European and Irish regulators have ordered Facebook owner Meta to pay a fine of 1.2 billion euros for violating the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) with transfers of personal data to the United States. It’s the largest GDPR fine ever.

Meta was also ordered to stop storing European Union user data in the US within six months, but it may ultimately not have to take that step if the EU and US agree on a new regulatory framework for international data transfers.

The infringement by Meta’s subsidiary in Ireland “is very serious since it concerns transfers that are systematic, repetitive, and continuous,” European Data Protection Board (EDPB) Chair Andrea Jelinek said in an announcement today. “Facebook has millions of users in Europe, so the volume of personal data transferred is massive. The unprecedented fine is a strong signal to organizations that serious infringements have far-reaching consequences.”

The Ireland Data Protection Commission (DPC) decided not to fine Meta in July 2022, but the ruling was subject to binding dispute resolution after some regulators in other European countries objected. The EDPB then overruled Ireland’s DPC and instructed it to amend the draft to impose a fine.

The EDPB also said it instructed Ireland regulators to order Meta “to bring processing operations into compliance with Chapter V GDPR, by ceasing the unlawful processing, including storage, in the US of personal data of European users transferred in violation of the GDPR, within six months after notification” of the final decision.

Meta and a tech-industry trade group criticized the ruling. The Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA), which represents Meta and other tech companies, said the order to suspend data transfers “effectively makes the way the Internet works illegal, from video conferencing and browsing the Internet, to the processing of online payments.”

While the Ireland DPC’s draft decision in July 2022 didn’t include a fine, it said that Facebook’s data transfers should be suspended. The DPC’s view was that “exercise of additional corrective powers, beyond the proposed suspension order, would exceed the extent of powers that could be described as being ‘appropriate, proportionate and necessary’ to address the infringement of Article 46(1) GDPR,” the Irish regulator said.

“Highest degree of negligence”

Meta was found to violate article 46(1) of the GDPR, which says companies may only transfer personal data to another country if there are “appropriate safeguards, and on condition that enforceable data subject rights and effective legal remedies for data subjects are available.”

The EDPB’s binding decision said that Meta “committed the infringement of Article 46(1) with at least the highest degree of negligence” and that the infringement affects “a wide range of categories of personal data.” Meta’s design of Facebook “prevents it from providing this service” in Europe without the international data transfers that were found to violate the GDPR, “which suggests that a considerable part of its profits derived from the provision of the service in the EU arise from the breach of the GDPR,” the EDPB said.

A fine is necessary because of “the gravity of the infringement, taking into account the particularly large scope of the processing and the very high number of data subjects affected, as well as the long duration of the infringement, which is still ongoing,” the EDPB decision said. The Ireland DPC issued a final decision that incorporates the required changes.

In a blog post, Meta executives said the company is “appealing these decisions and will immediately seek a stay with the courts who can pause the implementation deadlines, given the harm that these orders would cause, including to the millions of people who use Facebook every day.”

Meta hopes EU/US pact will come soon

Meta also said that “there is a fundamental conflict of law between the US government’s rules on access to data and European privacy rights.”

EU and US officials have been negotiating a deal on data transfers. Meta said that if the pending EU-US Data Privacy Framework “comes into effect before the implementation deadlines expire, our services can continue as they do today without any disruption or impact on users.”

“This decision is flawed, unjustified, and sets a dangerous precedent for the countless other companies transferring data between the EU and US,” Meta wrote.

https://arstechnica.com/?p=1940912

The European Union slapped Meta with a record $1.3 billion privacy fine Monday and ordered it to stop transferring user data across the Atlantic, the latest salvo in a decadelong case sparked by U.S. cybersnooping fears.

The penalty fine of 1.2 billion euros from Ireland’s Data Protection Commission is the biggest since the EU’s strict data privacy regime took effect five years ago, surpassing Amazon’s 746 million euro penalty in 2021 for data protection violations.

The Irish watchdog is Meta’s lead privacy regulator in the 27-nation bloc because the Silicon Valley tech giant’s European headquarters is based in Dublin.

