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Tag: Meta

  • Bye-bye birdie: Twitter jettisons bird logo, replaces it with

    Bye-bye birdie: Twitter jettisons bird logo, replaces it with

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    Twitter launched its new logo on Monday, replacing the blue bird with a white X on a black background as the Elon Musk-owned company moves toward rebranding as X.

    The social media network’s website showed the company’s new logo, but its URL was still showing as twitter.com and the blue “Tweet” button was visible, suggesting the rebrand wasn’t finalized yet.

    Twitter
    In this photo illustration, Elon Musk’s photo is displayed on a phone screen in front of a computer screen displaying the new logo of “Twitter” in Ankara, Turkey on July 24, 2023.

    Emin Sansar / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images


    Musk and the company’s new chief executive, Linda Yaccarino, announced the rebranding Sunday, saying the company would be renamed X and move later into payments, banking, and commerce.

    Founded in 2006, Twitter takes its name from the sound of birds chattering and used avian branding since its early days, when the company bought a stock symbol of a light blue bird for $15, according to the design website Creative Bloq.

    Musk changed his profile picture late Sunday to the company’s new logo, which he described as “minimalist art deco,” and updated his Twitter bio to “X.com,” which now redirects to twitter.com.

    He also tweeted that under the site’s new identity, a post would be called “an X.”

    Musk had already named Twitter’s parent company the X Corporation and has said his takeover of the social media giant was “an accelerant to creating X, the everything app” — a reference to the X.com company he founded in 1999, a later version of which went on to become online payments giant PayPal.

    Such an app could still function as a social media platform and also include messaging and mobile payments.

    Musk had previously said he wanted to create a super-app modeled on China’s WeChat, a social media platform that also offers messaging and mobile payments.

    “You basically live on WeChat in China because it’s so usable and helpful to daily life, and I think if we can achieve that, or even get close to that at Twitter, it would be an immense success,” he told a company town hall meeting in June last year.

    The new logo was projected onto the facade of Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters on Sunday night.

    Twitter's new logo is seen projected on the corporate headquarters building in downtown San Francisco, California
    Twitter’s new logo is seen projected on the corporate headquarters building in downtown San Francisco on July 23, 2023.

    CARLOS BARRIA / REUTERS


     “Powered by AI, X will connect us in ways we’re just beginning to imagine,” Yaccarino tweeted earlier.

    Yaccarino, a former advertising sales executive at NBCUniversal who Musk hired last month to be Twitter’s CEO, said the social media platform was on the cusp of broadening its scope.

    “X is the future state of unlimited interactivity – centered in audio, video, messaging, payments/banking – creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities,” she said.

    Simon Kemp, CEO of digital consultancy Kepios, said he was skeptical that Twitter could evolve into a super-app.

    “Given how Musk has treated Twitter’s own employees since the acquisition, I don’t imagine many developers will rush to build third-party apps to integrate into the Twitter ecosystem unless Musk can offer outstanding incentives, and that’ll be extra tricky given the company’s existing debt.”

    But he also said the platform had the potential to become “a great (global and paid) news aggregator.”

    Since Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion last October, the platform’s advertising business has partially collapsed as marketers soured on Musk’s management style and mass firings at the company that gutted content moderation.

    In response, the billionaire SpaceX boss has moved toward introducing payments and commerce through the platform, in a search for new revenue.

    Twitter is thought to have around 200 million daily active users but has suffered repeated technical failures since Musk sacked much of its staff.

    Many users and advertisers alike have responded adversely to the social media site’s new charges for previously free services, its changes to content moderation, and the return of previously banned right-wing accounts.

    Musk said this month that Twitter had lost roughly half of its advertising revenue since he took control.

    Facebook parent Meta also launched its text-based platform this month, called Threads, which has up to 150 million users according to some estimates.

    But the amount of time users spend on the rival app has plummeted in the weeks since its launch, according to data from market analysis firm Sensor Tower. 

