Fraudsters are exploiting enterprise chat apps like Teams and Webex to trick Chinese victims into transferring large sums of money, fueling a wave of complaints.

Smoking used to be everywhere, the way Facebook, TikTok, Snap, YouTube and Instagram are now. Society decided to break the habit, but it took a long time.

© Jason Henry for The New York Times

Proposals for curbing social media use among children have wide support, but critics say they are ineffective.

© Jeremy Piper/Reuters

Those who said Meta harms children struck a blow, but the ability of big tech to gouge profits and cause harm is barely diminished. That’s the battle to come

Follow the money. If you want to know how the tech giant Meta really feels about the $18bn it agreed to fork out to end a landmark lawsuit against it – an outcome widely hailed as a victory for campaigners – just look at its share price. It didn’t go down when word came on Wednesday that Meta had settled with the 29 US states that had argued that the company’s Facebook and Instagram platforms harmed children. On the contrary, Meta stock went up, initially surging by 5%, before levelling out at a gain of just over 1.25%. There could be no clearer proof that the money men reckon Meta dodged a bullet.

To be sure, there was plenty to hearten those who have long believed that social media damages teenagers especially, whether by exposing them to content they shouldn’t see or by sapping their self-esteem, offering them filters that show how much prettier they would look if they had cosmetic surgery or giving them a metric of their popularity – and unpopularity – in the form of a running tally of “likes” and views.

Jonathan Freedland is a Guardian columnist

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Wally Skalij/Getty Images

© Photograph: Wally Skalij/Getty Images

© Photograph: Wally Skalij/Getty Images

Meta’s settlement is far from perfect, but it’s better than nothing.

Other governments could seek similar concessions, while separate legal action is pending in places ranging from Kenya to the Netherlands

In October 2021, Abrham Meareg’s father, a professor of chemistry in Ethiopia’s northern town of Bahir Dar, was shot at close range and died outside his family home. This was in the middle of the country’s civil war.

For weeks, Facebook’s algorithm had actively promoted posts calling for the academic to be murdered, according to Meareg and Foxglove, a nonprofit organisation supporting Meareg’s lawsuit against the company in Kenya. These posts included photos of his father and his home address.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Jill Connelly/Getty Images

© Photograph: Jill Connelly/Getty Images

© Photograph: Jill Connelly/Getty Images

Other governments could seek similar concessions, while separate legal action is pending in places ranging from Kenya to the Netherlands

In October 2021, Abrham Meareg’s father, a professor of chemistry in Ethiopia’s northern town of Bahir Dar, was shot at close range and died outside his family home. This was in the middle of the country’s civil war.

For weeks, Facebook’s algorithm had actively promoted posts calling for the academic to be murdered, according to Meareg and Foxglove, a nonprofit organisation supporting Meareg’s lawsuit against the company in Kenya. These posts included photos of his father and his home address.

Continue reading...

© Photograph: Jill Connelly/Getty Images

© Photograph: Jill Connelly/Getty Images

© Photograph: Jill Connelly/Getty Images

Sometimes people just want to post to their followers, Bluesky says.

Meta has agreed to strengthen its age estimates to keep kids under 13 off its platforms and teens in age-appropriate accounts, enact a hard limit of two hours a day for users under 18, block kids from the apps from midnight to 6 a.m., and hide "like" counts, among other changes.

Across the country, parents described feeling some validation after the landmark $17.1 billion settlement. But they also felt skeptical that much of anything will change.

© Tom Werner/Getty Images

Our reporter Cecilia Kang explains Meta’s settlement of a lawsuit claiming that the company’s social media platforms had harmed teenage users.

In “The Anxious Generation,” he laid out the evils of social media for kids. The landmark Meta settlement seems to agree.

© Lila Barth for The New York Times

The social networking giant projected it could spend $10 billion annually on Anthropic’s tools, illustrating the friend-foe relationships underlying the A.I. race.

The tech giant’s landmark deal with states over teen use of social media may cost the company less than expected. It may hurt rivals more.

© Josh Edelson/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

We explain the Meta deal.

© William West/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Plus, a breakthrough in cancer treatment.

© Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

Meta, the social media giant, agreed to change the way children interact with its apps. That could be trouble if its competitors don’t abide by the same rules.

© Anna Barclay/Getty Images

Psychologists said the changes were a symbolic victory, but warned their effectiveness might be limited.

© Elaine Cromie for The New York Times

Meta agreed to pay up to $17 billion in a settlement, putting to rest a trial where dozens of states accused it of deliberately endangering children through their platforms. The company behind Facebook and Instagram agreed to implement digital guardrails for minors and is asking other social platforms to do the same. Geoff Bennett discussed more with Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser.

Governments around the world have passed or proposed a range of bans or restrictions on young teens using addictive social media platforms.

© Jeremy Piper/Reuters