Sam Altman reportedly courted Pang for months. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
Ruoming Pang, a prominent A.I. researcher recruited by Meta last year with a pay package reportedly worth more than $200 million, has left the company to join OpenAI, The Information reported yesterday (Feb. 25). His departure marks another setback for Mark Zuckerberg’s elite A.I. team and underscores the escalating A.I. talent war. Pang joined Meta Superintelligence Labs (MSL) in July after being poached from Apple. He remained at Meta for only seven months.
Zuckerberg unveiled MSL in July 2025 as the centerpiece of Meta’s push to develop advanced A.I. systems. The lab quickly became the focus of an aggressive—and costly—hiring spree. Alexandr Wang, founder of Scale AI, now leads the group as Meta’s A.I. chief after Meta acquired 40 percent of his startup. Within MSL, a smaller, more secretive unit known as TBD Lab is tasked with building next-generation foundation models.
Pang was originally from Shanghai and earned his undergraduate degree from Shanghai Jiao Tong University. He holds a master’s in computer science from the University of Southern California and earned a Ph.D. from Princeton University in 2006. Over the course of his career, Pang has worked on some of the most consequential A.I. systems in the industry, making him one of the more sought-after engineers in the field.
At Apple, he spent nearly four years as a “senior distinguished engineer,” leading development of the foundation models behind Apple Intelligence. Before Apple, Pang spent roughly 15 years at Google DeepMind as a principal software engineer, where he worked on large-scale machine learning systems, including privacy-preserving technologies and speech recognition.
OpenAI has not disclosed Pang’s title, scope of responsibilities or the terms of his compensation. The Sam Altman-led company reportedly courted him for months, so the package is likely substantial. OpenAI employees earn roughly $1.5 million in annual salary and equity, according to the Wall Street Journal. Pang is widely expected to continue working on foundation models and superintelligence research.
For Meta, Pang’s exit complicates Zuckerberg’s ambition to dominate the superintelligence race. The company has successfully recruited high-profile researchers from OpenAI, Google and Anthropic. However, MSL has also seen a steady stream of departures in recent months.
Other departures have been quieter but telling. Ethan Knight joined MSL for only a few weeks before moving to OpenAI last August—a stint so brief it never appeared on his LinkedIn profile. Bert Maher, a software engineer, left after 12 years at Meta to join Anthropic. Avi Verma, who had been expected to join Meta from OpenAI, ultimately backed out.
Pang’s move is the latest signal that Silicon Valley’s A.I. talent war is intensifying. Even as talk of an A.I. bubble grows louder and tech companies rely on increasingly complex financial structures to sustain lofty valuations, leaders like Zuckerberg, Altman and Anthropic’s Dario Amodei show little sign of restraint. Instead, they are offering compensation packages worth tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars to persuade top researchers that their vision for superintelligence will prevail.
Meta has sued the people and groups behind three scam operations that used images and deepfakes of celebrities to lure users to scam websites. According to the company, the three entities were based in China and Brazil and targeted people in the US, Japan and other countries. The ads promoted fraudulent investment schemes and fake health products.
Meta said that it had filed lawsuits against several people in Brazil who promoted fake or unapproved healthcare products and online courses promoting them. The company also sued a China-based entity it says used ads featuring celebrities “as part of a larger fraud scheme that lured people into joining so-called investment groups.” The company didn’t provide details on how many ads these groups had run on Facebook, how many social media users had seen or interacted with the ads or how long the scammers had been operating on the platform.
So-called “celeb bait” ads have been a long-running issue for the company. Engadget has previously documented celeb bait scams on Facebook, including ones that frequently use Elon Musk and Fox News personalities to hawk fake cures for diabetes. The Oversight Board has also criticized the company for not doing enough to combat such scams. In its update, Meta says that “because scam ads are designed to look real, they’re not always easy to detect.” The company also noted that it has now enrolled “more than 500,000” celebrities and public figures into its facial recognition system that’s meant to automatically detect scam ads using the faces of famous people.
Meta’s handling of scammy advertisers has come under increased scrutiny in recent months after Reutersreported that researchers at the company at one point estimated that as much as 10 percent of its ad revenue could be coming from scams. The fact that Meta has made billions of dollars from problematic advertisers has also caused the company to be slow to take action against repeat offenders.
In addition to the groups behind the celeb bait ads, Meta says that it’s upgraded its ability to detect scam ads that use cloaking, which has at times hindered its internal review systems. The company also sued a Vietnam-based advertiser it says used scam ads to hawk “deeply discounted items from well-known brands,” including Longchamp.
Meta also took legal action against eight former “Meta Business Partners,” who promoted services that would “un-ban” or other “account restoration services.” The company says it will “consider taking additional legal action, including litigation, if they don’t comply” with cease and desist orders.
In a shift to its safety protocols, Instagram has announced it will begin proactively alerting parents if their teenagers repeatedly search for terms related to suicide and self-harm.
The feature marks the first time that parent company Meta will notify parents about specific search behaviours, rather than simply blocking the content and providing resources to users.
The move comes as Meta and other tech giants face what experts are calling their “Big Tobacco” moment. CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently testified in Los Angeles Superior Court regarding allegations that Instagram’s design fosters addiction and detrimental mental health effects in minors.
By introducing these alerts, Meta aims to provide parents with “the resources they need to support their teen” during critical windows of distress.
How the alerts will function
The system is designed to trigger when a teenager enrolled in Instagram’s “Teen Accounts” repeatedly searches for phrases promoting self-harm or terms like “suicide” within a short period. Notifications will be delivered to parents via email, text, WhatsApp, or through the Instagram app itself.
Meta acknowledged that the system might “err on the side of caution,” potentially sending alerts that do not indicate a genuine crisis. However, it maintains that notifying parents is the “right starting point.”
The rollout will begin next week in the United Kingdom, United States, Australia, and Canada, with a global release planned for later this year. Meta also intends to expand these alerts to its AI chatbots, as more children turn to artificial intelligence for emotional support.
Backlash from safety advocates
Despite the intended safety benefits, the Molly Rose Foundation – a charity established following the death of 14-year-old Molly Russell – has heavily criticized the plan. Chief Executive Andy Burrows warned that “forced disclosures could do more harm than good,” noting that “flimsy notifications will leave parents panicked and ill-prepared” for the sensitive conversations that follow.
Advocates argue that the burden of safety is being shifted onto parents rather than addressed at the source. The Molly Rose Foundation cited research suggesting that Instagram’s algorithms still actively recommend harmful content to vulnerable youths.
Similarly, Ged Flynn of the charity Papyrus stated that parents “don’t want to be warned after their children search for harmful content; they don’t want it to be spoon-fed to them by unthinking algorithms.”
As regulators in countries like Australia move toward total social media bans for under-16s, Meta’s latest tool represents a high-stakes attempt to prove that self-regulation can still protect young users in an increasingly digital world.
The proliferation of AI data centers plugging into the national electrical grid has helped increase consumer electricity prices, driving up the average national electricity price by more than 6% in the last year.
That’s not a good look for the incumbents ahead of this fall’s elections, and President Donald Trump addressed the challenge in his State of the Union speech last night.