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  • Bye-bye birdie: Twitter jettisons bird logo, replaces it with

    Bye-bye birdie: Twitter jettisons bird logo, replaces it with

    [ad_1]


    Twitter rebrands as X

    00:28

    Twitter launched its new logo on Monday, replacing the blue bird with a white X on a black background as the Elon Musk-owned company moves toward rebranding as X.

    The social media network’s website showed the company’s new logo, but its URL was still showing as twitter.com and the blue “Tweet” button was visible, suggesting the rebrand wasn’t finalized yet.

    Twitter
    In this photo illustration, Elon Musk’s photo is displayed on a phone screen in front of a computer screen displaying the new logo of “Twitter” in Ankara, Turkey on July 24, 2023.

    Emin Sansar / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images


    Musk and the company’s new chief executive, Linda Yaccarino, announced the rebranding Sunday, saying the company would be renamed X and move later into payments, banking, and commerce.

    Founded in 2006, Twitter takes its name from the sound of birds chattering and used avian branding since its early days, when the company bought a stock symbol of a light blue bird for $15, according to the design website Creative Bloq.

    Musk changed his profile picture late Sunday to the company’s new logo, which he described as “minimalist art deco,” and updated his Twitter bio to “X.com,” which now redirects to twitter.com.

    He also tweeted that under the site’s new identity, a post would be called “an X.”

    Musk had already named Twitter’s parent company the X Corporation and has said his takeover of the social media giant was “an accelerant to creating X, the everything app” — a reference to the X.com company he founded in 1999, a later version of which went on to become online payments giant PayPal.

    Such an app could still function as a social media platform and also include messaging and mobile payments.

    Musk had previously said he wanted to create a super-app modeled on China’s WeChat, a social media platform that also offers messaging and mobile payments.

    “You basically live on WeChat in China because it’s so usable and helpful to daily life, and I think if we can achieve that, or even get close to that at Twitter, it would be an immense success,” he told a company town hall meeting in June last year.

    The new logo was projected onto the facade of Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters on Sunday night.

    Twitter's new logo is seen projected on the corporate headquarters building in downtown San Francisco, California
    Twitter’s new logo is seen projected on the corporate headquarters building in downtown San Francisco on July 23, 2023.

    CARLOS BARRIA / REUTERS


     “Powered by AI, X will connect us in ways we’re just beginning to imagine,” Yaccarino tweeted earlier.

    Yaccarino, a former advertising sales executive at NBCUniversal who Musk hired last month to be Twitter’s CEO, said the social media platform was on the cusp of broadening its scope.

    “X is the future state of unlimited interactivity – centered in audio, video, messaging, payments/banking – creating a global marketplace for ideas, goods, services, and opportunities,” she said.

    Simon Kemp, CEO of digital consultancy Kepios, said he was skeptical that Twitter could evolve into a super-app.

    “Given how Musk has treated Twitter’s own employees since the acquisition, I don’t imagine many developers will rush to build third-party apps to integrate into the Twitter ecosystem unless Musk can offer outstanding incentives, and that’ll be extra tricky given the company’s existing debt.”

    But he also said the platform had the potential to become “a great (global and paid) news aggregator.”

    Since Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion last October, the platform’s advertising business has partially collapsed as marketers soured on Musk’s management style and mass firings at the company that gutted content moderation.

    In response, the billionaire SpaceX boss has moved toward introducing payments and commerce through the platform, in a search for new revenue.

    Twitter is thought to have around 200 million daily active users but has suffered repeated technical failures since Musk sacked much of its staff.

    Many users and advertisers alike have responded adversely to the social media site’s new charges for previously free services, its changes to content moderation, and the return of previously banned right-wing accounts.

    Musk said this month that Twitter had lost roughly half of its advertising revenue since he took control.

    Facebook parent Meta also launched its text-based platform this month, called Threads, which has up to 150 million users according to some estimates.