Meta, which had previously warned that services for its users in Europe could be cut off, vowed to appeal and ask courts to immediately put the decision on hold.

“There is no immediate disruption to Facebook in Europe,” the company said.

“This decision is flawed, unjustified and sets a dangerous precedent for the countless other companies transferring data between the EU and U.S.,” Nick Clegg, Meta’s president of global and affairs, and Chief Legal Officer Jennifer Newstead said in a statement.

It’s yet another twist in a legal battle that began in 2013 when Austrian lawyer and privacy activist Max Schrems filed a complaint about Facebook’s handling of his data following former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden’s revelations about U.S. cybersnooping.

The saga has highlighted the clash between Washington and Brussels over the differences between Europe’s strict view on data privacy and the comparatively lax regime in the U.S., which lacks a federal privacy law.

An agreement covering EU-U.S. data transfers known as the Privacy Shield was struck down in 2020 by the EU’s top court, which said it didn’t do enough to protect residents from the U.S. government’s electronic prying.

That left another tool to govern data transfers — stock legal contracts. Irish regulators initially ruled that Meta didn’t need to be fined because it was acting in good faith in using them to move data across the Atlantic. But it was overruled in Monday’s ruling by the EU’s top panel of data privacy authorities.

Meanwhile, Brussels and Washington signed an agreement last year on a reworked Privacy Shield that Meta could use, but the pact is awaiting a decision from European officials on whether it adequately protects data privacy.

EU institutions have been reviewing the agreement, and the bloc’s lawmakers this month called for improvements, saying the safeguards aren’t strong enough.

Meta warned in its latest earnings report that without a legal basis for data transfers, it will be forced to stop offering its products and services in Europe, “which would materially and adversely affect our business, financial condition, and results of operations.”

The social media company might have to carry out a costly and complex revamp of its operations if it’s forced to stop shipping user data across the Atlantic. Meta has a fleet of 21 data centers, according to its website, but 17 of them are in the United States. Three others are in the European nations of Denmark, Ireland and Sweden. Another is in Singapore.

Other social media giants are facing pressure over their data practices. TikTok has tried to soothe Western fears about the Chinese-owned short video sharing app’s potential cybersecurity risks with a $1.5 billion project to store U.S. user data on Oracle servers.

Related: Facebook, GDPR and Max Schrems – Under the Hood of GDPR Legal Processes

Related: Open Banking: A Perfect Storm for Security and Privacy?

Related: Facebook Agrees to Pay $725 Million to Settle Privacy Suit

https://www.securityweek.com/facebook-parent-meta-hit-with-record-fine-for-transferring-european-user-data-to-us/

Today the United States Supreme Court quashed tech industry fears that the nation’s highest court might ruin the Internet by deciding that platforms should be held liable for recommending third-party content that has long been protected by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

In a pair of rulings, the Supreme Court found that plaintiffs failed to state a claim when arguing that online platforms like YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook should be held liable for aiding and abetting the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) terrorist enterprise by recommending terrorist content ahead of attacks. As a result, both cases, Twitter v. Taamneh and Gonzalez v. Google, have been remanded to a lower court, and at least for now, the Section 230 immunity shield remains fully intact.

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas delivered the opinion in the Twitter case. He concluded that allegations that Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube knew for years that “ISIS was using their platforms but failed to stop it from doing so” were “insufficient”—even without considering Section 230 protections—to establish that the social platforms aided and abetted a specific 2017 terrorist attack on the Reina nightclub in Istanbul, Turkey. That attack, carried out for ISIS by Abdulkadir Masharipov, killed 39 victims and injured another 69.

Plaintiffs in that case argued that social platforms can be held liable for generally aiding and abetting ISIS—and profiting from “advertisements placed on ISIS’ tweets, posts, and videos.” But the Supreme Court found that plaintiffs fell “short” of proving their Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) claims that platforms gave “knowing and substantial assistance” to ISIS.

“Notably, plaintiffs never allege that ISIS used defendants’ platforms to plan or coordinate the Reina attack; in fact, they do not allege that Masharipov himself ever used Facebook, YouTube, or Twitter,” Thomas wrote in his opinion.

