Meta Kills a Crucial Transparency Tool At the Worst Possible Time

Earlier this month, Meta announced that it would be shutting down CrowdTangle, the social media monitoring and transparency tool that has allowed journalists and researchers to track the spread of mis- and disinformation. It will cease to function on August 14, 2024—just months before the US presidential election. Meta’s move is just the latest example … Read more

The EU Targets Apple, Meta, and Alphabet for Investigations Under New Tech Law

Apple is among three tech giants being investigated for failing to comply with the European Union’s new competition rules, in another blow to the embattled smartphone maker. Apple was the primary focus of an EU press conference on Monday morning. But authorities also opened formal investigations into Meta and Alphabet, Google’s parent company. The trio … Read more

Apple, Meta, and Google targeted by EU in DMA non-compliance investigations

The European Commission is opening five non-compliance investigations into how Apple, Google, and Meta are complying with its new Digital Markets Act antitrust rules, the regulator announced today. “We suspect that the suggested solutions put forward by the three companies do not fully comply with the DMA,” the EU’s antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager said in … Read more

EU launches probe into Meta, Apple and Alphabet under sweeping new tech law

Executive Vice-President of the European Commission for a Europe fit for the Digital Age (Competition), Margrethe Vestager, holds a press conference on “Apple on App Store rules for music streaming providers” in Brussels, Belgium on April 30, 2021. (Photo by Dursun Aydemir/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images) Dursun Aydemir | Anadolu | Getty Images The European … Read more

House Passes Privacy Bill Banning Data Brokers From Selling Your Info to Russia and China

The U.S. House passed a bill that would ban third-party data brokers from selling the user data of Americans to geopolitical adversaries like China and Russia. And while it still needs to pass the Senate to become law, it’s a step in the right direction as recent headlines mostly focus on a potential ban on … Read more

Zuckerberg Swiped Elon’s Big Swiping Idea

Mark Zuckerberg began testing a horizontal swiping feature on Wednesday for his pet project, Threads, the app whose main purpose seems to be trolling Elon Musk. The feature appears to be something Musk tweeted about two weeks ago, noting that he’s wanted to add it to X for the last year. Threads Needs These Five … Read more

Meta just showed off Threads’ fediverse integration for the very first time

Threads is coming to the fediverse — and we just got our first official look at how that might work from Meta itself. During the FediForum conference on Tuesday, Meta’s Peter Cottle showed off a brief demo of how users will eventually be able to connect their accounts and posts to the fediverse. The integration … Read more

The Greatest App of All Time Day 17: Instagram vs. WhatsApp

Welcome back to Gizmodo’s March Madness bracket challenge to name the greatest app of all time! Yesterday’s tournament was a bloodbath with Calculator taking more than 87 percent of the vote. Twitch goes home empty-handed. Today, we have the crown jewels of Zuckerberg’s empire going head-to-head. If you’re just tuning in, you can read all … Read more

US prosecutors are investigating how Meta platforms played a part in illegal drug sales

Federal prosecutors asking questions about Meta are “looking into whether the company’s social-media platforms are facilitating and profiting from the illegal sale of drugs,” according to unnamed sources in a report today by the Wall Street Journal. Prosecutors reportedly sent Meta subpoenas last year seeking records on “violative drug content on Meta’s platforms and/or the … Read more

Trump says TikTok ban would empower Meta, slams Facebook

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on Monday raised concerns about efforts to ban Chinese-owned social media app TikTok in the U.S., saying it would only serve to empower Meta’s Facebook platform. “Without TikTok, you can make Facebook bigger, and I consider Facebook to be an enemy of the people,” Trump, who was formerly U.S. … Read more