    But the amount of time users spend on the rival app has plummeted in the weeks since its launch, according to data from market analysis firm Sensor Tower. 

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  • AMC, Chevron, Tesla, Domino’s, Microsoft, and More Stock Market Movers

    AMC, Chevron, Tesla, Domino’s, Microsoft, and More Stock Market Movers

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    This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers visit http://www.djreprints.com.

    https://www.barrons.com/articles/stock-market-movers-2b3602a5

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  • TikTok Worries Over Labor Rights, Leaked Memo Reveals | Entrepreneur

    TikTok Worries Over Labor Rights, Leaked Memo Reveals | Entrepreneur

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    In a landmark ruling last month, a Kenyan court declared that Meta was the “true employer” of hundreds of moderators working in Nairobi, Kenya — meaning that Meta can be held liable in Kenya for labor rights violations, even though the moderators are technically employed by a third-party contractor. Meta will appeal the decision, TechCrunch reported.

    Moderators are responsible for filtering out violent, hateful and shocking content on Meta’s platforms.

    Meta previously contracted with a company called Sama, and it now contracts with a company called Majorel. TikTok, the short-form video app, also outsources to moderators in Kenya with Majorel, and leaked memos may imply the company has violated labor rights.

    The initial case against Meta was brought forward by Daniel Motaung, a South African moderator who says he was fired in 2019 after attempting to form a union. Motaung claimed that the job exposed him to traumatic and disturbing content, resulting in post-traumatic stress disorder. He was allegedly paid as little as $2.20 an hour for the work, WIRED reported in February.

    Motaung also claimed that the true nature of the work was never explicitly laid out to him before taking on the role that would ultimately leave him traumatized.

    As Motaung’s case progressed, in January Meta attempted to sever ties with Sama (resulting in 260 moderators losing their jobs) and move its operations to another third-party company, Majorel (TikTok’s partner), per WIRED.

    After 184 moderators sued Meta and Sama alleging unlawful termination of contracts, the court ruled in favor of the moderators in March, extending their contracts and preventing layoffs until the case is resolved. The court found that Meta was the primary employer, and Sama was “merely an agent” overseeing the work on its behalf.

    The court also ordered Meta and Sama to provide medical, psychiatric and psychological care to the moderators, acknowledging the “inherently hazardous” nature of their work sifting through social media content to remove hate, misinformation and violence.

    Related: ‘It Is Incredibly Disheartening, Insulting, and Downright Evil’: Designers Accuse Shein of ‘Egregious’ Copyright Infringement and Racketeering

    As for TikTok, leaked documents obtained by the NGO Foxglove Legal and viewed by WIRED suggest that the company is concerned about the potential legal repercussions it might face if the Kenyan court’s decision sets a precedent.

    “TikTok will likely face reputational and regulatory risks for its contractual arrangement with Majorel in Kenya,” the memo says, adding that if the court rules in favor of the moderators, “TikTok and its competitors could face scrutiny for real or perceived labor rights violations.”

    In response to the situation, TikTok is contemplating an independent audit of Majorel’s operations in Kenya to address potential concerns regarding labor practices, according to the leaked documents.

    However, similar moves have been criticized for being performative and not leading to substantial improvements in workers’ conditions, Paul Barrett, deputy director of the Center for Business and Human Rights at New York University, told WIRED — a reality TikTok appears to be aware of as the memo stated such audits “may mitigate additional scrutiny from union representatives and news media.”

    Although TikTok has the opportunity to proactively approach the issue, some experts caution the company might merely be trying to mitigate blame rather than genuinely improve working conditions for its outsourced workers.

    “I think it would be very unfortunate if TikTok said, ‘We’re going to try to minimize liability, minimize our responsibility, and not only outsource this work, but outsource our responsibility for making sure the work that’s being done on behalf of our platform is done in an appropriate and humane way,'” Barrett told WIRED.