Instead, plaintiffs sought to hold tech companies liable for “creating their platforms and setting up their algorithms to display content relevant to user inputs and user history,” Thomas wrote, which led them to recommend terrorist content like propaganda and recruitment materials to users. Apart from blocking some ISIS content, Thomas wrote, there is “no reason” to think that “defendants selected or took any action at all with respect to ISIS’ content.” And allegations that “Google reviewed and approved ISIS videos on YouTube as part of a revenue-sharing system and thereby shared advertising revenue with ISIS” alleged “nothing about the amount of money that Google supposedly shared with ISIS, the number of accounts approved for revenue sharing, or the content of the videos that were approved.”

Because platforms’ algorithms “appear agnostic”—”matching any content (including ISIS’ content) with any user who is more likely to view that content”—platforms were only allegedly guilty of standing back and watching as terrorist content spread on their platforms, Thomas wrote. That’s a “far cry” from proving that platforms were consciously or substantially trying to help ISIS or participate in the Reina attack, the court decided, making platforms instead appear to be passive bystanders.

“There are no allegations that defendants treated ISIS any differently from anyone else,” Thomas wrote. “Rather, defendants’ relationship with ISIS and its supporters appears to have been the same as their relationship with their billion-plus other users: arm’s length, passive, and largely indifferent.”

The ATA does not hold passive bystanders liable for terrorist activity. If it did, then email, cell phone, Internet, or any sort of communications providers—including mail delivery services—would all be liable for terrorist attacks, the court decided.

Further, finding otherwise would “necessarily hold defendants liable as having aided and abetted each and every ISIS terrorist act committed anywhere in the world,” Thomas’ opinion said. Partly because plaintiffs did not show that any platform “consciously and selectively chose to promote content provided by a particular terrorist group” or had some legal duty to remove ISIS content, their allegations “certainly fall short,” Thomas wrote.

“There is no allegation that the platforms here do more than transmit information by billions of people, most of whom use the platforms for interactions that once took place via mail, on the phone, or in public areas,” Thomas wrote. “The fact that some bad actors took advantage of these platforms is insufficient to state a claim that defendants knowingly gave substantial assistance and thereby aided and abetted those wrongdoers’ acts.”

Because the claims raised in the other case, Gonzalez v. Google, depended on the Supreme Court ruling in favor of plaintiffs in Twitter v. Taamneh, the court ruled that Gonzalez v. Google also failed to state a claim under the ATA.

Attorneys for the Taamneh and Gonzalez families, Twitter, and Facebook owner Meta did not immediately respond to Ars’ request for comment.

Google’s general counsel, Halimah DeLaine Prado, told Ars that “countless companies, scholars, content creators and civil society organizations who joined with us in this case will be reassured by this result. We’ll continue our work to safeguard free expression online, combat harmful content, and support businesses and creators who benefit from the Internet.”

https://arstechnica.com/?p=1940290

Meta has introduced the AI Sandbox, which will bring generative AI to its advertisers.

Meta’s three new generative AI features. Select Meta advertisers can now create text variations, generate images from prompts and adjust image sizes – all with the ultimate goal of making the ads more engaging.

Text variation. Simply enter your ad copy and Meta will suggest several ad copy variations to test. You can click decide whether the suggestions are “Not Great” or “Looks Good.”

What it looks like:

Background generation. You can use text prompts to describe the background appearance or style you want. This would allow you to test various images and test their impact on performance.

Image outcropping. This tool will let you adjust your assets to fit different aspect ratios across Facebook and Instagram surfaces (e.g., Stories, Reels).

Why we care. These generative AI tools could potentially improve the performance of your Facebook advertising and save you time. But, as with any tool, it will be important to test and monitor the outputs, as we all know generative AI is far from perfect.

More access in July. These new generative AI features are only available to a small group of advertisers. That will change in July, which is when Meta said it will expand access to more advertisers.