“We’re telling the major tech companies that they have the obligation to provide for their own power needs,” Trump said. “They can build their own power plants as part of their factory, so that no one’s prices will go up.”
The hyperscalers in question don’t need to be told. They have already made public commitments in recent weeks to cover electricity costs by building their own power sources, paying higher rates, or both, part of a broader effort to solve PR problems around data center expansion and win over skeptical communities.
On January 11, Microsoft announced its policy “to ensure that the electricity cost of serving our datacenters is not passed on to residential customers.” January 26, OpenAI committed to “paying its own way on energy, so that our operations don’t increase your energy prices.” On February 11, Anthropic made the same pledge to “cover electricity price increases that consumers face from our data centers.” Yesterday, Google announced the largest battery project in the world yesterday to support a data center in Minnesota.
What these commitments means in practice, and who will determine which data centers are responsible for which price increases, remains unknown. The White House has not released the text of the proposed pledge.
“A handshake agreement with Big Tech over data center costs isn’t good enough,” Arizona Democratic Senator Mark Kelly said on social media. “Americans need a guarantee that energy prices won’t soar and communities have a say.”
Techcrunch event
Boston, MA | June 9, 2026
White House spokesperson Taylor Rodgers said that next week, companies will send representatives to formally sign the pledge at the White House. Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, xAI, Oracle and OpenAI are reportedly among those set to attend. However none of the companies have confirmed their attendance.
Even if tech companies committ to taking on electricity costs, on-site power plants may not be a panacea—they can still have adverse impacts on the surrounding environment, and will stress supply chains for natural gas, turbines, photovoltaics and batteries, depending on how companies aim to power their compute.
Sam Altman challenged critics of A.I.’s water and electricity consumption. Photo by John MacDougall/AFP via Getty Images
Sam Altman is pushing back on mounting criticism over the environmental toll of A.I. The OpenAI chief has dismissed claims about A.I.’s water consumption as “fake” and drawn comparisons between the electricity required to power A.I. systems and the energy it takes to develop human intelligence.
Figures suggesting that tools like ChatGPT consume multiple gallons of water per query are “totally insane” and have “no connection to reality,” Altman said in a Feb. 20 interview with The Indian Express on the sidelines of the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi. Last year, Altman claimed that ChatGPT uses 0.000085 gallons of water per query—roughly one-fifteenth of a teaspoon—though he did not explain how he calculated that figure.
A.I.’s water footprint largely stems from the need for evaporative cooling systems used to keep data center hardware from overheating. But Altman argued that companies like OpenAI are no longer directly managing such cooling processes. Many A.I. developers, he noted, are shifting toward cooling systems that recirculate liquid rather than continually drawing fresh supplies. Meanwhile, tech giants like Microsoft, Meta, Google and Amazon have pledged to replenish more water than they withdraw by 2030.
Even so, data centers continue to drink up water at a rapid pace. Total A.I.-related water consumption for cooling reached 23.7 cubic kilometers in 2025, a 38 percent increase over 2020, and is expected to more than triple over the next 25 years, according to a January report from Xylem. Despite the industry’s pivot to alternative methods, the report found that 56 percent of data center capacity still relies on some form of evaporative cooling.
Altman was more measured when it came to electricity usage. “What is fair, though, is the energy consumption,” he said. “We need to move towards nuclear, wind, and solar very quickly.”
Last April, the International Energy Agency reported that data centers accounted for roughly 1.5 percent of global electricity consumption in 2024. Their power use is rising at a rate more than four times faster than overall electricity demand and is expected to more than double by 2030.
In response, major tech companies are pursuing data center agreements tied to alternative energy sources, including nuclear power, to ease pressure on grids. Altman, who previously led Y Combinator, has personally invested in nuclear ventures such as Oklo, which is developing small-scale nuclear plants, and Helion, which aims to commercialize nuclear fusion.
The OpenAI CEO also argued that critics overlook the energy required to develop human intelligence. “People talk about how much energy it takes to train an A.I. model relative to how much it costs a human to do one inference query,” he said. “But it also takes a lot of energy to train a human—it takes, like, 20 years of life and all the food you eat during that time before you get started.”
A more appropriate comparison, he suggested, would measure the energy used by a fully trained A.I. model to answer a question against that used by a human doing the same task. “Probably A.I. has already caught up on an energy efficiency basis measured that way.”
The remarks quickly sparked debate online over whether such comparisons are appropriate. “He’s saying a really big spreadsheet and a baby are morally equivalent,” wrote Matt Stoller, research director of the American Economic Liberties Project, in a post on X. Sridhar Vembu, founder and chief scientist of software firm Zoho Corporation, also took issue with the OpenAI chief’s statements. A.I. should “quietly recede into the background” instead of dominating our lives, said the billionaire on X. “I do not want to see a world where we equate a piece of technology to a human being.”
Meta is formally sectioning off Horizon Worlds, the closest thing it has to a metaverse, from its Quest VR platform, according to a new blog post from Samantha Ryan, Meta’s VP of Content, Reality Labs. While the decision runs counter to Meta’s original plan to own an immersive virtual world that could serve as the future home for all online interaction, it fits with the recent cuts it made to its costly Reality Labs division, and Mark Zuckerberg’s public commitment to focus the company on AI hardware like smart glasses going forward.
“We’re explicitly separating our Quest VR platform from our Worlds platform in order to create more space for both products to grow,” Ryan writes in the blog post. “We’re doubling down on the VR developer ecosystem while shifting the focus of Worlds to be almost exclusively mobile. By breaking things down into two distinct platforms, we’ll be better able to clearly focus on each.”
Meta has been developing mobile and web versions of Horizon Worlds in parallel with its VR app since at least 2023. Switching Worlds to being a mobile-first software platform isn’t good for VR diehards, but it does make it a more natural competitor to something like Roblox or Fortnite, which also offer user-created and monetizable worlds and games. It’s also a business Meta believes it can more easily scale because of its ability to connect games to “billions of people on the world’s biggest social networks.”
While Meta shuttered several of its own VR game studios earlier this year, it still wants to support third-party developers publishing games on its platform. The company says new monetization tools, better discoverability, a “Deals” tab and more ways for developers to talk to their customers should help make a difference. Maintaining the Quest’s library of games could also be critical going forward. Business Insider reported in December 2025 that Meta was working on a gaming-focused Quest headset, and Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth confirmed earlier this February that the company still had multiple Quest devices on its roadmap.
A California judge admonished members of Mark Zuckerberg’s team for wearing Ray Ban-Meta AI glasses, which are equipped with a camera, as they entered a Los Angeles courtroom on Wednesday for a landmark trial over the impact of social media on children.
“The judge upbraided the Meta team and said if you guys have recorded anything, you have to dispose of it or I will hold you in contempt,” Jacob Ward, a technology journalist and the host of the Rip Current Podcast, told CBS News, calling the incident “an extraordinary misstep” by Meta.
It’s unclear if Zuckerberg’s team had the glasses on inside the courtroom or how long they were wearing them. Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The use of recording devices and cameras is generally banned in Los Angeles County Superior Court.