    Entrepreneur has reached out to TikTok and Meta for comment.

    Related: 3 McDonald’s Franchisees to Pay Thousands in Fines for Child Labor Law Violations

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    Madeline Garfinkle

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  • Here’s why Wall Street has fallen out of love with Tesla — for now

    Here’s why Wall Street has fallen out of love with Tesla — for now

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    Late on Wednesday, Tesla Inc.
    TSLA,
    -1.10%
    reported that quarterly sales were up 47% from a year earlier. But the stock tumbled 10% on Thursday.

    Tesla’s shares are still up 113% this year. The company is among a group of 13 in the S&P 500 that stand out with high growth expectations for sales, earnings and free cash flow through 2025.

    But less than half of analysts polled by FactSet rate Tesla a buy. Emily Bary explains what they are worried about.

    Traders have placed large short bets against Tesla and two of its rival EV makers — Rivian Automotive Inc.
    RIVN,
    -2.09%
    and Nio Inc.
    NIO,
    +2.52%    .
    Claudia Assis looks into how well those trades have been working out.

    Cody Willard explains why he remains confident that Tesla and Rivian will dominate the EV market over the long term.

    Related coverage:

    Here’s what may propel U.S. stocks for years.

    Chipotle Mexican Grill is among 14 stocks named by Michael Brush for consideration by investors looking to ride along with long-term improvement of U.S. labor productivity.


    AP

    The S&P 500
    SPX,
    +0.03%
    has returned 19% this year, following its 18% decline in 2022. On the same basis, with dividends reinvested, the benchmark index is still down 2% since the end of 2021.

    What is going on? Michael Brush believes that a high level of corporate investment in new technology and equipment is setting the stage for a long phase of earnings growth for U.S. companies. He shares four developments behind the coming productivity boom and 14 stocks expected to benefit from it.

    A signal for the stock-market’s health


    Getty Images

    The Dow Jones Industrial Average
    DJIA,
    +0.01%
    is up 6% this year. The venerable index has trailed the S&P 500, but its closing level of 35,255.18 on Thursday was only 4% shy of its record close a 36,799.65 on Jan. 4, 2022. Joseph Adinolfi explains Dow Theory, which according to technical analysts is sending a strong bullish signal for the stock market.

    Other opinions about market sentiment:

    Even if you have resisted the idea of a Roth IRA, you may soon be forced to have one

    This year if you are age 50 or older and are already maxing-out your contribution to a 401(K), 403(B) or other qualified employer-sponsored tax-deferred retirement plan at $22,500, you can make an additional “catch up” tax deductible contribution of $7,500 for a total of $30,000. But starting in 2024, the catch up contribution will no longer be tax deductible if you earn at least $145,000 a year. You can still make the contribution with after-tax money into a Roth 401(K) account that your plan administrator may already have set up for you.

    Alessandra Malito provides more details and news about employers’ efforts to delay the rule’s implementation.

    Beth Pinker writes the Fix My Portfolio column. This week she digs into Roth IRA conversions, through which you can simplify your taxes down the line.

    A hot vote in Spain

    The center of Madrid on July 15, 2023. A brutal heat wave could affect turnout for the country’s general election on July 23.


    Uncredited

    Barbara Kollmeyer reports from Spain about a highly contested election on Sunday, with controversy over the government’s policies during the pandemic, parties’ social policies and the possibility of a coalition government that might rattle financial markets.

    Meta vs. Alphabet

    Shares of Meta Platforms Inc. and Alphabet Inc. trade only slightly higher than the S&P 500 on a forward price-to-earnings bases, while Nvidia Corp., Microsoft Corp. and Apple Inc. trade much higher.


    FactSet

    Leslie Albrecht looks at Meta Platforms Inc.
    META,
    -2.73%    ,
    which is Facebook’s holding company and has a hit on its hands with the new Threads social-media platform, and Google holding company Alphabet Inc.
    GOOGL,
    +0.69%    ,
    to consider which stock is a better buy.

