Tag • #facebook

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Meet Mercy and Anita – the African workers driving the AI revolution, for just over a dollar an hour

news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Saturday, 6 July - 15:00 · 1 minute

Social media content and AI training data are processed in outsource centres in the global south, where long hours, low pay and exposure to disturbing material are the norm

James Muldoon, Mark Graham and Callum Cant: ‘AI feeds off the work of human beings’

Mercy craned forward, took a deep breath and loaded another task on her computer. One after another, disturbing images and videos appeared on her screen. As a Meta content moderator working at an outsourced office in Nairobi, Mercy was expected to action one “ticket” every 55 seconds during her 10-hour shift. This particular video was of a fatal car crash. Someone had filmed the scene and uploaded it to Facebook, where it had been flagged by a user. Mercy’s job was to determine whether it had breached any of the company’s guidelines that prohibit particularly violent or graphic content. She looked closer at the video as the person filming zoomed in on the crash. She began to recognise one of the faces on the screen just before it snapped into focus: the victim was her grandfather.

Mercy pushed her chair back and ran towards the exit, past rows of colleagues who looked on in concern. She was crying. Outside, she started calling relatives. There was disbelief – nobody else had heard the news yet. Her supervisor came out to comfort her, but also to remind her that she would need to return to her desk if she wanted to make her targets for the day. She could have a day off tomorrow in light of the incident – but given that she was already at work, he pointed out, she may as well finish her shift.

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FarmVille at 15: how a cutesy Facebook game shaped the modern internet

news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Friday, 5 July - 09:00 · 1 minute

On its 15th anniversary, the creators of FarmVille reflect on the compulsive cartoon farm sim that paved the way for a data-driven world

Facebook users of a certain age may remember a particularly forlorn farm animal popping up in their feeds during the platform’s heyday. The lonely cow would wander into FarmVille players’ pastures with its face twisted into a frown and its eyes shimmering with tears. “She feels very sad and needs a new home,” an accompanying caption read, asking you to adopt the cow or message your friends for help. Ignore the cow’s plea and it would presumably be left friendless and foodless. Message your friends about it, and you’d be accelerating the spread of one of the biggest online crazes of the 2010s.

Released 15 years ago, FarmVille was nothing short of a phenomenon. More than 18,000 players gave it a go on its first day, rising to 1 million by its fourth. At its peak in 2010, more than 80 million users logged in monthly to plant crops, tend animals and harvest goods for coins to spend on decorations. Celebrities professed their obsession , McDonald’s created a farm for a promotion, and long before artists released music on Fortnite, Lady Gaga debuted songs from her sophomore album through the cartoon farm sim. Not bad for a game that was stitched together in five weeks.

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Facebook se calme avec l’IA, pour éviter de futurs ennuis

news.movim.eu / Numerama · Saturday, 15 June - 05:01

Facebook baisse d'un ton avec l'IA générative. Le réseau social revoit pour l'heure à la baisse ses projets : il n'y aura pas d'entraînement de son IA à partir des données de ses membres.

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Meta halts plans to train AI on Facebook, Instagram posts in EU

news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Friday, 14 June - 18:44

Meta halts plans to train AI on Facebook, Instagram posts in EU

Enlarge (credit: GreyParrot | iStock / Getty Images Plus )

Meta has apparently paused plans to process mounds of user data to bring new AI experiences to Europe.

The decision comes after data regulators rebuffed the tech giant's claims that it had "legitimate interests" in processing European Union- and European Economic Area (EEA)-based Facebook and Instagram users' data—including personal posts and pictures—to train future AI tools.

There's not much information available yet on Meta's decision. But Meta's EU regulator, the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC), posted a statement confirming that Meta made the move after ongoing discussions with the DPC about compliance with the EU's strict data privacy laws, including the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

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Power grab: the hidden costs of Ireland’s datacentre boom – podcast

news.movim.eu / TheGuardian · Friday, 29 March - 05:00

Datacentres are part of Ireland’s vision of itself as a tech hub. There are now more than 80, using vast amounts of electricity. Have we entrusted our memories to a system that might destroy them? By Jessica Traynor

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Facebook let Netflix see user DMs, quit streaming to keep Netflix happy: Lawsuit

news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Thursday, 28 March - 20:40 · 1 minute

A promotional image for Sorry for Your Loss, with Elizabeth Olsen

Enlarge / A promotional image for Sorry for Your Loss , which was a Facebook Watch original scripted series. (credit: Facebook )

Last April, Meta revealed that it would no longer support original shows, like Jada Pinkett Smith's Red Table Talk talk show, on Facebook Watch. Meta's streaming business that was once viewed as competition for the likes of YouTube and Netflix is effectively dead now; Facebook doesn't produce original series, and Facebook Watch is no longer available as a video-streaming app.