“Judicial officers have the discretion to place limitations on video recording and photography in their courtroom,” a Superior Court of Los Angeles County spokesperson told CBS News, citing local and state rules.
Judge Carolyn Kuhl, who is presiding over the trial, also ordered anyone in the courtroom wearing AI glasses to immediately remove them, noting that any use of facial recognition technology to identify the jurors was banned.
“This is very serious,” she said. The court did not immediately respond to a request for additional comment.
Meta’s glasses, retail for between $299 and $799, are equipped with a camera that can take photos and record video.
Zuckerberg was in court to testify as part of a trial over whether Meta and Alphabet-owned YouTube deliberately designed their social media platforms to encourage compulsive usage by young people.
The plaintiff behind the suit, identified only by her initials “KGM,” alleges that using social media from a young age caused her to become addicted and harmed her mental health.
Zuckerberg defends social media platforms at landmark trial – CBS News
Watch CBS News
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified Wednesday in a civil case over social media addiction allegations that skyrocketing social media use shows how people value the sites and it’s not a strategy to keep users addicted. Jo Ling Kent reports.
Meta’s hard and early pivot into artificial intelligence hasn’t exactly gone as planned, with tens of billions of investment dollars sunk into middling models, departmental restructurings, and clashing visions. In technical terms, the company remains an AI also-ran. In another way, though, it’s emerging as an industry leader: It’s spending a ton of money on politics.
Regarding regulation and national law, firms like Meta are, for now, in reasonably good shape. They have an administration that’s broadly deregulatory and specifically pro–AI industry and has mostly limited its threats of intervention to complaints about “wokeness” — a problem for a company like Anthropic, perhaps, but maybe less so for ones like Meta that preemptively ponied up and fell in line. Plenty of money will be spent by the AI industry on national politics, of course (OpenAI president Greg Brockman recently became a Trump PAC megadonor), but for now, AI firms are pushing further into state and local politics and Meta is spending a lot. According to the New York Times:
Meta is preparing to spend $65 million this year to boost state politicians who are friendly to the artificial intelligence industry, beginning this week in Texas and Illinois, according to company representatives … Political operatives tied to A.I. interests have focused this election cycle on state capitols out of concern that states were developing a patchwork of laws that would stifle A.I. development.
This, says the Times, is “the biggest election investment by Meta” so far and is focused, to start, on supporting AI-friendly Republicans in Texas and Democrats in Illinois. Meta isn’t alone here: A fleet of new PACs backed by other AI firms is funneling money into local and state elections across the country.
What are these companies lobbying for, exactly? Their needs fit imperfectly into two categories. First, they want to fend off direct regulation of how AI products are built, used, and deployed. That includes avoiding “transparency” laws that often include risk audits, whistleblower protections, and frameworks for ensuring AI “safety,” in both the catastrophic and child-safety senses of the word. In this fight, AI firms have a useful ally in the federal government, which has been actively pressuring state lawmakers to drop the issue, most recently in Utah.
Closer to the ground and a bit further from the national political discourse, for now, is the matter of data centers. Much of the money AI companies spend on AI — raised from investors, their own balance sheets, and, more recently, bond sales — goes into buying GPUs and leasing or building structures in which to put them. These structures then need huge amounts of power coming from either the grid or newly constructed generators of one type or another (if you’re xAI, this means standing up gas turbines without permits; if you’re Meta, this may look like partnering directly with a nuclear power plant). In addition to the staggering power needs, data centers use a lot of water. And despite their eye-popping costs to build and run, they barely create any jobs. For the sorts of communities being approached with these projects — places that may be persuaded to accept the mixed prospect of hosting an Amazon warehouse or, say, a massive new ICE detention center — AI data centers are uniquely unappealing. As a result, they encounter local resistance from across the political spectrum. According to the Financial Times:
Over the past year, the White House has courted tech billionaires and gone out of its way to protect the AI industry’s agenda, fast-tracking permits for data centre construction and approving the sales of advanced chips to China while cracking down on states’ attempts to regulate chatbots … But across the US, citizens, clergy and elected officials in conservative communities are leading a grassroots rebellion against the rapid rollout of the technology.
Data centers offer an almost perfectly sympathetic NIMBY cause. They’re a drain on local resources, straining infrastructure and driving up utility prices. They exist to support a technology about which people are fairly pessimistic across the political spectrum. They’re pitched as investments in an exciting future, but that future will unfold elsewhere while your town, now designated as an infrastructural non-place, is just stuck with a big jobless box that uses more power and water than everyone else combined.
The surge in local lobbying isn’t about winning this argument — good luck with that! — so much as it’s about getting as much done as possible while the companies still can, buying support at the state level and breaking ground in as many municipalities as possible before data-center backlash becomes a universal condition of local politics in America. AI firms always talk about how they’re in a technological race with one another or against China in which every day counts. But they’re also in a race to take advantage of a brief domestic political moment during which they’re relatively unencumbered and haven’t yet been metabolized into American politics. At the national, state, and local levels, this may be as good as the AI industry will ever have it. And ahead of the midterms — not to mention the prospect of 2028 — it’s lobbying like it’s running out of time.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg faced questioning in a Los Angeles courtroom on Wednesday about Instagram’s under-13 users and Meta’s efforts to boost engagement, as a trial examines whether the company knowingly offered an addictive and harmful product to children and teens.
The landmark trial against Meta and YouTube kicked off in late January. It centers on allegations brought by a plaintiff identified as “KGM,” who claims that using social media from a young age caused her to become addicted and harmed her mental health.
KGM, who is now 20 years old, alleges that Facebook, Instagram and YouTube — with their recommendation algorithms and infinite scrolling — are designed to be addictive.
In the courtroom on Wednesday, Zuckerberg faced questions from KGM’s lawyer Mark Lanier over Meta’s policy for allowing children under 13 to access Instagram. KGM started using Instagram at 9 years old, according to Lanier.
Zuckerberg said users under 13 are not allowed on the platform, but added that it is a difficult rule to enforce because there are “a meaningful number of people who lie about their age to use our services.”
Lanier also pressed Zuckerberg about whether one of the company’s goals is to increase the time users spend on Instagram. Zuckerberg said Meta uses time spent on the app as a proxy to measure its performance against competitors like TikTok.
“It’s different than us trying to just increase time,” he said. “Just us trying to see how we’re stacking up in the industry.”
Zuckerberg also addressed Instagram’s beauty filters, which Meta temporarily shut down after concerns surfaced that they changed people’s appearance in a way that seemed to promote plastic surgery. Zuckerberg said the company decided to allow beauty filters in support of free expression, but said that “we shouldn’t create them ourselves or recommend them.”
This marks the first time Zuckerberg is defending his company before a jury, although he has previously testified before Congress regarding youth safety on Meta’s platforms.
Trial carries implications for similar cases
The outcome of the lawsuit could shape how thousands of similar cases brought against social media giants play out. TikTok and Snapchat were originally part of the lawsuit, but they settled before the trial started.
Some experts have drawn comparisons between the social media trial and the tobacco industry lawsuits of the 1990s, which sought to hold companies accountable for their products and how they were marketed.
