesn’t have access to it. One unfortunate downside of passkeys is that if you lose your mobile device that stores your passkey, it can be a bit of a hassle getting back into your account and setting up a new passkey.

Meta also announced passkeys will also be used to verify payments through Meta Pay, and will soon also be used to protect your encrypted message backups once Passkeys for Messenger arrive.

To set up a passkey, head to the Settings menu on the Facebook app, and then click on Accounts Center → Password and security → Passkey. If passkeys are available, Facebook may even prompt you to set one up the next time you log in.

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• Microsoft, Facebook, and Snapchat logins exposed in public database with 184 million records
• Credentials for banks, health services, and government portals found across numerous countries
• Emails, passwords, and direct login links could be accessed by anyone online

Login credentials for Microsoft, Facebook, Google, and dozens of other platforms were found in a public, unsecured database, raising concerns about targeted phishing campaigns and identity theft.

The discovery was made by Jeremiah Fowler, a security researcher known for tracking down exposed databases.

This unsecured data dump had over 184 million unique records containing emails, usernames, passwords, and direct login URLs to everything from email providers and Microsoft services to Instagram, Roblox, and more.

Attribution troubles

Fowler said he also found credentials linked to banking and financial platforms, health services, and government portals spanning “numerous countries.”

To verify the data, he reached out to some of the email addresses listed, and confirmed that at least a portion of the exposed information was real.

The implications are severe: anyone with access to the database could quietly take over accounts, steal personal information, or launch highly targeted phishing attacks.

Fowler says the IP address indicated that the database was connected to two domain names - one parked and unavailable, and the other unregistered and available for purchase.

The Whois registration was set to private, making it impossible to identify the true owner of the database. Fowler managed to reach out to the hosting provider, and soon after public access was restricted.

The provider did not disclose the information about the owner.

With that in mind, Fowler says it’s difficult to determine if the database was generated by a malicious actor, or a legitimate one. Still, he leans towards the former, claiming to have seen “multiple signs” the data was harvested with infostealers.

Infostealers are usually distributed via phishing, malicious websites, or tainted updates. They can harvest sensitive information from the compromised device, including passwords stored in browsers, important PDF files, cryptocurrency wallet information, and more.

Once crooks get access to email accounts, they can use them to launch convincing phishing attacks, or steal even more data.

In fact, Fowler argues that many people “treat their email accounts like free storage” and keep years’ worth of sensitive documents inside.

Via Website Planet

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• Fake AI video editor ads are targeting Facebook users
• Threat group UNC6032 has been identified spreading malware
• The ads have reached over 2 million users

Google’s Mandiant Threat Defense group has identified a campaign, tracked as UNC6032, which “weaponizes the interest around AI tools” - specifically tools used to generate videos based on user prompts.

Mandiant experts identified thousands of postings of fake “AI video generator” websites that actually distribute malware, which has led to the deployment of payloads, “such as Python-based infostealers and several backdoors.”

The campaign sees legitimate AI generator tools like Canva Dream Lab, Luma AI, and Kling AI impersonated in order to trick victims, which have collectively reached “millions of users” across both LinkedIn and Facebook - although Google suspects similar campaigns may be targeting users on multiple different platforms too.

AI tool risks

The group, UNC6032, is thought to have ties to Vietnam, but EU transparency rules allowed researchers to see that a sample of 120 malicious ads had a total reach of over 2.3 million users - although this does not necessarily translate to that many victims.

“Although our investigation was limited in scope, we discovered that well-crafted fake “AI websites” pose a significant threat to both organizations and individual users,” the researchers confirm.

“These AI tools no longer target just graphic designers; anyone can be lured in by a seemingly harmless ad. The temptation to try the latest AI tool can lead to anyone becoming a victim. We advise users to exercise caution when engaging with AI tools and to verify the legitimacy of the website's domain.”

Be sure to thoroughly vet any adverts on social media, and manually search any software deals into a search engine before downloading anything in order to properly verify the source.

We also recommend checking out the best malware removal tools to keep your devices secure.

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Meta is known for offering many apps, but not many of them support the iPad. That is changing now, though, at least for one that makes messaging and voice calls across the globe a breeze.

That’s right – WhatsApp is now full-sized on the iPad as the most recent build that hit Apple’s App Store brings support for Apple's tablet. It’s been a long time coming, and WhatsApp is even beating Instagram to the punch.