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About the author

Danny Goodwin has been Managing Editor of Search Engine Land & Search Marketing Expo – SMX since 2022. He joined Search Engine Land in 2022 as Senior Editor. In addition to reporting on the latest search marketing news, he manages Search Engine Land’s SME (Subject Matter Expert) program. He also helps program U.S. SMX events. Goodwin has been editing and writing about the latest developments and trends in search and digital marketing since 2007. He previously was Executive Editor of Search Engine Journal (from 2017 to 2022), managing editor of Momentology (from 2014-2016) and editor of Search Engine Watch (from 2007 to 2014). He has spoken at many major search conferences and virtual events, and has been sourced for his expertise by a wide range of publications and podcasts.

https://searchengineland.com/meta-ai-sandbox-advertisers-418744

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About the author

Danny Goodwin has been Managing Editor of Search Engine Land & Search Marketing Expo – SMX since 2022. He joined Search Engine Land in 2022 as Senior Editor. In addition to reporting on the latest search marketing news, he manages Search Engine Land’s SME (Subject Matter Expert) program. He also helps program U.S. SMX events. Goodwin has been editing and writing about the latest developments and trends in search and digital marketing since 2007. He previously was Executive Editor of Search Engine Journal (from 2017 to 2022), managing editor of Momentology (from 2014-2016) and editor of Search Engine Watch (from 2007 to 2014). He has spoken at many major search conferences and virtual events, and has been sourced for his expertise by a wide range of publications and podcasts.

https://searchengineland.com/news-content-could-vanish-from-meta-in-canada-414662

Graphic images from a Texas mass shooting on Saturday that killed nine (including the gunman) and wounded seven are still circulating on Twitter after spreading virally all weekend. Critics told The New York Times that unlike other platforms, Twitter isn’t doing enough to remove or label these “unusually graphic” images, especially in footage where dead bodies of some victims, including a young child, appear to be identifiable, Reuters reported.

Family members do “not deserve to see the dead relatives spread across Twitter for everybody to see,” photojournalist Pat Holloway told the Times. Over the weekend, Holloway joined others in tweeting directly at Twitter CEO Elon Musk to improve the platform’s content moderation.

Twitter’s policy on sharing content after a violent attack acknowledges that “exposure to these materials may also cause harm to those that view them.” That policy is primarily focused on banning the distribution of content created by perpetrators of attacks, but it also places restrictions on “bystander-generated content” depicting “dead bodies” or “content that identifies victims.”

Another policy on sharing sensitive media says that “there are also some types of sensitive media content that we don’t allow at all”—including some depictions of deaths, violent crimes, and bodily fluids like blood—”because they have the potential to normalize violence and cause distress to those who view them.”

So far, Musk, Twitter trust and safety chief Ella Irwin, and the @TwitterSafety account have not tweeted or commented to clarify how Twitter’s policies apply in this case.

Musk did respond to an account tweeting about the gunman and pushing back against a Washington Post report that described the gunman, Mauricio Garcia, as potentially holding neo-Nazi beliefs. A law enforcement official told The Daily Mail that federal agents had reviewed Garcia’s social media accounts and found he “had expressed an interest in neo-Nazi views” and could be seen wearing “a patch on his chest reading RWDS”—an acronym used by extremists and white supremacists standing for “Right Wing Death Squad.”

“Do they cite any evidence for him being a ‘nazi white supremacist’?” Musk tweeted. He seemed to be asking for clarification after boasting that—unlike news reports describing the shooting, in his view—”this platform is hell bent on being the least untrue source of information.”

It’s possible that images from the shooting spread more quickly on Twitter because the platform notably invests less in content moderation than other platforms. Last fall, Twitter came under fire for gutting its content moderation team and then ditching its Trust and Safety Council. Earlier this year, the European Union told Musk to hire more mods or risk falling out of compliance with the EU’s Digital Service Act. At that time, Twitter issued a statement that it intended to comply with the EU order, but so far, Musk seems happier to rely on Community Notes and user reports flagging violative content than restoring the Trust and Safety team to prioritize content moderation.