“A trial like this one will hopefully uncover the disconnect between what companies say publicly to drive up business and engagement and what is actually going on behind the scenes,” UCLA law professor and tech justice attorney Melodi Dinçer told CBS News senior business and technology correspondent Jo Ling Kent.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg arrives at Los Angeles Superior Court on Feb. 18, 2026.
Patrick T. Fallon /AFP via Getty Images
Prior to Zuckerberg’s testimony, Meta told CBS News that it strongly disagrees with the allegations and that it is committed to supporting young people who use its platforms. The company also claims that KGM faced mental health struggles before she used social media.
A spokesperson from Google, the parent company of YouTube, also denied the allegations, calling them “simply not true.”
Zuckerberg’s appearance in the LA courtroom follows that of Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri, who testified in the trial last week. While on the stand, Mosseri said he does not believe people can be clinically addicted to social media platforms, instead referring to what he calls “problematic use,” when people spend more time on Instagram than they feel good about.
Prosecutors also pressed Mosseri over whether Instagram is prioritizing growth and profit over safety. In response, Mosseri said Instagram makes “less money from teens than from any other demographic on the app,” adding that teens don’t tend to click on ads.
Mark Zuckerberg took the stand Wednesday in a high-profile jury trial over social media addiction. In an appearance that was described byNBC News as “combative,” the Facebook founder reportedly said that Meta’s goal was to make Instagram “useful” not increase the time users are spending in the app.
On the stand, Zuckerberg was questioned about a company document that said improving engagement was among “company goals,” according to CNBC. But Zuckerberg claimed that the company had “made the conscious decision to move away from those goals, focusing instead on utility,” according to The Associated Press. “If something is valuable, people will use it more because it’s useful to them,” he said.
The trial stems from a lawsuit brought by a California woman identified as “KGM” in court documents. The now 20-year-old alleges that she was harmed as a child by addictive features in Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat and TikTok. TikTok and Snap opted to settle before the case went to trial.
Zuckerberg was also asked about previous public statements, including his remarks on Joe Rogan’s podcast last year that he can’t be fired by Meta’s board because he controls a majority of the voting power. According to The New York Times, Zuckerberg accused the plaintiffs’ lawyer of “mischaracterizing” his past comments more than a dozen times.
Zuckerberg’s appearance in court also apparently prompted the judge to warn people in the courtroom not to record the proceedings using AI glasses. As CNBC notes, members of Zuckerberg’s entourage were spotted wearing Meta’s smart glasses as the CEO was escorted into the courthouse. It’s unclear if anyone was actually using the glasses in court, but legal affairs journalist Meghann Cuniff reported that the judge was particularly concerned about the possibility of jurors being recorded or subjected to facial recognition. (Meta’s smart glasses do not currently have native facial recognition abilities, but recent reports suggest the company is considering adding such features.)
The Los Angeles trial has been closely watched not just because it marked a rare in-court appearance for Zuckerberg. It’s among the first of several cases where Meta will face allegations that its platforms have harmed children. In this case and in a separate proceeding in New Mexico, Meta’s lawyers have cast doubt on the idea that social media should be considered a real addiction. Instagram chief Adam Mosseri previously testified in the same Los Angeles trial that Instagram isn’t “clinically addictive.”
Meta’s “Phoenix” XR smart glasses might not be out yet, but if there’s one thing we already know, it’s that when they are, they’ll need a little assistance on the computing side. That help will likely come from a puck that you’ll have to carry around with you—a puck that we may have just gotten our first glimpse of.
A new mockup render shared on X by Noridoesvr, who claims to have seen prototypes of Meta’s hardware—a rumored pair of lightweight XR glasses in a goggle-like form factor—offers more insight into what Project Phoenix’s puck will entail.
First look at the compute unit for Meta’s 2027 Project Phoenix VR glasses!
I modeled this based on physical prototypes I’ve seen. Note the waistband clip and the cooling exhaust on top. The design will likely change, but this represents some variants currently being tested. https://t.co/M0KgoTPlEUpic.twitter.com/IJPszfLfJg
At first glance, the compute puck looks pretty manageable. It’s not oversized, it looks relatively innocuous, and it even has a waistband clip so you can cart it around without pockets. It sounds like no big deal, but it might also be the one thing that turns people off from Meta’s AR glasses.
As promising as the future of AR glasses suddenly is, cramming a whole computer into a pair of frames that rest comfortably on your face is no easy task. Miniaturization is rough, and at a certain point, maybe even impossible. Shrinking down a computer to fit on your face butts against Moore’s Law pretty directly—you need the power to do all sorts of stuff in a form factor that’s light and ergonomic, but you need to do all of that without burning a glasses-sized hole through someone’s head (thermals are no joke).
As a workaround to all of those issues, Meta seems interested in offloading the compute to a puck, which is a solution that Google and Xreal are also interested in pursuing with Project Aura. Google and Xreal’s partnership was recently showcased in December and relies on a wired puck to enable a computer-like experience where people can use Android apps on a big virtual screen. Think Vision Pro, but in a much, much, smaller form factor.
Framed that way, the value proposition for tethered smart glasses makes sense. The Vision Pro might be an impressive technical feat, but wearing one for long periods of time sucks because of the weight and the resulting not-so-great battery. Tethered smart glasses take all the weight and put it… not on your face, which is objectively a win for your nose and forehead.
In other ways, though, both of these form factors share the same problem. The Vision Pro, like Meta’s Phoenix smart glasses and Project Aura, also needs its own kind of puck—a battery pack. To shed weight, the Vision Pro connects to a battery that you have to carry along with you, along with a wire. It’s not ideal, but that’s the tradeoff for a face-worn computer that does more than mirror your connected device’s screen.
It becomes even less ideal when you consider the puck is on your body. As you may have noticed, thereappears to be an exhaust fan on the compute puck, which could presumably serve to direct heat away from your body. It’s hard to tell, but based on the renderings, it might be pointing up? That would be a strange choice, and there’s a chance that what I’m seeing as the correct orientation is actually the opposite. Here’s to hoping this thing doesn’t blast hot air at your torso.
No matter which way you spin it, there are lots of downsides to using a puck for computing, and those downsides might be a little too much for some. The worst part is, if you’re waiting around for Google, or Meta, or eventually Apple to shrink the form factor down and fit it into glasses sans puck, you might be waiting forever. There’s no guarantee that the puck is a problem that can be solved, and Meta’s upcoming Phoenix smart glasses might be further proof.
For now, we can at least enjoy the head-to-head between Meta and Google when they’re eventually released, which could be sometime in 2027 and late 2026, respectively. May the best XR video glasses with a portable computer puck win, I guess?
An internal research study at Meta dubbed “Project MYST” created in partnership with the University of Chicago, found that parental supervision and controls — such as time limits and restricted access — had little impact on kids’ compulsive use of social media. The study also found that kids who experienced stressful life events were more likely to lack the ability to moderate their social media use appropriately.