While the release notes for the latest build, 25.16.81, don’t mention anything special, this fresh piece of code does enable support for the iPad. Once you’ve updated, it’ll stretch and fill the screen appropriately on an entry-level iPad, the iPad mini, or both sizes of the iPad Pro or iPad Air.

You'll be able to respond to messages, share your iPadOS screen on a call, and video chat with up to 32 other folks. WhatsApp even released a blog post detailing the anticipated arrival.

It’s still the classic messaging experience that WhatsApp has offered, but there is one key change from the iPhone version. WhatsApp now features a two-column layout, allowing you to view contacts' names and group chats on the left and the messages for the selected chat on the right. So, it's quite similar to how Apple’s own Messages app utilizes the larger screen real estate.

Perhaps even better news for iPad fans, the team at Meta has baked in support for multitasking on the iPad. This way, you can split the screen to have WhatsApp on one side or have it be the floating third app. That should make it easier to respond to messages and keep an eye on larger group chats.

The app also works with the Magic Keyboard and the Apple Pencil, allowing you to use the latter to scribble a message and send it within WhatsApp.

Now, a WhatsApp app for iPad has been rumored for quite some time, but the anticipation built up earlier this week when the app responded to a post on X (formerly Twitter) with a set of looking eyes. Less than a day later, the app is here, and it has us wondering what Meta might drop on the iPad next.

Arguably, Instagram is another app within Meta's wheelhouse that iPad users want support for, so WhatsApp gaining support hopefully shows that it's also in the works.

The WhatsApp team also promises that this is just the start of its journey on iPad, and is looking forward to feedback from users.

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• KnowBe4 is warning of a new phishing campaign leveraging Google AppSheets' workflow automation
• The emails are spoofing Facebook and harvesting login credentials
• The attackers can grab session tokens, as well

Cybercriminals are abusing a legitimate Google service to bypass email protection mechanisms and deliver phishing emails straight to people’s inboxes.

Cybersecurity researchers KnowBe4, who first spotted the attacks, have warned the crooks are using Google AppSheet, a no-code application development platform for mobile and web apps, and through its workflow automation were able to send emails using the "noreply@appsheet.com" address.

The phishing emails are mimicking Facebook, and are designed to trick people into giving away their login credentials, and 2FA codes, for the social media platform.

2FA codes and session tokens

The emails, which were sent in-bulk and on a fairly large scale, were coming from a legitimate source, successfully bypassing Microsoft and Secure Email Gateways (SEGs) that rely on domain reputation and authentication checks (SPF, DKIM, DMARC).

Furthermore, since AppSheets can generate unique IDs, each email was slightly different, which also helped bypass traditional detection systems.

The emails themselves spoofed Facebook. The crooks tried to trick victims into thinking they infringed on someone’s intellectual property, and that their accounts were due to be deleted within 24 hours.

Unless, of course, they submit an appeal through a conveniently placed “Submit an Appeal” button in the email.

Clicking on the button leads the victim to a landing page impersonating Facebook, where they can provide their login credentials and 2FA codes, which are then relayed to the attackers.

The page is hosted on Vercel which, KnowBe4 says, is a “reputable platform known for hosting modern web applications”. This further strengthens the entire campaign’s credibility.

The attack has a few additional contingencies. The first attempt at logging in returns a “wrong password” result - not because the victim typed in the wrong credential - but in order to confirm the submission.

Also, the 2FA codes that are provided are immediately submitted to Facebook and in return - the crooks grab a session token which grants them persistence even after a password change.

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• Researchers found a huge database on the dark web
• The threat actors claim to have scraped it abusing a Facebook API
• Facebook says the database is years old

A hacker claims to have scraped 1.2 billion user records from Facebook, including people’s names, locations, and phone numbers. This is according to cybersecurity researchers Cybernews, who recently spotted a new thread on a dark web forum, promoting the gigantic database.

In the thread, the threat actor claims to have generated an entirely new database (rather than compiling information that was already available in the murky waters of the dark web), and that it contains user IDs, names, email addresses, usernames, phone numbers, locations, birthday data, and gender information.

Cybernews’ researchers analyzed parts of the data and confirmed that it is legitimate (at least the parts they looked at). This means that whoever grabs this database, can use the information found inside to launch highly convincing phishing attacks, engage in identity theft, and possibly even wire fraud.

Abusing extensions

But there are other things to consider. Cybernews, for one, says that the claim of 1.2 billion user records should be taken with a massive grain of salt, for a number of reasons.