    Brett Arends: ‘I used to work at Nvidia. The stock I got is now half my portfolio. Should I sell?’

    The Ratings Game

    In The Ratings Game column, MarketWatch reporters track analysts’ thoughts about various stocks. Here’s a sampling of this week’s coverage:

    You don’t know every bad factor causing air travel to be nothing but harassment

    Getting there is half the fun.


    Getty Images

    The U.S. flying scene — from shortages of equipment and labor (and runways) to ill-staffed air-traffic control towers — is a well-known nightmare for U.S. travelers. But there is more to the story. Jeremy Binckes looks into other factors that may surprise you and cause great inconvenience this summer.

    The Federal Reserve is expected to raise interest rates again next week

    The Federal Open Market Committee will meet next Tuesday and Wednesday, to be immediately followed by a policy announcement. Economists expect the central to raise the federal-funds rate by another quarter point. The question is whether or not this will end the Fed’s inflation-fighting rate cycle.

    More coverage of the Fed:

    How much would you pay for 100% downside protection in the stock market?


    MarketWatch illustration/iStockphoto

    Over the past 30 years, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust
    SPY,

    has returned 1,650%, for an average annual return of 10%, with dividends reinvested, according to FactSet. But it hasn’t been a smooth ride. The ETF, which tracks the benchmark S&P 500, fell 18% last year and 37% during 2008, for example. And there have been even larger declines if the analysis isn’t confined to calendar years.

    But can you ride through market declines? Many studies have shown that most investors who try to time the market sell after a decline has started and buy back in well after a recovery is under way, which means their long-term performance can suffer significantly.

    In this week’s ETF Wrap column (and emailed newsletter), Isabel Wang describes a new buffered fund that can give you 100% downside protection over a two-year period, in return for a cap on your potential gains in the stock market. Here’s the price you would pay for the protection.

    The World Cup games have started

    Hannah Wilkinson scored the home team’s first goal against Norway during the first World Cup game in Auckland, New Zealand, on July 20.


    Getty Images

    The Women’s World Cup began Thursday with an upset victory by New Zealand over Norway.

    James Rogers reports on what is expected to be a much easier environment for FIFA and corporate sponsors than that of last year’s Men’s World Cup in Qatar.

    U.S. Soccer Federation President Cindy Parlow Cone participated in MarketWatch’s Best New Ideas in Money podcast and spoke about the long-term effort to achieve equal treatment for women soccer players.

    More coverage of the World Cup:

    Want more from MarketWatch? Sign up for this and other newsletters to get the latest news and advice on personal finance and investing.

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  • Pinterest stock advances, Masimo shares slump on outlook and other stocks on the move

    Pinterest stock advances, Masimo shares slump on outlook and other stocks on the move

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    Here are some of the biggest movers of the day:

    Stock gainers:

    Shares of Pinterest Inc.
    PINS,
    +3.64%
    were gaining 4% after an Evercore ISI analyst moved to a bullish stance, cheering better advertising-market conditions and improvements made by Chief Executive Bill Ready, who is about a year into his stint.

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  • Nasdaq is making a big change to its most popular index. Here’s how it might impact your portfolio.

    Nasdaq is making a big change to its most popular index. Here’s how it might impact your portfolio.

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    Big Tech has gotten too big for Nasdaq’s liking.

    So the exchange has decided to make some changes to the Nasdaq 100 index, its most popular index, according to company representatives, ostensibly to diminish the concentration risk that accompanies having an index that derives more than half of its value from just seven companies.

    Nasdaq announced late last week that the Nasdaq 100
    NDX,
    +1.24%
    will undergo a special rebalancing that will take effect prior to the market open on July 24. It’s only the third time that Nasdaq has announced such an impromptu rejiggering of how much individual stocks contribute to the index. Although Nasdaq can also reconstitute the index regularly every December, and there’s also a mechanism to rebalance every quarter as well.