This was one of the notable claims revealed during testimony at the social media addiction trial that began last week in Los Angeles County Superior Court. The plaintiff in the lawsuit is identified by her initials “KGM” or her first name, “Kaley.” She, along with her mother and others joining the case, is accusing social media companies of creating “addictive and dangerous” products that led the young users to suffer anxiety, depression, body dysmorphia, eating disorders, self-harm, suicidal ideation, and more.
The case is now one of several landmark trials that will take place this year, which accuse social media companies of harming children. The results of these lawsuits will impact these companies’ approach to their younger users and could prompt regulators to take further action.
In this case, the plaintiff sued Meta, YouTube, ByteDance (TikTok), and Snap, but the latter two companies hadsettled their claims before the trial’s start.
In the jury trial now underway in L.A., Kaley’s lawyer, Mark Lanier, brought up an internal study at Meta, which he said found evidence that Meta knew of, yet didn’t publicize, these specific harms.
In Project MYST, which stands for the Meta and Youth Social Emotional Trends survey, Meta’s research concluded that “parental and household factors have little association with teens’ reported levels of attentiveness to their social media use.”
Or, in other words, even when parents try to control their children’s social media use, either by using parental controls or even just household rules and supervision, it doesn’t impact whether or not the child will overuse social media or use it compulsively. The study was based on a survey of 1,000 teens and their parents about their social media use.
The study also noted that both parents and teens agreed on this front, saying “there is no association between either parental reports or teen reports of parental supervision, and teens’ survey measures of attentiveness or capability.”
If the study’s findings are accurate, that would mean that the use of things like the built-in parental controls in the Instagram app or the time limits on smartphones wouldn’t necessarily help teens become less inclined to overuse social media, the plaintiff’s lawyer argued. As the original complaint alleges, teens are being exploited by social media products, whose defects include algorithmic feeds designed to keep users scrolling, intermittent variable rewards that manipulate dopamine delivery, incessant notifications, deficient tools for parental controls, and more.
During his testimony, Instagram head Adam Mosseri claimed not to be familiar with Meta’s Project MYST, even though a document seemed to indicate he had given his approval to move forward with the study.
“We do a lot of research projects,” Mosseri said, after claiming he couldn’t remember anything specific about MYST beyond its name.
However, the plaintiff’s lawyer pointed to this study as an example of why social media companies should be held accountable for their alleged harms, not the parents. He noted that Kaley’s mother, for example, had tried to stop her daughter’s social media addiction and use, even taking her phone away at times.
What’s more, the study found that teens who had a greater number of adverse life experiences — like those dealing with alcoholic parents, harassment at school, or other issues — reported less attentiveness over their social media use. That means that kids facing trauma in their real lives were more at risk of addiction, the lawyer argued.
On the stand, Mosseri seemed to partially agree with this finding, saying, “There’s a variety of reasons this can be the case. One I’ve heard often is that people use Instagram as a way to escape from a more difficult reality.” Meta is careful not to label any sort of overuse as addiction; instead, Mosseri stated that the company uses the term “problematic use” to refer to someone “spending more time on Instagram than they feel good about.”
Lawyers for Meta, meanwhile, pushed the idea that the study was more narrowly focused on understanding if teens felt they were using social media too much, not whether or not they were actually addicted. They also generally aimed to put more of the responsibility on parents and the realities of life as the catalyst for kids like Kaley’s negative emotional states, not companies’ social media products.
For instance, Meta’s lawyers pointed to Kaley being a child of divorced parents, with an abusive father, and facing bullying at school.
How the jury will interpret the findings of studies like Project MYST and others, along with the testimonies from both sides, remains to be seen. Mosseri did note, however, that MYST’s findings had not been published publicly, and no warnings were ever issued to teens or parents as a result of the research.
Reddit, Meta, and Google voluntarily “complied with some of the requests” for identifying details of users critical of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sent as part of a recent wave of administrative subpoenas the Department of Homeland Security has been distributing to Big Tech the past few months, according to an anonymously sourced New York Times report.
Those three companies, plus Discord, have received “hundreds” of such requests that have come from DHS recently. Meta, it should be noted, is the parent company of Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp.
Administrative subpoenas used for this purpose represent an escalation. This tool, which comes not from a judge but from DHS itself, was formerly reserved for situations like child abductions, according to the Times.
The users were targeted because their posts “criticized ICE or pointed to the locations of ICE agents,” the Times says.
A Google spokesperson replied to the Times with a statement, saying “When we receive a subpoena, our review process is designed to protect user privacy while meeting our legal obligations,” and “We inform users when their accounts have been subpoenaed, unless under legal order not to or in an exceptional circumstance. We review every legal demand and push back against those that are overbroad.”
Gizmodo requested comment from Meta, Discord, and Reddit. We will update if we hear back.
According to the Times, one or multiple of the relevant companies have stated that they notify users of these requests from DHS, and give them a 14-day window to “fight the subpoena in court” before complying.
Amazon has also been accused of at least some degree of participation with ICE’s ongoing mass deportation efforts. In October, Amazon-owned Ring announced a partnership with Flock that would loop the AI-powered network into the content coming from users’ doorbell cameras. According to a 404 Media investigation, that network feeds information to law enforcement agencies at the local and federal levels, allowing for reasonable concern that ICE has access to all that footage.
Protesters have launched an effort called “Resist and Unsubscribe” targeting ten tech companies they perceive as exceptionally supportive of ICE. That list includes Meta, Google, and Amazon, but not Reddit.
Ashton Thomas Private Wealth LLC grew its position in shares of Meta Platforms, Inc. (NASDAQ:META – Free Report) by 34.2% in the 3rd quarter, HoldingsChannel reports. The firm owned 52,252 shares of the social networking company’s stock after acquiring an additional 13,311 shares during the quarter. Meta Platforms makes up about 1.0% of Ashton Thomas Private Wealth LLC’s holdings, making the stock its 13th biggest holding. Ashton Thomas Private Wealth LLC’s holdings in Meta Platforms were worth $38,373,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.
Other hedge funds and other institutional investors have also recently modified their holdings of the company. Norges Bank purchased a new stake in shares of Meta Platforms during the second quarter valued at approximately $23,155,393,000. Laurel Wealth Advisors LLC increased its holdings in Meta Platforms by 73,443.1% during the 2nd quarter. Laurel Wealth Advisors LLC now owns 8,417,003 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $6,212,506,000 after purchasing an additional 8,405,558 shares during the period. State Street Corp increased its holdings in Meta Platforms by 1.9% during the 2nd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 86,925,674 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $64,158,971,000 after purchasing an additional 1,650,435 shares during the period. Vanguard Group Inc. lifted its stake in Meta Platforms by 0.8% in the second quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 192,591,101 shares of the social networking company’s stock worth $142,149,566,000 after acquiring an additional 1,532,568 shares during the period. Finally, Corient Private Wealth LLC increased its position in shares of Meta Platforms by 103.5% during the second quarter. Corient Private Wealth LLC now owns 1,998,624 shares of the social networking company’s stock valued at $1,475,166,000 after buying an additional 1,016,667 shares during the period. 79.91% of the stock is currently owned by hedge funds and other institutional investors.