First, the threat actor only posted once before, so their reputation is questionable. Secondly, there’s been a similar, but smaller leak, in recent history, prompting the researchers to suggest that maybe this is the same archive, only re-packaged with a little extra information thrown in.

The data was allegedly picked up by abusing a Facebook API. Meta, the social media giant’s parent company, did not deny it, but did suggest that the attackers are simple fraudsters trying to share an old database as something entirely new.

“This is not a new claim. We disclosed this years ago and have taken steps to prevent similar incidents from happening since,” a Meta spokesperson told Cybernews, and shared a link to a company’s blog on how it combats scraping.

The researchers believe this could be one of the biggest data scrapes to have come from Facebook, and a testament to the company’s poor sense of customer security and privacy:

“Repeated incidents show a pattern of reactive rather than proactive security measures, particularly when it comes to protecting data that’s publicly visible but still sensitive. The lack of stronger safeguards and transparency undermines trust and leaves millions potentially exposed to phishing, scam, possibly identity theft, and long-term privacy issues,” the team said.

Via Cybernews

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• Meta addresses the FTC's complaints over Instagram and WhatsApp acquisitions
• It says quality and output have improved since it took over ownership
• It added that the FTC's evidence was speculative

Meta has filed a Rule 52(c) motion for judgement, claiming that the FTC has failed to prove its case relating to an antitrust lawsuit it brought on over Meta's acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp.

According to Meta, no distinct monopoly power evidence has been shown – being that Meta's apps are free to use, traditional pricing-based monopoly indicators don't apply.

The social media giant also noted that the FTC failed to show that it had reduced the quality or output of its services, instead arguing that user engagement has grown and app quality has improved since it took over.

Meta says the FTC has no evidence over its social media monopoly

In its early days, Instagram was a small photo-sharing app with limited features, no revenue, and poor infrastructure. The company proudly proclaims to have massively improved the app's quality, reach, and features post-acquisition - with co-founder Kevin Systrom testifying to the fact that Meta had accelerated the app's growth, allowing Instagram to "thrive."

Meta also added that WhatsApp was focused on simple messaging before it was bought out, with no plans to add social features or ads, therefore it was not deemed a competitive threat to Facebook.

As a whole, the FTC's evidence has been widely criticized by Meta, with even the FTC's lead expert admitting that much of the competitive harm claim was speculative.

"The FTC has no evidence that Meta has a 60 percent share of any market that includes TikTok or YouTube along with Snapchat," the motion added.

Meta also noted: "Virtually every feature of TikTok exists on Instagram (and Facebook), and virtually every feature of Instagram exists on TikTok."

The social media giant's conclusion is simple: "The Court should enter judgment in Meta’s favor under Rule 52(c)."

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• Experts warn Facebook crypto ads now deliver malware through trusted brand impersonation
• Malware deploys only when victims meet specific browser or profile criteria
• Local server and PowerShell commands allow stealthy data exfiltration and control

A new wave of malware attacks is targeting Bitcoin and crypto owners through Facebook ads that mimic trusted names in the industry.

Bitdefender says it has uncovered a multi-stage malvertising campaign that exploits the reputations of well-known platforms like Binance, TradingView, ByBit, and others.

These malicious ads don’t just trick users, they also adapt in real time to avoid detection and deliver malware only when conditions are ideal for the attackers.

Highly evasive delivery system

The scheme begins when cybercriminals hijack or create Facebook accounts and use Meta’s ad network to run fraudulent promotions.

These ads feature fake offers and use photos of celebrities - Zendaya, Elon Musk, and Cristiano Ronaldo are the usual suspects - to appear more convincing.

Once clicked, users are redirected to lookalike websites that impersonate legitimate cryptocurrency services and prompt them to download what appears to be a desktop client.

The malware delivery system is highly evasive. Bitdefender says the front-end of the fake site works with a local server quietly spun up by the initial install, allowing attackers to send payloads directly to the victim's system while dodging most security software.

Delivery only happens if the victim meets specific criteria, such as being logged into Facebook, using a preferred browser like Microsoft Edge, or matching a certain demographic profile.

Some malware samples run lightweight .NET servers locally and communicate with the website using advanced scripts that execute encoded PowerShell commands. These can exfiltrate sensitive data like installed software, system and OS info, and even GPU details.

Depending on the findings, the malware may download further payloads or simply go dormant if it suspects it's being analyzed in a sandbox.