On Twitter, there’s an ongoing debate between users who want to share the images from the shooting to protest gun violence and those like Holloway, who expect Twitter to block such sensitive content. For those who want to share the images, Twitter recommends that users proactively mark them as sensitive media. To do that, “navigate to your safety settings and select the ‘Mark media you Tweet as containing material that may be sensitive’ option,” Twitter’s policy directs users. Twitter will also apply the sensitive media filter on violative images reported by users.

Twitter did not respond to Ars’ request for comment.

https://arstechnica.com/?p=1937477

Facebook has not been doing enough to comply with a 2020 privacy order, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced Wednesday. On top of “continuing to give app developers access to users’ private information” that Meta claimed had been cut off, the FTC alleges that Facebook has caused new harm. Perhaps most alarming, the FTC alleges that Facebook’s Messenger Kids product misled parents on who could connect to chat with minors and misrepresented who had access to private youth data.

Now, the FTC has proposed changes to the 2020 order that would prohibit Facebook owner Meta from launching new products on any of its platforms without procuring written FTC compliance confirmation and prevent the company from monetizing any of the youth data it collects across Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Oculus.

“Facebook has repeatedly violated its privacy promises,” Samuel Levine, director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, said in a press release.

The FTC confirmed that it has asked Meta to respond to allegations first reported by The Verge in 2019 that “from late 2017 until mid-2019, Facebook misrepresented that parents could control whom their children communicated with through its Messenger Kids product.” Quite the opposite, instead of providing adequate parental controls to prevent strange adults from contacting kids, a Facebook bug allowed “children in certain circumstances” to “communicate with unapproved contacts in group text chats and group video calls.” In 2019, Facebook confirmed to The Verge that the technical issue had occurred and thousands of users were notified about the bug, which affected “a small number of group chats.”

According to the FTC, this is the third time that Facebook has violated a privacy order. Facebook has also violated the FTC Act and the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act Rule, the FTC alleged.

“The company’s recklessness has put young users at risk, and Facebook needs to answer for its failures,” Levine said in the press release.

A Meta spokesperson told Ars that the FTC’s proposed changes are “a political stunt,” saying that the FTC gave Meta “no opportunity to discuss this new, totally unprecedented theory.” Meta considers the FTC’s proposed changes to the privacy order “a new low.”

“Let’s be clear about what the FTC is trying to do: usurp the authority of Congress to set industry-wide standards and instead single out one American company while allowing Chinese companies, like TikTok, to operate without constraint on American soil,” Meta’s spokesperson said. “FTC Chair Lina Khan’s insistence on using any measure—however baseless—to antagonize American business has reached a new low.” [Update: Facebook says that the assessor’s report did not find violations of the 2020 privacy order and noted that the two privacy concerns that the FTC raised were already discovered, fixed, and publicly disclosed.]

The FTC’s proposed changes were drafted in response to a report from an independent assessor who reviewed Facebook’s privacy program and concluded that there were “several gaps and weaknesses” in it. Some of these deficiencies, the FTC alleges, “pose substantial risks to the public.”

Among the most drastic proposed changes are a blanket prohibition against monetizing data of users under 18 and a pause on launching new products, services, or features ” without written confirmation from the assessor” confirming full compliance with the FTC’s order. The FTC has also proposed additional limitations on Meta’s uses of facial recognition technology and an extension of the 2020 order’s compliance requirements to encompass all companies merged under Meta. Finally, the FTC proposes going back to the drawing board on the 2020 privacy order and strengthening many of the existing requirements, including “those related to privacy review, third-party monitoring, data inventory and access controls, and employee training.”

Meta’s spokesperson told Ars that the company contends that it has “spent vast resources building and implementing an industry-leading privacy program under the terms of our FTC agreement.”

“We will vigorously fight this action and expect to prevail,” Meta’s spokesperson told Ars.

Meta has 30 days to officially respond to the proposed changes, but ultimately, the FTC says it will “determine whether modification of the 2020 order is in the public interest or justified by changed conditions of fact or law.”

https://arstechnica.com/?p=1936426

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Nicole Farley is an editor for Search Engine Land covering all things PPC. In addition to being a Marine Corps veteran, she has an extensive background in digital marketing, an MBA and a penchant for true crime, podcasts, travel, and snacks.

https://searchengineland.com/3-new-facebook-reels-features-405365

Il fondatore di Meta Mark Zuckerberg ha detto che i recenti progressi nel campo dell’intelligenza artificiale rappresentano un “occasione di introdurre agenti di IA per miliardi di persone in modalità utile e ragionevole”. Lo ha detto lo stesso Zuckerberg in una call con gli investitori, in seguito alla presentazione dei dati del primo trimestre ieri.  