Analysts Set New Price Targets
Several equities analysts have recently issued reports on the stock. Raymond James Financial lowered their target price on shares of Meta Platforms from $825.00 to $800.00 and set a “strong-buy” rating for the company in a report on Monday, January 26th. Stifel Nicolaus lifted their price objective on Meta Platforms from $785.00 to $820.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Thursday, January 29th. Wall Street Zen cut Meta Platforms from a “buy” rating to a “hold” rating in a research note on Saturday, November 1st. Argus restated a “buy” rating and set a $800.00 price target on shares of Meta Platforms in a report on Monday, February 2nd. Finally, Morgan Stanley lifted their price target on Meta Platforms from $750.00 to $825.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Thursday, January 29th. Three investment analysts have rated the stock with a Strong Buy rating, forty have given a Buy rating and seven have given a Hold rating to the company. Based on data from MarketBeat, Meta Platforms presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average price target of $845.50.
In other Meta Platforms news, COO Javier Olivan sold 2,610 shares of the company’s stock in a transaction on Saturday, November 15th. The stock was sold at an average price of $609.46, for a total transaction of $1,590,690.60. Following the completion of the sale, the chief operating officer owned 9,784 shares in the company, valued at $5,962,956.64. This represents a 21.06% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which is available at the SEC website. Also, CAO Aaron Anderson sold 726 shares of Meta Platforms stock in a transaction dated Tuesday, November 18th. The shares were sold at an average price of $591.60, for a total value of $429,501.60. Following the completion of the transaction, the chief accounting officer owned 6,035 shares in the company, valued at $3,570,306. This trade represents a 10.74% decrease in their position. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders sold a total of 39,078 shares of company stock worth $24,016,453 over the last three months. Corporate insiders own 13.61% of the company’s stock.
Meta Platforms News Roundup
Here are the key news stories impacting Meta Platforms this week:
Positive Sentiment: Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square disclosed a roughly $2 billion stake (~10% of the fund), calling META undervalued and an AI beneficiary — a high‑profile institutional endorsement that can attract other buyers and bolster the AI-growth narrative. Article Title
Positive Sentiment: Meta announced a quarterly cash dividend of $0.525 per share (payable March 26) — a formal return of capital that supports yield‑seeking investors and signals board confidence in cash flow. Article Title
Positive Sentiment: Hardware traction: EssilorLuxottica reported it more than tripled sales of Meta AI (Ray-Ban) glasses in 2025 — evidence Reality Labs products can scale and begin to diversify revenue beyond advertising. Article Title
Positive Sentiment: Data center expansion: Meta broke ground on a $10B Indiana data‑center (and another large campus reported elsewhere), strengthening long‑term AI compute capacity that underpins ad/AI initiatives. These are long‑horizon positives but raise near‑term capex. Article Title
Neutral Sentiment: Insider activity: COO Javier Olivan sold 517 shares (~$343k) in a routine filing; the sale is small relative to total insider holdings and follows a pattern of periodic sales. Article Title
Negative Sentiment: Russia block: Russian authorities removed WhatsApp from an official directory and effectively blocked access for ~100M users — a material engagement loss in that market and a nearer‑term revenue/MAU headwind. Article Title
Negative Sentiment: Legal and reputational risk: Ongoing trials and testimony (including accusations that products enabled harm) increase litigation exposure and political/regulatory scrutiny that could lead to fines, restrictions or product changes. Article Title
Negative Sentiment: Capex/FCF pressure: Coverage of the “Mag‑7” AI arms race highlights heavy industry capex and potential free‑cash‑flow strain — Meta’s big data‑center builds support growth but keep near‑term spending elevated. Article Title
Meta Platforms Price Performance
NASDAQ:META opened at $649.81 on Friday. The business’s 50-day moving average is $658.31 and its 200 day moving average is $693.94. Meta Platforms, Inc. has a 12 month low of $479.80 and a 12 month high of $796.25. The company has a market capitalization of $1.64 trillion, a P/E ratio of 27.65, a P/E/G ratio of 1.14 and a beta of 1.28. The company has a current ratio of 2.60, a quick ratio of 2.60 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.27.
Meta Platforms (NASDAQ:META – Get Free Report) last released its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, January 28th. The social networking company reported $8.88 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $8.16 by $0.72. The company had revenue of $59.89 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $58.33 billion. Meta Platforms had a return on equity of 38.61% and a net margin of 30.08%.The firm’s revenue was up 23.8% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter last year, the business posted $8.02 earnings per share. On average, equities research analysts forecast that Meta Platforms, Inc. will post 26.7 earnings per share for the current fiscal year.
Meta Platforms Dividend Announcement
The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Tuesday, December 23rd. Investors of record on Monday, December 15th were paid a $0.525 dividend. The ex-dividend date of this dividend was Monday, December 15th. This represents a $2.10 annualized dividend and a yield of 0.3%. Meta Platforms’s dividend payout ratio is 8.94%.
Meta Platforms, Inc (NASDAQ: META), formerly Facebook, Inc, is a global technology company best known for building social networking services and immersive computing platforms. Founded in 2004 and headquartered in Menlo Park, California, the company operates a family of consumer-facing products and services that connect users, creators and businesses. In October 2021 the company rebranded as Meta to reflect an expanded strategic focus on augmented and virtual reality technologies alongside its social media businesses.
Meta’s core consumer products include Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger, which enable social networking, messaging, content sharing and community building across mobile and desktop devices.
Receive News & Ratings for Meta Platforms Daily – Enter your email address below to receive a concise daily summary of the latest news and analysts’ ratings for Meta Platforms and related companies with MarketBeat.com’s FREE daily email newsletter.
The world’s biggest social media companies face several landmark trials this year that seek to hold them responsible for harms to children who use their platforms. Opening statements in one such trial in Los Angeles County Superior Court began on Monday.
Instagram’s parent company Meta and Google’s YouTube face claims that their platforms deliberately addict and harm children. TikTok and Snap, which were originally named in the lawsuit, settled for undisclosed sums.
Jurors got their first glimpse into what will be a lengthy trial characterized by dueling narratives from the plaintiffs and the two remaining social media companies named as defendants.
Mark Lanier delivered the opening statement for the plaintiffs first, in a lively display where he said the case is as “easy as ABC,” which he said stands for “addicting the brains of children.” He called Meta and Google “two of the richest corporations in history” that have “engineered addiction in children’s brains.”
He presented jurors with a slew of internal emails, documents and studies conducted by Meta and YouTube, as well as YouTube’s parent company, Google. He emphasized the findings of a study Meta conducted called “Project Myst” in which they surveyed 1,000 teens and their parents about their social media use. The two major findings, Lanier said, were that the company knew children who experienced “adverse events” like trauma and stress were particularly vulnerable for addiction; and that parental supervision and controls made little impact.
Internal company documents
He also showed internal Google documents that likened YouTube to a casino, and internal communication between Meta employees in which one person said Instagram is “like a drug” and that employees are “basically pushers.”
At the core of the Los Angeles case is a 20-year-old identified only by the initials “KGM,” whose case could determine how thousands of other, similar lawsuits against social media companies will play out. She and two other plaintiffs have been selected for bellwether trials — essentially test cases for both sides to see how their arguments play out before a jury.