Bitdefender researchers found hundreds of Facebook accounts promoting these campaigns. One ran more than 100 ads in a single day. Many ads target men aged 18 and older, with examples found in Bulgaria and Slovakia.

How to stay safe

Scrutinize ads carefully: Be highly skeptical of ads offering free crypto tools or financial perks. Always verify links before clicking.

Download from official sources only: Visit platforms like Binance or TradingView directly. Never trust redirects from ads.

Use link-checking tools: Tools like Bitdefender Scamio or Link Checker can alert you to dangerous URLs before you engage.

Keep your security software up to date: Use a reputable antivirus that gets regular updates to catch evolving threats.

Watch for suspicious browser behavior: Pages that insist you use Edge or redirect erratically are massive red flags.

Report shady ads: Flag suspicious content on Facebook to help others avoid falling into the same trap.

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A shadow library might sound like something from a fantasy novel – but it’s real, and far more troubling.

It’s an online archive of pirated books, academic papers, and other people’s work, taken without permission. These libraries have always been controversial. But in the AI world, they’re an open secret – rich sources of high-quality writing used to train large language models.

The books in them are goldmines because they're long-form, emotional, diverse and generally well-written. Using them to ‘train’ AI is a shortcut to teaching these tools how humans think, feel, and express themselves. But licensing them properly would be expensive and messy. So tech companies just didn’t bother.

This quiet exploitation exploded into public view in March 2025 when The Atlantic released a tool that lets anyone search for their books in LibGen (Library Genesis), one of the biggest shadow libraries.

And there it was, my book Screen Time, along with millions of others.

It's been revealed in legal documents that Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, used LibGen to train its large language models, including LLaMA 3. Not every title was necessarily used, but the possibility alone is enough to leave authors reeling.

As a tech journalist, I’ve always tried to stay level-headed about AI – curious but critical. But when it’s your book that’s been ‘stolen’ to train AI, it hits differently. You think about the hours, the edits, the emotion. The despair and euphoria of creating something from nothing.

It feels as if all of that has been swallowed whole by a system that mimics creativity while erasing the creator. The outrage from authors is real – the lack of consent, the lack of compensation. But what haunts me is something deeper, a grief for creativity itself, and the sense it's slipping away.

Fair use or foul play?

Meta has been under legal scrutiny about this for some time. In 2023, authors including Richard Kadrey, Sarah Silverman, Andrew Sean Greer, and Junot Díaz took legal action against the company, alleging it used their books without consent to train its large language models.

Meta's defence has been that training its AI models on copyrighted material constitutes what's known as fair use. One of the company's arguments is that the process is transformative, as the AI doesn't reproduce the original works but instead learns patterns from them to generate new content.

Laws in the UK and US differ. In the UK, this is generally considered unlawful unless it falls under specific exceptions like "fair dealing," which has a narrower scope than the US's "fair use." In the US, the legality will hinge on how "fair use" is interpreted, which is currently being tested in ongoing legal disputes. The outcomes will likely set significant precedents for future AI copyright law.

Meta and other AI advocates insist these systems will bring us enormous benefits. Can't the means justify the ends? Personally, I can appreciate that argument. But let's not kid ourselves – Meta's primary motivation is profit. The company is leveraging creative works as raw material to scale its AI capabilities.

Writer and author Lauren Bravo, whose books Probably Nothing, Preloved and What Would the Spice Girls Do? were scraped into LibGen, told me: “I feel furious about my books being on there, for myriad reasons. It's hard enough to make a decent living from writing books these days – the average author's income is £7k! – so to know that a company worth over a trillion dollars felt it was reasonable to use our work without throwing us a few quid is so enraging there aren't even words for it.”

Historian, broadcaster and author Dr Fern Riddell, whose books Death in Ten Minutes, Sex: Lessons From History and The Victorian Guide to Sex were also in the LibGen database, said: “It’s absolutely devastating to see yours – and many others’ – life’s work stolen by a billion-dollar company. This is not the proliferation of ideas. It’s straightforward theft to make Meta money. The scale of it is almost incomprehensible – all my books have been stolen, along with my right to protect my work.”

Like Bravo and Riddell, other authors are understandably angry and confused what this means for the future. The Society of Authors and several other organizations are considering adding to the mounting legal action against Meta. Maybe change will come – new licensing rules, more transparency, opt-in models. But it feels too little, too late.