Meta vuole competere con OpenAI e Google sull’IA

Le sue parole hanno ricordato agli investitori che Meta è intenzionata a competere con OpenAI (sostenuta da Microsoft) e Google quando si tratta di creare chatbot generativi basati su AI come ChatGPT e Bard, che hanno suscitato grande interesse negli ultimi mesi.

Mentre Microsoft e Google hanno deciso di iniettare la tecnologia AI nei loro prodotti online, Zuckerberg ha voluto far sapere agli investitori che strumenti simili sviluppati da Meta “toccheranno ognuno dei nostri prodotti” e saranno utili per tutti, dalle “persone normali, ai creatori alle aziende”. In realtà, l’annuncio di Zuckerberg è stato piuttosto vago e non si sa esattamente come tutto ciò avverrà.

<!-- META FIREFIGHTER --> <!-- META WOLLY --> <!-- ENERGIA ITALIA - 300x250 -->

Ad esempio, il co-fondatore di Facebook ha parlato di come “decine di milioni di agenti di intelligenza artificiale” che lavorano per le aziende potrebbero aumentare le interazioni dell’assistenza clienti, risultando in “molte più aziende che possono permettersi di avere persone impegnate in chat”.

Zuckerberg non sconfessa il metaverso

Il capo di Meta ha aggiunto che la sua azienda è ancora intenzionata a sviluppare il metaverso, nonostante i recenti rapporti suggeriscano uno spostamento verso l’intelligenza artificiale.

I commenti di Zuckerberg arrivano solo un paio di mesi dopo aver rivelato che Meta stava riunendo i suoi team di intelligenza artificiale in un cambiamento strutturale progettato per “potenziare” il suo lavoro in quell’area.

Seguono anche importanti cambiamenti in Meta che ha visto più di 20.000 posti di lavoro fuori uscire negli ultimi mesi, con Zuckerberg che in precedenza aveva definito il 2023 come “l’anno dell’efficienza”.

Meta mercoledì ha registrato ricavi di 28,6 miliardi di dollari per il primo trimestre conclusosi il 31 marzo. L’utile è stato di $ 5,7 miliardi, segnando un calo del 24% rispetto allo stesso periodo dell’anno scorso.

Esplorate potenziali con Whatsapp e Messenger

“Stiamo esplorando esperienze di chat in WhatsApp e Messenger, strumenti di creazione visiva per post su Facebook e Instagram e annunci, e nel tempo anche esperienze video e multimodali”, ha affermato Zuckerberg durante la call. “Mi aspetto che questi strumenti saranno preziosi per tutti, dalle persone normali ai creatori alle aziende. Ad esempio, mi aspetto che molto interesse per gli agenti di intelligenza artificiale per la messaggistica aziendale e l’assistenza clienti arriverà una volta che avremo realizzato quell’esperienza. Nel tempo, questo si estenderà anche al nostro lavoro sul metaverso, dove le persone saranno molto più facilmente in grado di creare avatar, oggetti, mondi e codice per legarli tutti insieme”.

Leggi anche: Meta, l’IA generativa volano di sviluppo per il metaverso

Meta taglia ancora, ma Zuckerberg insiste sul Metaverso e scommette sull’AI

https://www.key4biz.it/mark-zuckerberg-meta-pronti-a-introdurre-agenti-di-ia-per-miliardi-di-persone/444115/

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About the author

Nicole Farley is an editor for Search Engine Land covering all things PPC. In addition to being a Marine Corps veteran, she has an extensive background in digital marketing, an MBA and a penchant for true crime, podcasts, travel, and snacks.

https://searchengineland.com/metas-ad-revenue-is-up-4-3-in-q1-397752