KGM made a brief appearance after a break during Lanier’s statement and she will return to testify later in the trial. Lanier spent time speaking about her childhood, and particularly focused on what her personality was like before she began using social media, saying her mother called her a “creative spark” as a child. She started using YouTube at age 6 and Instagram at age 9, Lanier said. Before she graduated elementary school, she had posted 284 videos on YouTube.
The outcome of the trial could have profound effects on the companies’ businesses and how they will handle children using their platforms.
Lanier said the companies’ lawyers will “try to blame the little girl and her parents for the trap they built,” referencing the plaintiff. She was a minor when she said she became addicted to social media platforms, which she claims had a detrimental impact on her mental health.
Lanier said that despite the public position of Meta and YouTube being that they work to protect children and implement safeguards for their use of the platforms, their internal documents show an entirely different position, with explicit references to young children being listed as their target audiences.
Lanier also drew comparisons between the social media companies and tobacco firms, citing internal communication between Meta employees who were concerned about the company’s lack of proactive action about the potential harm their platforms can have on children and teens.
“For a teenager, social validation is survival,” Lanier said. The defendants “engineered a feature that caters to a minor’s craving for social validation,” he added, speaking about “like” buttons and similar features.
“This was only the first case — there are hundreds of parents and school districts in the social media addiction trials that start today, and sadly, new families every day who are speaking out and bringing Big Tech to court for its deliberately harmful products,” said Sacha Haworth, executive director of the nonprofit Tech Oversight Project.
Jurors are not being asked to stop using Facebook, Instagram, YouTube or any other forms of social media throughout the course of the trial — which is expected to last about eight weeks — but Judge Carolyn B. Kuhl emphasized that they should not make any changes to the way they interact with the platforms, including changing their settings or creating new accounts.
Kuhl said that jurors should decide the liability of Meta and YouTube independently when they deliberate.
A separate trial in New Mexico, meanwhile, also kicked off with opening statements on Monday.
KGM claims that her use of social media from an early age addicted her to the technology and exacerbated depression and suicidal thoughts. Importantly, the lawsuit claims that this was done through deliberate design choices made by companies that sought to make their platforms more addictive to children to boost profits. This argument, if successful, could sidestep the companies’ First Amendment shield and Section 230, which protects tech companies from liability for material posted on their platforms.
“Borrowing heavily from the behavioral and neurobiological techniques used by slot machines and exploited by the cigarette industry, Defendants deliberately embedded in their products an array of design features aimed at maximizing youth engagement to drive advertising revenue,” the lawsuit says.
Mark Zuckerberg expected to testify
Executives, including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, are expected to testify at the trial, which will last six to eight weeks. Experts have drawn similarities to the Big Tobacco trials that led to a 1998 settlement requiring cigarette companies to pay billions in health care costs and restrict marketing targeting minors.
The tech companies dispute the claims that their products deliberately harm children, citing a bevy of safeguards they have added over the years and arguing that they are not liable for content posted on their sites by third parties.
A Meta spokesperson said in a recent statement that the company strongly disagrees with the allegations outlined in the lawsuit and that it’s “confident the evidence will show our longstanding commitment to supporting young people.”
José Castañeda, a Google spokesperson, said that the allegations against YouTube are “simply not true.” In a statement, he said, “Providing young people with a safer, healthier experience has always been core to our work.”
The case will be the first in a slew of cases beginning this year that seek to hold social media companies responsible for harming children’s mental well-being.
In New Mexico, opening statements began Monday for trial on allegations that Meta and its social media platforms have failed to protect young users from sexual exploitation, following an undercover online investigation. Attorney General Raúl Torrez in late 2023 sued Meta and Zuckerberg, who was later dropped from the suit.
A federal bellwether trial beginning in June in Oakland, California, will be the first to represent school districts that have sued social media platforms over harms to children.
In addition, more than 40 state attorneys general have filed lawsuits against Meta, claiming it is harming young people and contributing to the youth mental health crisis by deliberately designing features on Instagram and Facebook that addict children to its platforms. The majority of cases filed their lawsuits in federal court, but some sued in their respective states.
TikTok also faces similar lawsuits in more than a dozen states.
Other countries, meanwhile, are enacting new laws to limit social media for children. In January, French lawmakers approved a bill banning social media for children under 15, paving the way for the measure to enter into force at the start of the next school year in September, as the idea of setting a minimum age for use of the platforms gains momentum across Europe.
In Australia, social media companies have revoked access to about 4.7 million accounts identified as belonging to children since the country banned use of the platforms by those under 16, officials said. The law provoked fraught debates in Australia about technology use, privacy, child safety and mental health and has prompted other countries to consider similar measures.
The British government also said last month it will consider banning young teenagers from social media as it tightens laws designed to protect children from harmful content and excessive screen time.
Meta is doubling down on artificial intelligence with a massive $135 billion spending plan for 2026.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg revealed the eye-popping figure during a fourth-quarter earnings call on Wednesday, signalling a dramatic shift from social media toward a “personal superintelligence” future.
The investment – nearly twice the $72 billion spent in 2025 – will primarily fund massive data centres, custom silicon, and a $6 billion fibre-optic network deal with Corning.
Zuckerberg predicted that 2026 will be the year “AI dramatically changes the way we work,” as autonomous agents begin to handle complex tasks previously reserved for large teams.
While Meta’s revenue surged 24% to nearly $60 billion, the aggressive pivot has squeezed profit margins, which fell to 41% from 48% a year earlier.
The shift in priorities is already reshaping Meta’s workforce. The company recently cut approximately 1,500 roles from its Reality Labs division (10% of the division’s workforce) as resources are redirected from the “metaverse” toward AI-powered wearables and smart glasses.
Zuckerberg noted that AI tools are now allowing “a single, very talented person” to accomplish projects that once required dozens of employees, hinting that further flattening of the organization is likely.
However, the scale of Meta’s spending has reignited fears of a dotcom-style bubble. Industry titans like Cisco’s Chuck Robbins and Google’s Sundar Pichai have warned of “irrationality” and “overexcitement” in the sector. Even Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, has admitted that investors may be overestimating the near-term returns of the technology.
Despite these warnings, investors initially cheered the results, sending Meta shares up 6.5%. With over $80 billion in cash reserves, Zuckerberg remains undeterred by bubble talk. He framed the current bottleneck not as a lack of demand, but as a lack of “compute and power,” asserting that those who own the infrastructure will define the next era of digital life.
Earlier this month, Meta laid off 10% of the staff for Reality Labs, its virtual reality unit, reportedly cutting as many as 1,000 employees. Now, in a development that seems directly related, the company has revealed that the unit lost many billions of dollars last year.
On Wednesday, Meta’s earnings report showed that its embattled virtual reality business had lost some $19.1 billion in 2025, which is slightly more than it lost in 2024 (that year, the losses hovered around $17.7 billion). In its fourth quarter, the unit posted a loss of $6.2 billion, the report shows.
Those losses stood against what the unit generated in sales: $955 million in Q4 and some $2.2 billion throughout 2025.
