02/09/2022

Meta is shutting down Facebook 'Neighborhoods' for local communities

Meta is axing Facebook's Nextdoor-like product called Neighborhoods before it even becomes available to most users. The social network started offering it to select users in Canada back in 2020, touting it as a dedicated space where people can interact with their local communities. It expanded its tests last year and rolled out access to various communities across Canada and the US. Based on the screenshot of a post written by a Meta product manager and obtained by social media consultant Matt Navarra, the company is ending its test of Neighborhoods on October 1st. It will no longer be available after that date.Groups revolving around local communities aren't new or rare on the website, but Neighborhoods spaces come with special features. They allow users to create separate profiles where they can limit their public information if they don't want people nearby to know too much about them. Users can also find groups for specific activities that are populated with locals through the Neighborhoods tab. The product manager didn't mention why Meta is shutting down Neighborhoods in their announcement. According to TechCrunch, though, the company said it originally invested in the project when it saw how popular Nextdoor was. However, it reportedly decided that the best thing to do for this particular area is to let people form their own local communities using the website's existing Groups feature.Facebook is shutting down its Nextdoor-clone Neighborhoods on Oct 1st h/t @grigg_digitalpic.twitter.com/Zob6ny5gf5 — Matt Navarra (@MattNavarra) September 1, 2022 Another possible explanation is that Meta is shutting down the project as part of its cost-cutting efforts. It also recently announced that it's closing the standalone Facebook Gaming app in what could be a move to help the company survive what Mark Zuckerberg calls "one of the worst downturns [it has seen] in recent history."

26/09/2022

Meta tests easier account switching between Facebook and Instagram

Meta is testing two features that integrate Facebook and Instagram more closely together. On Monday, the company began rolling out a new interface on Android, iOS and on the web for switching between accounts. Provided you’ve added your Facebook and Instagram credentials to the same Accounts Center, you can use the feature to switch between the two apps without navigating to your phone’s home screen, multitasking menu or app drawer. The interface also allows you to see a count of all your notifications in one place.At the same time, Meta is introducing a redesigned login and onboarding experience on Android and iOS. If you’re new to the company’s social networks, you can create one account and then use it to create additional ones. For those who already have both Facebook and Instagram accounts, it’s now possible to use the login information associated with one app to access the other – though you first need to add them to the same Accounts Center. Meta Meta will notify you every time you use an existing account to create a new one or you add an account to the Accounts Center. Additionally, security features like two-factor authentication will still work, preventing, for instance, someone from using your Instagram credentials to access your Facebook account.While the new features are “currently limited to Facebook and Instagram,” Meta notes it will “continue to explore how to improve connected experiences across all of our technologies.” They arrive following the debut of Meta accounts in August and a recent downturn in both revenue and user growth for the company.

22/09/2022

Facebook violated Palestinians' right to free expression, says report commissioned by Meta

Meta has finally released the findings of an outside report that examined how its content moderation policies affected Israelis and Palestinians amid an escalation of violence in the Gaza Strip last May. The report , from Business for Social Responsibility (BSR), found that Facebook and Instagram violated Palestinians’ right to free expression.“Based on the data reviewed, examination of individual cases and related materials, and external stakeholder engagement, Meta’s actions in May 2021 appear to have had an adverse human rights impact on the rights of Palestinian users to freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, political participation, and non-discrimination, and therefore on the ability of Palestinians to share information and insights about their experiences as they occurred,” BSR writes in its report.The report also notes that “an examination of individual cases” showed that some Israeli accounts were also erroneously banned or restricted during this period. But the report's authors highlight several systemic issues they say disproportionately affected Palestinians.According to the report, “Arabic content had greater over-enforcement,” and “proactive detection rates of potentially violating Arabic content were significantly higher than proactive detection rates of potentially violating Hebrew content.” The report also notes that Meta had an internal tool for detecting “hostile speech” in Arabic, but not in Hebrew, and that Meta’s systems and moderators had lower accuracy when assessing Palestinian Arabic.As a result, many users’ accounts were hit with “false strikes,” and wrongly had posts removed by Facebook and Instagram. “These strikes remain in place for those users that did not appeal erroneous content removals,” the report notes.Meta had commissioned the report following a recommendation from the Oversight Board last fall. In a response to the report, Meta says it will update some of its policies, including several aspects of its Dangerous Individuals and Organizations (DOI) policy. The company says it’s “started a policy development process to review our definitions of praise, support and representation in our DOI Policy,” and that it’s “working on ways to make user experiences of our DOI strikes simpler and more transparent.”Meta also notes it has “begun experimentation on building a dialect-specific Arabic classifier” for written content, and that it has changed its internal process for managing keywords and “block lists” that affect content removals.Notably, Meta says it’s “assessing the feasibility” of a recommendation that it notify users when it places “feature limiting and search limiting” on users’ accounts after they receive a strike. Instagram users have long complained that the app shadowbans or reduces the visibility of their account when they post about certain topics. These complaints increased last spring when users reported that they were barred from posting about Palestine, or that the reach of their posts was diminished. At the time, Meta blamed an unspecified “glitch.” BSR’s report notes that the company had also implemented emergency “break glass” measures that temporarily throttled all “repeatedly reshared content.”