    In a statement announcing the move, the exchange alluded to the fact that the largest companies in the technology sector have too much sway over the index’s price. Nasdaq said special rebalancing can be implemented “to address overconcentration in the index by redistributing the weights.”

    The rebalancing comes at a critical time. The Nasdaq 100 has risen 40% since the start of 2023, largely thanks to the “Magnificent Seven,” a handful of megacap technology names that have powered much of the U.S. stock market’s rally this year.

    These gains have pushed the index to its highest level since mid-January 2022, meaning that Big Tech has now retraced nearly all of last year’s losses, and might soon be headed for the all-time highs from November 2021.

    As of Thursday, the Magnificent Seven stocks — Nvidia Corp.
    NVDA,
    +3.53%    ,
    Apple Inc.
    AAPL,
    +0.90%    ,
    Microsoft Corp.
    MSFT,
    +1.42%    ,
    Amazon.com Inc.
    AMZN,
    +1.57%    ,
    Tesla Inc.
    TSLA,
    +0.82%    ,
    Meta Platforms Inc.
    META,
    +3.70%
    and Alphabet Inc.’s Class A
    GOOGL,
    +1.53%
    and Class C
    GOOG,
    +1.62%
    shares — accounted for 55% of the Nasdaq 100’s market capitalization, while the top five names account for more than 45%.

    According to Nasdaq’s official methodology, the goal is to keep the aggregate weighting of the biggest stocks below 40%. In fact, it’s possible that Tesla Inc. surpassing 4.5% of the index earlier this month triggered the Nasdaq’s rebalancing announcement, according to analysts from UBS Group AG
    UBS,
    +1.87%    .

    Exactly how it plans to accomplish this isn’t yet known. Nasdaq said the new weighting scheme will be unveiled on Friday, likely after the U.S. market close. But the UBS team has an educated guess.

    “The quarterly reviews would dictate that the aggregate weight to securities exceeding 4.5% be set to 40%. If that’s the approach Nasdaq takes, then we’d expect the weights of Microsoft, Apple, Nvidia, Alphabet, Amazon, and Tesla to be reduced,” the team said in a note shared with MarketWatch.

    For investors trying to anticipate how this might impact their portfolios, here the answers to a few key questions.

    Could the rebalancing kill the U.S. stock market rally?

    Not likely. Or rather: if the rally in Big Tech does falter, history suggests it won’t be because of the rebalancing.

    Here’s more on that from Nicholas Colas, co-founder of DataTrek Research, who discussed the topic in commentary emailed to MarketWatch on Wednesday.

    “…[T]here is the natural inclination to think that the upcoming special reweighting is a sign that large cap disruptive tech is set to roll over because a handful of names have so handily outpaced the rest of its notional peers,” Colas said.

    “History suggests otherwise. The last 2 one-off reweights were in 2011 and 1998. Neither proved to be the end of a Nasdaq 100/tech stock bull market. Not even close, really.”

    More immediately, ETF experts expect trading around the rebalancing will be relatively muted.

    “While it sounds scary, Investors are well positioned — this has been well bantered about,” said David Lutz, head of ETF Trading at Jones Trading, in comments emailed to MarketWatch.

    How could this benefit investors?

    Since megacap technology stocks don’t pay much, if anything, in dividends, the rebalancing could increase the amount of dividends that ETF investors receive each year, according to a team of analysts at JPMorgan Chase & Co.

    Since the largest constituents pay a dividend yield well below the index average, the redistribution of weight from them to the rest of the index will result in a “meaningful boost” to the regular payouts received by investors, which will boost the total return of Nasdaq 100-tracking ETFs and mutual funds.

    Will there be any short-term costs associated with the rebalancing?

    There might be. Since the new index weightings will be announced in advance, investors will have plenty of time to front-run the rebalancing trade.

