An independent investigation, according to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in Washington, uncovered “several gaps and weaknesses in Facebook’s privacy program” that posed “substantial risks to the public.”

After it was disclosed that the personal information of tens of millions of Facebook users improperly ended up in the hands of Cambridge Analytica, a data firm that worked on former president Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, the FTC began its investigation in 2018.

Facebook agreed in a 2019 settlement to pay a $5 billion fine for privacy violations and to enable regular audits of its privacy practices.

The FTC stated on Wednesday that Meta misled parents regarding parental controls, as children under 13 were still permitted to communicate with unscreened contacts.

The regulator stated that Facebook continued to grant access to private information to third-party apps despite promising to terminate access if users had not used the apps within the previous 90 days.

Consequently, the FTC seeks to compel Meta to halt the release of new products until independent auditors determine that the company’s privacy policies are compliant.

The FTC also threatens to prohibit Meta from profiting from children’s data.

Andy Stone, a spokesperson for Facebook, branded the FTC’s action a “political stunt” and an overreach of its authority.

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Stone stated that despite three years of continuous engagement with the FTC regarding our agreement, there was no occasion to discuss this new, completely unprecedented theory.

FTC Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya, who will cast the deciding vote on whether to proceed with the threat, questioned his agency’s authority to restrict the commercialization of children’s data.

He approved Wednesday’s warning but added that he welcomes additional arguments and will examine them “with an open mind.”

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The research division of Meta announced that it has published a Segment Anything Model (SAM) and the corresponding dataset to promote research into computer vision foundation models.

In its statement, Meta claimed that SAM is capable of recognizing objects within images and videos, even if it had not encountered them during its training.

“The model is designed and trained to be prompt so that it can transfer zero-shot to new image distributions and tasks,” explained Meta in a blog post.

“We evaluate its capabilities on a variety of tasks and find that its zero-shot performance is often comparable to or even better than previous fully supervised results,” the report continued.

Using SAM, it is possible to select objects by tapping on them or entering text prompts. media reports that in one demonstration, writing the word “cat” caused the tool to draw boxes around each of several animals in a photo.

Meta already uses comparable technology internally for activities such as tagging photos, moderating prohibited content, and determining which Facebook and Instagram posts to recommend to users. According to the company, the release of SAM would increase access to this sort of technology.

The SAM dataset and model will be downloadable under a non-commercial license. Users who contribute images to an accompanying prototype must also consent to its use solely for research purposes.

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Media reported that the release of the popular ChatGPT A.I. chatbot has catalyzed a race among tech titans to unveil similar tools, propelling AI to the forefront of national and international conversation in recent months.

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Alphabet Inc. owns Alphabet YouTube announced Tuesday that it has lifted restrictions on former U.S. President Donald Trump’s channel, following a more than two-year suspension following the January 6, 2021 Capitol Hill disturbance that claimed the lives of seven people.

Earlier this year, Meta Platforms Inc. reinstated Trump’s Facebook and Instagram accounts, while Elon Musk reinstated his Twitter account in November.

“We carefully weighed the ongoing risk of real-world violence against the opportunity for voters to hear from all major national candidates prior to an election.” YouTube mentioned the change in a tweet.

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After his supporters invaded the U.S. Capitol as Congress began to certify Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election, the video streaming platform banned Trump in 2021 for violating its policy on inciting violence.

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According to sources familiar with the situation, the additional layoffs will be announced in multiple rounds over the next few months and will total roughly the same magnitude as the 13% reduction in its workforce last year.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that the first job cuts are expected to be announced the following week, with non-engineering positions expected to be hit particularly hard. Some projects and teams are also anticipated to fail.

Last year, Meta eliminated roughly 11,000 jobs, or approximately 13 percent of its workforce. The reductions this year are expected to reach the same proportion of those who remain, according to the sources, though the final tally of the cumulative reductions anticipated for the second quarter has not yet been determined.

Reality Labs, Meta’s hardware and metaverse division, was working on a number of wearable devices, according to sources, suggesting a near-term retreat from efforts to popularise virtual and augmented reality products even as longer-term research efforts continue.

After-hours trading for Meta shares increased by more than 2% after The Wall Street Journal reported the planned layoffs.

Susan Li, Meta’s chief financial officer, stated on Thursday at the Morgan Stanley 2023 Technology, Media, and Telecom Conference, “We’re continuing to look across the company, across both Family of Apps and Reality Labs, and evaluate if we’re deploying our resources towards the highest leverage opportunities.”

Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive officer of Meta, previously stated that 2023 would be a “year of efficiency” for the company and that some projects would likely be discontinued.