The streaming business' demise has seemed related to cost cuts at Meta that have also included layoffs. However, recently unsealed court documents in an antitrust suit against Meta [ PDF ] claim that Meta has squashed its streaming dreams in order to appease one of its biggest ad customers: Netflix.

Facebook allegedly gave Netflix creepy privileges

As spotted via Gizmodo , a letter was filed on April 14 in relation to a class-action antitrust suit that was filed by Meta customers, accusing Meta of anti-competitive practices that harm social media competition and consumers. The letter, made public Saturday, asks a court to have Reed Hastings, Netflix's founder and former CEO, respond to a subpoena for documents that plaintiffs claim are relevant to the case. The original complaint filed in December 2020 [ PDF ] doesn’t mention Netflix beyond stating that Facebook “secretly signed Whitelist and Data sharing agreements” with Netflix, along with “dozens” of other third-party app developers. The case is still ongoing.

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Facebook secretly spied on Snapchat usage to confuse advertisers, court docs say

news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Wednesday, 27 March - 20:25

Facebook secretly spied on Snapchat usage to confuse advertisers, court docs say

Enlarge (credit: NurPhoto / Contributor | NurPhoto )

Unsealed court documents have revealed more details about a secret Facebook project initially called "Ghostbusters," designed to sneakily access encrypted Snapchat usage data to give Facebook a leg up on its rival, just when Snapchat was experiencing rapid growth in 2016.

The documents were filed in a class-action lawsuit from consumers and advertisers, accusing Meta of anticompetitive behavior that blocks rivals from competing in the social media ads market.

"Whenever someone asks a question about Snapchat, the answer is usually that because their traffic is encrypted, we have no analytics about them," Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg (who has since rebranded his company as Meta) wrote in a 2016 email to Javier Olivan.

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Meta sues FTC, hoping to block ban on monetizing kids’ Facebook data

news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Thursday, 30 November, 2023 - 18:50

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Chesnot)

Meta sued the Federal Trade Commission yesterday in a lawsuit that challenges the FTC's authority to impose new privacy obligations on the social media firm.

The complaint stems from the FTC's May 2023 allegation that Meta-owned Facebook violated a 2020 privacy settlement and the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. The FTC proposed changes to the 2020 privacy order that would, among other things, prohibit Facebook from monetizing data it collects from users under 18.

Meta's lawsuit against the FTC challenges what it calls "the structurally unconstitutional authority exercised by the FTC through its Commissioners in an administrative reopening proceeding against Meta." It was filed against the FTC, Chair Lina Khan, and other commissioners in US District Court for the District of Columbia. Meta is seeking a preliminary injunction to stop the FTC proceeding pending resolution of the lawsuit.

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Meta’s “overpriced” ad-free subscriptions make privacy a “luxury good”: EU suit

news.movim.eu / ArsTechnica · Thursday, 30 November, 2023 - 18:37

Meta’s “overpriced” ad-free subscriptions make privacy a “luxury good”: EU suit

Enlarge (credit: NurPhoto / Contributor | NurPhoto )

Backlash over Meta's ad-free subscription model in the European Union has begun just one month into its launch.

On Thursday, Europe's largest consumer group, the European Consumer Organization (BEUC), filed a complaint with the network of consumer protection authorities. In a press release , BEUC alleges that Meta's subscription fees for ad-free access to Facebook and Instagram are so unreasonably high that they breach laws designed to protect user privacy as a fundamental right.

"Meta has been rolling out changes to its service in the EU in November 2023, which require Facebook and Instagram users to either consent to the processing of their data for advertising purposes by the company or pay in order not to be shown advertisements," BEUC's press release said. "The tech giant’s pay-or-consent approach is unfair and must be stopped."

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