Meta has announced changes to its rules on AI-generated content and manipulated media following criticism from its Oversight Board.
So, for AI-generated or otherwise manipulated media on Meta platforms like Facebook and Instagram, the playbook appears to be: more labels, fewer takedowns.
“Our ‘Made with AI’ labels on AI-generated video, audio and images will be based on our detection of industry-shared signals of AI images or people self-disclosing that they’re uploading AI-generated content,” said Bickert, noting the company already applies ‘Imagined with AI’ labels to photorealistic images created using its own Meta AI feature.
Meta’s blog post highlights a network of nearly 100 independent fact-checkers which it says it’s engaged with to help identify risks related to manipulated content.
These external entities will continue to review false and misleading AI-generated content, per Meta.
Oculus’ Rift prototype felt like just such a device when it first crossed my radar more than a decade ago.
“After games, we’re going to make Oculus a platform for many other experiences.
Should anyone doubt the company’s commitment to the concept, it rebranded itself as “Meta”, killing off the Oculus brand the same afternoon.
In spite of the $500 billion rebrand, Zuckerberg and co. never did a particularly good job defining the metaverse.
That’s roughly 21x the price it paid for Oculus, not adjusting for inflation.
Meta is denying that it gave Netflix access to users’ private messages.
Meta’s communications director, Andy Stone, reposted the original X post on Tuesday with a statement disputing that Netflix had been given access to users’ private messages.
However, The New York Times had previously reported in 2018 that Netflix and Spotify could read users’ private messages, according to documents it had obtained.
“No third party was reading your private messages, or writing messages to your friends without your permission.
Many news stories imply we were shipping over private messages to partners, which is not correct,” the blog post stated.
Now, it appears Meta is using its Quest VR store to demonstrate how it thinks devices with app stores should approach online age verification.
Since it’s easy to lie about someone’s age when entering only a birthdate, Meta says it’ll require people who accidentally enter a wrong birthdate to verify with an ID or credit card.
Meta has previously told developers that, starting in March 2024, it will require them to identify their app’s intended age group (preteens, teens or adults).
It also announced the launch of its user age group APIs, which officially launched last month.
Meta first added parental supervision tools to its VR headset in 2022.
Telegram Business will likely give Premium another bump as it offers tools and features that can be used by business customers without needing to know how to code.
Similar to features available on WhatsApp, Telegram Business will offer “quick replies,” which are shortcuts to preset messages that support formatting, links, media, stickers and files.
Business customers can also add Telegram bots, including those from other tools or AI assistants, to answer messages on their behalf.
The company said more features will roll out to Telegram Business in future updates.
(They can be found under Settings > Telegram Business in the app.)
On Tuesday, digital EVP and competition chief Margrethe Vestager cast doubt on Meta’s privacy fee, telling Reuters: “I think there are many different ways to monetize the services that you provide.
“Consumers should be given time to reflect before making that decision, and not being put under pressure to accept it quickly.”As noted above, consumer protection groups have filed a number of complaints about Meta’s privacy fee — arguing Meta is breaching EU consumer protection and privacy rules.
There’s currently no way for users in the EU to use Facebook or Instagram and not be tracked.
They suggest Meta’s strategy is a blatant attempt to circumvent EU laws by making privacy an unaffordable luxury.
Vestager’s remarks also suggest the Commission already takes the view that Meta’s privacy fee is non-compliant with the DMA.
“[W]e await feedback from the Irish Data Protection Commission [DPC], our lead data protection regulator in the EU,” he added.
While Meta’s compliance with the GDPR is led by the Irish DPC, under the regulation’s one-stop-shop.
This structure does not mean the Irish authority gets final say on Meta’s compliance with EU privacy rules, though.
In the case of Meta, this has frequently led to objections from other data protection authorities which have landed stiffer enforcements than the DPC originally proposed.
So who gets the final say on the GDPR compliance of Meta’s consent mechanism is complex too.
“The trajectory of privacy and data protection is at a critical juncture, and it is imperative that all stakeholders, including tech giants like yours, uphold their responsibilities to safeguard these rights.
One of the signatories, Pirate Party MEP Patrick Breyer, summarizes Meta’s demand for a “privacy fee” as “economic coercion”.
noyb has subsequently filed another GDPR complaint against Meta’s model, focused on how easy/not is it for people to withdraw consent.
There are also a series of consumer protection complaints in the mix — which argue Meta’s approach breaches EU consumer protection rules.
Completing the circle, consumer right groups have filed as series of GDPR complaints against Meta’s ‘pay or okay’ model, too.
Hey, folks, welcome to Week in Review (WiR), TechCrunch’s newsletter covering all of — or at least the bulk of!
This week, Roku played hardball with its customers, requiring them to consent to new dispute resolution terms.
And Elon Musk, the CEO of X, sued OpenAI over allegedly “betraying” its nonprofit mission.
NewsEpic takedown: Apple has terminated Epic Games’ App Store developer account, reportedly calling it a “threat” to the iOS ecosystem.
Musk money: Four former Twitter executives, including ex-CEO Parag Agrawal, sued Musk on Monday, alleging that they’re owed over $128 million in severance payments.
Mindfulness and meditation apps have tremendous potential in the world of extended reality.
The full immersion created by headsets like the Meta Quest and Apple Vision Pro offer great potential to kickstart such practices, which are notoriously difficult to both begin and maintain.
As such, partnership between leading meditation app Headspace and Quest-maker Meta is a no-brainer.
At the very least, the experience seems engaging in a way not normally associated with meditation apps.
The app is available now for Meta Quest 3, Meta Quest 2 and Meta Quest Pro.