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Given Zuckerberg’s October prediction that the company would end 2023 with roughly the same number of employees as in October, the ongoing layoffs are noteworthy.

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California: According to the Seattle Times, Microsoft and Facebook parent company Meta are both leaving office buildings in Seattle and Bellevue, Washington. This is the latest indication of how the IT industry is changing and how the local office market is softening.
According to the Seattle Times, Facebook confirmed intentions to sublet its offices at the six-story Arbor Block 333 in downtown Seattle and the eleven-story Block 6 of the Spring District in Bellevue on Friday.

The social media behemoth based in Menlo Park, California, claimed to be reviewing contracts for more office buildings close to Seattle. A period of the economic cycle known as a “soft market” is one in which there are more sellers than buyers and prices are low.

On the same day, Redmond-based Microsoft confirmed rumours that it wouldn’t extend its lease at the 26-story City Center Plaza in Bellevue when it expires in June 2024, according to the Seattle Times.

The Seattle Times said that the announcements came as the demand for office space in Seattle and elsewhere has been reduced by the continuous rise in popularity of remote work and a tech slowdown that has resulted in several layoffs.

According to the daily newspaper, Microsoft and Meta have both embraced remote work while reducing their workforces when the IT sector tanked. Meta announced the layoffs of 726 employees in the Seattle area in November.

According to Tracy Clayton, a representative for Meta, the company’s shift toward remote or “distributed” work was the main factor in the leasing selections, according to Seattle Times. However, he noted that Meta was also “trying to be… financially prudent” “given the economic context”.

In Seattle, Meta currently takes up the entire Arbor Block 333, and if Block 6 had opened later in the year, Meta would have done the same. The Seattle area continues to be the company’s second-largest technical base behind its Menlo Park headquarters, with offices in 29 buildings housing close to 8,000 employees.

Microsoft’s decision about City Center Plaza, according to a company spokeswoman, was made as part of an ongoing assessment of the company’s “real estate portfolio” to ensure that it offers its employees a top-notch workplace and fosters better community and cooperation.

As office rentals drop significantly in the city of San Francisco amid remote work and massive layoffs, #Meta (formerly Facebook) and #Microsoft are now vacating office buildings in Seattle and Bellevue in Washington State.https://t.co/xFmuFLtMlG

— Economic Times (@EconomicTimes) January 15, 2023

The decision about City Center Plaza is also made in the midst of a significant renovation of Microsoft’s Redmond headquarters, some of which will be finished in late 2023. The Seattle-area office market is expected to struggle against economic headwinds and the slow return of remote office workers, according to the daily newspaper, which added Friday’s news to an already pessimistic prognosis.

According to a recent survey by commercial real estate firm Colliers, that battle is most evident in downtown Seattle, where total office vacancy is currently at 25%.

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According to The Seattle Times, even occupied offices are sometimes just half full because of remote work. According to smartphone location data from Placer.ai shared by the Downtown Seattle Association, since last summer, only 40% of the workers present in downtown Seattle have been present.

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Facebook’s parent company Meta has appointed Sandhya Devanathan as the Vice President of India. The company has given this information on Thursday. The company announced that Ajit Mohan, Country Head, Meta India, has been replaced by Sandhya Devanathan after he left the company. He has joined Facebook’s rival brand Snap. Along with him, WhatsApp India Head Abhijit Bose and Meta India’s Director of Publish Policy Rajiv Agarwan had resigned from the company.

Let us tell you that Sandhya Devanathan was earlier handling the gaming vertical of the Asia Pacific market and now the company has given her new responsibilities. Handed over She will assume her command from January 1, 2023, with which she will report to Dan Neary, Vice President, Asia Pacific. At the same time, the company has said that she will be a part of the Asia Pacific leadership team.

Meta announced the appointment of Sandhya Devanathan as the Vice President of Meta India.

(Pic credit: Sandhya Devanathan LinkedIn account) pic.twitter.com/zR7yhi4RgM

— ANI (@ANI) November 17, 2022

Sandhya Devanathan got command after Ajit Mohan

Talking about Ajit Mohan, he is going to join Snapchat. Ajit Mohan took over as the Managing Director of Facebook India in January 2019. Sandhya Devanathan joined Facebook in 2016. She then worked in several other companies and rejoined Meta in April 2020.

Meta recently fired 11 thousand employees

Recently, Facebook had fired 11 thousand employees. Mark Zuckerberg had said that these are the biggest changes in the history of the company. Along with this, he has also apologized to his employees. Zuckerberg wrote in the letter that this difficult decision has been taken due to the decline in earnings and the ongoing crisis in the technology industry.

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