During the company’s earnings call on Wednesday, Mark Zuckerberg struck a tone of optimism for his company’s VR team while noting that losses in 2026 are expected to be very much the same.
“For Reality Labs, we are directing most of our investment towards glasses and wearables going forward, while focusing on making Horizon a massive success on Mobile and making VR a profitable ecosystem over the coming years,” Zuckerberg said, during the call. However, the CEO noted that losses were expected to continue. “I expect Reality Labs losses this year to be similar to last year,” Zuckerberg said, while noting that this year would “likely be the peak, as we start to gradually reduce our losses going forward.”
When Meta announced a pivot toward the “metaverse” in 2021, the move was regarded with a certain amount of skepticism and, during its first year of VR efforts, the company faced harsh criticism — even being referred to as an “international laughingstock.” Nearly half a decade later, that skepticism hasn’t exactly subsided. As the VR business continues to lose money and Meta continues an aggressive pivot away from VR and toward AI, it’s unclear what exactly will turn the ailing business around.
Last week, CNBC reported that, in addition to the layoffs, Meta had plans to shutter a number of its VR studios — another sign that the company’s interest in virtual reality is waning. The company also recently announced that it would be retiring its standalone Workrooms app — which the company had pitched to office workers as a VR space that could be used to hold meetings.
Meta has started blocking links to ICE List, a website that compiles information about incidents involving Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol agents, and lists thousands of their employees’ names. It seems that the latter detail is what caused Meta to take action in a move that was first reported byWired.
ICE List is a crowdsourced Wiki that describes itself as “an independently maintained public documentation project focused on immigration-enforcement activity” in the US. “Its purpose is to record, organize, and preserve verifiable information about enforcement actions, agents, facilities, vehicles, and related incidents that would otherwise remain fragmented, difficult to access, or undocumented,” its website states.
Along with notable incidents, the website also lists the names of individual agents associated with ICE, CBP and other DHS agencies. According to Wired, the website’s creators said much of that information had come from a “leak,” though it appears to be based largely on public LinkedIn profiles. As Wired notes:
The site went viral earlier this month when it claimed to have uploaded a leaked list of 4,500 DHS employees to its site, but a WIRED analysis found that the list relied heavily on information the employees shared publicly about themselves on sites such as LinkedIn.
Links to ICE List have been spreading widely for several weeks, including on Meta’s platforms. There are numerous links to the website on Threads, some of which go back several weeks. Now though, clicking on previously-shared links instead results in a message that the link can’t be opened. Users who try to share new links on Threads or Facebook also see error messages. “Posts that look like spam according to our Community Guidelines are blocked on Facebook and can’t be edited,” the notice says.
When reached for comment, a Meta spokesperson pointed to the company’s privacy policy barring the disclosure of personally identifiable information (PII). The company didn’t address why it chose to start blocking the website after several weeks, or whether it considers public LinkedIn profiles to be in violation of its rules against doxxing.
It is, however, not the first time Meta has opted to remove users’ posts tracking information about ICE actions. The social network previously took down a Facebook group that tracked ICE sightings in Chicago after pressure from the Justice Department.
Have a tip for Karissa? You can reach her by email, on X, Bluesky, Threads, or send a message to @karissabe.51 to chat confidentially on Signal.
Meta and YouTube are in court this week over allegations that their social media platforms can be addictive and harmful to children, while TikTok on Tuesday chose to settle the closely watched case.
At the heart of the case are allegations by a 19-year-old plaintiff, identified only as “KGM,” who claims that using social media from a young age caused her to become addicted to the technology, which led her to develop depression and suicidal thoughts.
TikTok was also scheduled to be part of the trial, but it has settled with the plaintiff, according to Matthew Bergman, the founding attorney of the Social Media Victims Law Center, which is representing KGM.
TikTok did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
A fourth company named in the lawsuit, Snapchat parent company Snap, also settled the case last week for an undisclosed sum.
Potential bellwether
Legal experts have said the trial could be a bellwether for more than a thousand similar cases brought against social media players in recent years. Depending on the outcome, tech giants could be forced to overhaul their platforms, CBS News Philadelphia reported.
The trial will also serve as a test case to see what damages, if any, may be awarded to plaintiffs, said Clay Calvert, a nonresident senior fellow of technology policy studies at the nonpartisan American Enterprise Institute.
The trial, which kicks off this week in Los Angeles County Superior Court, is the first time major social media companies will argue their case before a jury. The jury selection process is expected to take several days, with 75 potential jurors questioned each day.
KGM’s lawsuit alleges that the social media addiction and mental illness she suffered were caused by deliberate design choices made by companies that sought to make their platforms more addictive to children to boost profits. This argument, if successful, could sidestep the companies’ First Amendment shield and Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects tech companies from liability for material posted on their platforms.
“Borrowing heavily from the behavioral and neurobiological techniques used by slot machines and exploited by the cigarette industry, Defendants deliberately embedded in their products an array of design features aimed at maximizing youth engagement to drive advertising revenue,” the lawsuit says.
A Meta spokesperson said in a statement Monday that the company strongly disagrees with the allegations outlined in the lawsuit and that it’s “confident the evidence will show our longstanding commitment to supporting young people.”
José Castañeda, a Google spokesperson, said Monday that the allegations against YouTube are “simply not true.” Google is the parent company of YouTube.
“Providing young people with a safer, healthier experience has always been core to our work,” Castañeda added.
Zuckerberg expected to testify
Executives, including Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, are expected to testify at the trial, which will last six to eight weeks. Experts have drawn similarities to the Big Tobacco trials that led to a 1998 settlement requiring cigarette companies to pay billions in healthcare costs and restrict marketing targeting minors.
“Plaintiffs are not merely the collateral damage of Defendants’ products,” the lawsuit says. “They are the direct victims of the intentional product design choices made by each Defendant. They are the intended targets of the harmful features that pushed them into self-destructive feedback loops.”
The tech companies dispute the claims that their products deliberately harm children, citing a bevy of safeguards they have added over the years and arguing that they are not liable for content posted on their sites by third parties.
“Recently, a number of lawsuits have attempted to place the blame for teen mental health struggles squarely on social media companies,” Meta said in a recent blog post. “But this oversimplifies a serious issue. Clinicians and researchers find that mental health is a deeply complex and multifaceted issue, and trends regarding teens’ well-being aren’t clear-cut or universal. Narrowing the challenges faced by teens to a single factor ignores the scientific research and the many stressors impacting young people today, like academic pressure, school safety, socio-economic challenges and substance abuse.”
School lawsuits
The case will be the first in a slew of cases beginning this year that seek to hold social media companies responsible for harming children’s mental well-being. A federal trial beginning in June in Oakland, California, will be the first to represent school districts that have sued social media platforms over harms to children.
In addition, more than 40 state attorneys general have filed lawsuits against Meta, claiming it is harming young people and contributing to the youth mental health crisis by deliberately designing features on Instagram and Facebook that addict children to its platforms. The majority of cases filed their lawsuits in federal court, but some sued in their respective states.
TikTok also faces similar lawsuits in more than a dozen states.
