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UK Regulator May Force Facebook to Sell Giphy

Charlotte Henry ·

UK regulator the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has said that Facebook may have to sell Giphy. The social media giant rejected the preliminary findings, BBC News reported.

The Competition and Markets Authority provisionally found Facebook owning Giphy “could lead it to deny other platforms access to its Gifs”. The CMA will now consult before making a final conclusion. And if its concerns are confirmed, the [sic] it may require Facebook to sell Giphy. Facebook said the findings were “not supported by the evidence”. Giphy’s vast library of looping short video animations is hugely popular – including among Facebook’s competitors.

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Facebook Bans Accounts of Researchers Investigating its Disinformation Problem

Andrew Orr ·

Facebook has banned the accounts of researchers who were studying the platform’s political ads and disinformation.

The tools were the subject of a long-running standoff between the social network, which claimed scraping violates its terms of service, and the researchers, who argued that more digital advertising transparency is essential to understanding and protecting elections.

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WhatsApp Content Moderator - ‘I Sold My Soul.’

Charlotte Henry ·

WhatsApp content moderators have to review some of the most disturbing content floating around the internet. Time spoke to some of them about the lack of support and their allegations of pay discrimination.

Content moderators working at Accenture for WhatsApp are entitled to 30 minutes of “wellness” breaks per eight-hour shift, employees say, as well as one-on-one access once a month to “wellness coaches” provided by the company. They also undergo training to prepare them for the kinds of content they are expected to look at on the job. But even Accenture acknowledges that the help these resources provide is limited. Moderators working on a Facebook contract for Accenture in Europe were required to sign a document in January 2020 acknowledging “that the wellness coach is not a medical doctor and cannot diagnose or treat mental health disorders.” TIME viewed a copy of the document, which was first reported by the Financial Times. It requires employees to acknowledge that “the weCare Program [wellness] services, standing alone, may not be able to prevent my work from affecting my mental health.” It also notes that the work “could even lead to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.” (Facebook told the Financial Times it did not review or approve the document, and was not aware of it.)

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Facebook Messenger on iOS Gets New Chat Themes, QR Code Payments

Andrew Orr ·

Facebook announced new features coming to its Messenger app. Chat themes, a quick reply bar, as well as QR codes and payments links.

We’re all about increasing efficiency, so we’ve added a new quick reply bar to the Messenger media viewer. This makes it easier to have conversations sparked by a cool photo or video without needing to go back to your main chat thread. Just tap on the photo or video and send a response through the quick reply bar at the bottom of the screen. Swipe up to exit the full-screen media viewer and head back to your main chat thread

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Facebook Can Get Location Data From Your Photos

Andrew Orr ·

iOS users can limit their location exposure to apps that ask for it, but your location is leaking in another area: Your photo metadata.

I took a photo with my iPhone and then uploaded that to my Facebook account. I used Facebook’s app on my iPhone, the same app that has been told “never” to access my location, the same account that knows I have this switched off. But Facebook still collects the location tag from that photo, along with my IP address.

It’s important to note that Facebook and other companies have had this ability for years. This is not, as the Forbes article implies, a response to iOS 14.5 App Tracking Transparency. The app I use to view and edit metadata is Metapho.