“Writing a book is a long and deeply personal process for any author. But because mine talks about losing both my parents at a young age – from coping with grief as a teenager to caring for my mum through cancer – it feels extra personal,” writer and corporate content consultant Rochelle Bugg tells me, whose book Handle With Care is also in the dataset. “I poured my heart and soul into my book, so the fact it has been taken, without my knowledge or consent, and used to train AI models that will generate profit for someone else seems totally unjust and completely indefensible.”

There's something uniquely painful about deeply personal work being scraped and repurposed, especially without permission.

The art of being human

These latest incidents have raised all sorts of questions not just about copyright, but about creativity – and how little we seem to value it.

"I fear it's symptomatic of something much larger that's been going on for decades," Lauren Bravo tells me. "The way creative work has been dramatically devalued by the internet."

"We've all participated in it," she adds. "In some ways, the democratization of content has been brilliant. But the sinister flipside is that we now expect to consume creative work for free – writing, music, art, even porn."

Generative AI tools take that mindset and dial it up to eleven. Why pay for anything when with a quick prompt you can make it instantly?

Take the viral AI-generated Studio Ghibli trend. It looks charming until you remember that Ghibli founder Hayao Miyazaki has publicly condemned it. Yes, AI can gobble up his art and copy its style anyway. But is that kind of mimicry creativity? Is it still art if it's made without permission, or without the human experience that shaped it?

Some of us obsess over these questions. But honestly? It's starting to look like few others care. Tech companies mine data. Users get the dopamine hit of jumping on a new trend. Everyone keeps scrolling.

Author Philip Ellis, whose books We Could Be Heroes and Love & Other Scams were scraped into LibGen, told me: "I see artists online trying to educate their followers about AI's environmental impact. But as the action figure trend has shown, your average person is still ignorant – maybe wilfully – of how bad generative AI is proving to be. Not just for the climate, but for culture."

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI (the company behind ChatGPT), takes an unsurprisingly optimistic view. In a recent TED 2025 interview, he claimed generative AI can democratize creativity.

He acknowledges the ethical complexities – copying styles, lack of consent – and has floated ideas like opt-in revenue sharing. But even he admits that attribution, consent, and fair pay are still "big questions."

OpenAI blocks users from mimicking living artists directly, but broader genre imitation is still allowed. Altman insists that every leap in creative tech has led to "better output." But who decides what's "better"? And who benefits?

The danger next is that young creators might see this landscape and wonder if creating is still worth it.

"I'm scared that we'll lose a future generation of painters, authors, musicians," Ellis tells me. "That they won't feel the thrill of discovery. The joy of putting hours into a creative pursuit for its own sake. Because companies like Meta have told them a machine can do the hard part – as if the hard part isn't the whole point."

What we lose when we turn to AI to "create" for us isn’t just jobs or royalties. We also lose the messy, magical process that gives art its meaning. Creators aren’t prompt-fed machines. They're emotional, chaotic and alive. Every poem, novel, song or sketch is shaped by memory, trauma, boredom, desire. That’s what we connect to isn't it? Not polish, but meaning and soul.

As Ellis told me: "Even if I'm never published again, I'll still carry on writing. Because the act itself – of crafting characters and worlds that seem to exist almost independently of me – is what makes me happy."

AI can certainly produce something that resembles art. Sometimes it's clever. Sometimes it's even beautiful. But the AI tool you use doesn’t feel or care or know why it exists. Instead, we know it works by interpreting a prompt then borrowing, blending, remixing and regurgitating. So we have to ask whether what AI creates is still creativity in the absence of a human creator?

It’s the kind of question that keeps me up at night. And maybe ultimately it no longer matters. Maybe the very idea of creativity is being rewritten. Tech giants certainly promise us bold new forms of expression through AI. And many people are clearly excited by that prospect. But let’s at least be honest, these systems weren’t built to nurture our creativity. They were built to monetize it.

This isn’t just about my book, or even the 7.5 million others in LibGen. It’s about what we choose to value, like art, culture and the wild and weird richness of human experience. Because the truth is, we're not just training machines. We’re training ourselves to accept a world where our most meaningful expressions become raw material for someone else’s profit. And if we’re not careful, we’ll forget what it ever felt like to make something real.

