Same ol’ privacy dance: Instagram collects your data when you’re using other apps and websites … and buries it in the settings menu. To disable that, open Instagram > tap your profile picture > three-line menu > Accounts Center at the top. Choose Your information and permissions > Your activity off Meta technologies. From here, choose Clear previous activity and Manage future activity to turn it off.
Meta says 'From the river to the sea' isn't hate speech
The company’s oversight board just ruled that the phrase used by Palestinian protestors isn’t hate speech. But what does it mean? This will make you rethink how social media defines hate.
🚨 Black Friday alert: Chinese scammers are imitating big brands like L.L. Bean and Ikea with “deals” up to 80% off. They use tracking pixels in Meta and TikTok to detect your location and translate the site so it looks legit. Don’t fall for too-good-to-be-true offers, and shop on official sites only!
These famous tech personalities are all college dropouts except for one. Is it … A.) Michael Dell, B.) Steve Jobs, C.) Elon Musk or D.) Mark Zuckerberg?
🛑 Big Tech, big trouble: President-elect Donald Trump has chosen Brendan Carr to lead the Federal Communications Commission. His first order of business? Cracking down on tech companies like Google and Meta for censorship and content moderation. What’s standing in his way? The FCC needs Congress’ permission to make changes.
⛑️ Big Tech is fighting the Kids Online Safety Act: It passed the Senate with overwhelming bipartisan support in July but has stalled in the House. The bill holds tech companies (gifted paywall link, WSJ) accountable for algorithms and designs contributing to mental health issues, addiction, bullying and exploitation. Tech giants Meta and Alphabet have poured nearly $90 million into lobbying efforts. Funny, Zuck won’t let his kids have social media accounts.
Worth a try if your Facebook account gets hacked: Meta doesn’t care if your FB account is hacked. One woman had to use Facebook’s automated help page, which sent her account’s reset code straight to the hacker’s email. It wasn’t until she paid $14.99 a month for Meta Verified that she finally spoke to a live agent and got her account back.
Meta’s hiding political posts: A woman who usually pulls in millions of views on Instagram saw her audience drop 63% after using the word “vote” in 11 posts. One in five American adults gets their news from Instagram, but Meta still directs its algorithm away from content related to laws, elections, crimes or anything else controversial (paywall link). Yup, it’s happening on Facebook, too.
Meta’s new AI tool jams: If you run ads on Facebook or Instagram, you can now turn still images into videos. I like this example: A simple jar of strawberry jam upgraded with floating, animated strawberries. The feature is live but not for everyone yet.
💰 Make money on Facebook: Meta has paid out over $2 billion to Facebook content creators in the past year alone for videos, Reels, photos and text posts. To see if you’re eligible, from your Facebook for Creators page, tap Menu > Professional dashboard > Monetization. Coming soon: Facebook Content Monetization Beta, which puts your in-stream ads, ads on Reels and performance bonuses all in one spot. Right now, it’s invite-only, but you can ask to join.
👓 Privacy nightmare: Two Harvard students used Meta’s smart glasses to create a tool that identifies any stranger walking by and pulls up their personal info. It scrapes the web to find where that person’s face appears, grabs their name, and digs up details like their home address, phone number and occupation. This is terrifying in the wrong (or any) hands.
🚨 Seven years of slacking: Meta’s been slapped with a $101 million fine for storing up to 600 million Facebook and Instagram passwords in plain-text format. That’s a major security no-no. Even worse? The breach was discovered in 2019, but some passwords had been unprotected since 2012 and were searchable by over 20,000 Meta employees. The fine isn’t big enough.
🕶️ Can’t wait for a new wave of glass-holes: Mark Zuckerberg thinks Meta’s Orion smart glasses will replace smartphones for messaging, video chatting and browsing social media. Zuck and his team have been working on the (really) thick black glasses for 10 years. They include a holographic display only the wearer can see. No price or timeline yet.
👋 Don’t fall for this: There’s a new viral post making the rounds on Facebook, Instagram and other Meta platforms. The post says if you don’t copy the post and share it, you’re fine with Meta using your info and photos. Reality check: It’s fake and won’t do diddly-squat. Make your account private; Meta AI (supposedly) only pulls from public posts.
✅ Instagram for teens: Congress is laying on the pressure and Meta is finally making changes. “Teen accounts” for anyone under 18 will block non-friends from viewing their content or messaging them. Parents can also see who their kids have recently messaged, set daily time limits and block app usage during certain hours. Full list of changes here. Share this one with anyone with a teen.
🇷🇺 Confirm before you share: Meta says the Kremlin is the No. 1 source of AI-created misinformation ahead of the upcoming U.S. presidential election. The most common trick on Facebook? Imaginary “journalists” who write bogus news stories. Meta says they’re trying to stop the Russian propaganda. Oh, Crimea river!
Can’t trust ’em: Meta and Google secretly teamed up to target kids with ads for Instagram on YouTube. They exploited a loophole allowing personalized ads to be served to an “unknown” group, aka users whose age and parental status aren’t identified. Seriously? You can tell it’s a kid based on their search history.
Kitboga exposes a shocking new scam
Scammers have a new trick up their sleeves, and Kitboga is here to break it down for us! Plus, Duolingo’s mean streak, the U.S. House has banned ByteDance apps, and Meta is planning to open-source its latest AI model.
🖼️ Color me impressed: Mark Zuckerberg announced the other day Meta’s AI model will be open-sourced, unlike Google’s version or OpenAI. I’ve been playing with Meta AI’s image tools. Use the prompt, “Imagine a photo (cartoon, watercolor or whatever)” and what you want it to create. Now, there are six fingers on some hands and other anomalies, but for version 1.0, it’s darn good. Try it here.