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• Sarah Wynn-Williams, former Director of Public Policy at Facebook, spoke in front of the US Senate
• She said Facebook offered data on US citizens to the Chinese Communist Party in exchange for being allowed to operate in the country
• Facebook has denied all claims

A former Meta executive recently spoke in front of the US Congress, accusing Facebook and its CEO of allegedly offering sensitive data on American citizens to the Chinese government, in exchange for being allowed to operate in the country.

Sarah Wynn-Williams, former Director of Public Policy at Facebook, spoke in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Crime and Counterterrorism.

During the hearing, she alleged that for her former employer, there was “no bridge too far” to get into the Chinese market, and that it would do anything to get access to 1.4 billion people living there, including offering data on Americans to the Chinese Communist Party.

AI and censorship

“The only reason China does not currently have access to US user data through this pipeline is because Congress stepped in,” she was cited saying.

The company slammed her testimony, calling it “divorced from reality and riddled with false claims,” according to a Meta spokesperson.

“While Mark Zuckerberg himself was public about our interest in offering our services in China and details were widely reported beginning over a decade ago, the fact is this: We do not operate our services in China today,” the spokesperson added.

Wynn-Williams did not stop there, either. She also alleged that Meta contributed to China’s advancements in artificial intelligence, since its Llama AI models were “openly available” in the country.

There were even mentions of military applications of AI. Finally, she also alleged that Meta collaborated with the Chinese Communist Party in developing censorship tools, and then lied about it in the public.

Some senators commended Wynn-Williams’ testimony, and the fact that the filed whistleblower complaints with the SEC and the US Department of Justice after leaving the social media business.

They commented that Facebook was afraid of the truth coming out and that they would stop at nothing to prevent Wynn-Williams from testifying.

Via The Register

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Whether it's because you wanna do a clear out or are looking to start your Facebook page from scratch, knowing how to delete all Facebook posts is a great place to start. Unlike some other social media platforms you can actually do this within Facebook itself, without the need for an external app.

You can choose if you want to delete specific posts, whether by type like photos or videos, or by date. Or you can delete everything if you really want to start fresh, however once you delete these posts there’s no way you can get them back, so if you still want access to them then you also have the option to make them private, which means the posts remain, but they can't be viewed by other people.

Tools and requirements

• PC or phone with access to Facebook
• Internet access

Steps for how to delete all Facebook posts

• In the Facebook app open your settings and navigate to your Activity Log
• Select Your Facebook Activity and then select Posts and then Your posts, photos and videos
• Check the All box at the top of the list
• You can then choose if you want to Archive, Delete or Change the audience for all of your posts

Step by step guide on how to delete all Facebook posts

Final thoughts on deleting all of your Facebook posts

Overall, if you’re hoping to start fresh on social media or you just want to rid of some of your older, more embarrassing posts then knowing how to delete old Facebook posts is a great way to start.

You have a range of options, whether it’s completely deleting everything or making all your posts private, you’re able to remove them from other people’s view.

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• Facebook warned about a flaw in FreeType which could be used in remote code execution
• The flaw "may have been exploited in the wild," the company said
• A patch was recently released to address the vulnerability

Facebook is warning about an out of bounds write vulnerability in FreeType, which could allow threat actors to remotely execute arbitrary code (RCE). In a security advisory published by the company, it said that the vulnerability “may have been exploited in the wild.”

FreeType is an open-source software library that renders fonts. It supports various formats like TrueType, OpenType, and Type1, and is widely used in graphics applications, game engines, and operating systems to display high-quality text.

Major projects like Android, Linux, Unreal Engine, and ChromeOS rely on it for font rendering.

Patching the bug

The vulnerability is tracked as CVE-2025-27363, and was given a severity score of 8.1 (high). It affects the library’s versions 2.13.0 and older.

It can be triggered “when attempting to parse font subglyph structures related to TrueType GX and variable font files,” Facebook explained in the advisory. “The vulnerable code assigns a signed short value to an unsigned long and then adds a static value causing it to wrap around and allocate too small of a heap buffer. The code then writes up to 6 signed long integers out of bounds relative to this buffer.”

While Facebook was the one warning about the vulnerability, it is unclear if it is relying on the library and in what capacity. Also, it said the vulnerability “may have been exploited in the wild,” but did not elaborate if it saw the attacks on its own platform, or elsewhere.

To tackle the problem, software developers should upgrade their FreeType to the latest version (2.13.3) as soon as possible. The first clean version is 2.13.1, although the FreeType website mentions nothing about a security upgrade.

“This is a maintenance release with only minor changes,” it was said on the updates page.

Via BleepingComputer

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