    Still, there are plenty of hedge funds and proprietary trading firms that run strategies explicitly designed to profit from rebalancing. These firms profits have to come from somewhere, and the logical place would be the fund managers of the Invesco QQQ exchange-traded fund
    QQQ,
    +1.26%

    QQQM,
    +1.27%    .

    “There are prop traders and hedge funds that run the strategy of providing liquidity to indexes with the expectation that they’ll earn profits,” said Roni Israelov, president and CIO at Wealth Manager NDVR, during a phone interview with MarketWatch.

    “if they are earning profits by providing that liquidity, the expectation is those profits are being paid by investors in those funds.”

    So far at least, markets appear to have taken news of the rebalancing in stride. Megacap technology names tumbled earlier this week, but they’ve since recouped those losses and then some.

    The Nasdaq Composite
    COMP,
    +1.15%    ,
    another Nasdaq index that isn’t quite as heavily weighted toward Big Tech, rose 1.2% to 13,918.96.

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  • H&R Block and other tax-prep firms shared consumer data with Meta, lawmakers say

    H&R Block and other tax-prep firms shared consumer data with Meta, lawmakers say

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    H&R Block and other tax prep companies shared sensitive personal and financial data from tens of millions of customers with Meta and Google, according to a new report from a group of U.S. lawmakers.

    The lawmakers, who include Senators Elizabeth Warren, D.-Massachusetts and Bernie Sanders, I.-Vermont, said they investigated H&R Block, TaxAct and TaxSlayer after a report in The Verge last year alleged that companies were using code that funneled data including users’ income and tax refund amount to Meta. 

    Tax-prep companies used the code, called Meta Pixel, to send personal data to both Meta and Google, and collected “far more information than was previously reported,” according to a letter sent by the lawmakers to the IRS, Federal Trade Commission, Treasury Department and the Justice Department that was viewed by CBS MoneyWatch. The code collected not only people’s names, but also taxpayers’ filing status, approximate adjusted gross income, refund amount, the names of dependents and the amount of federal tax owed, among other items, the investigation found.

    Sharing such taxpayer information without their consent is a “breach of taxpayer privacy by tax prep companies and by Big Tech firms that appeared to violate taxpayers’ rights and may have violated taxpayer privacy law,” the lawmakers added. 

    The lawmakers, who also include Senators Ron Wyden, D.-Oregon; Richard Blumenthal, D.-Connecticut; Tammy Duckworth, D-Illinois; Sheldon Whitehouse, D.-Rhode Island; and Representative Katie Porter, D.-California, asked the federal agencies to “fully investigate this matter and prosecute any company or individuals who violated the law.”

    In an email to CBS MoneyWatch, H&R Block said it “takes protecting our clients’ privacy very seriously, and we have taken steps to prevent the sharing of information via pixels.” 

    Meta said its policies are clear that advertisers “should not send sensitive information about people through our Business Tools,” according to a company spokesman. He added, “Doing so is against our policies, and we educate advertisers on properly setting up Business tools to prevent this from occurring. Our system is designed to filter out potentially sensitive data it is able to detect.”

    Google, TaxAct and TaxSlayer didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

    Competition from the IRS

    The investigation comes amid a push by the IRS to develop its own free electronic tax-filing system that could compete with tax-prep programs from the likes of Intuit’s TurboTax and H&R Block. The IRS plans to roll out its pilot program in early 2024. 

    Preparing and filing taxes is big business in the U.S., with Americans spending an average of $250 and 13 hours each filing their annual returns, the lawmakers noted. While free tax prep is offered for people who earn less than $73,000 annually, only about 4% of Americans actually use the free service, they added.

    H&R Block and other tax prep companies have spent millions since the 1990s to oppose free filing systems, the report noted.

    The investigation into data sharing by tax-prep companies “highlights the urgent need for the IRS to develop its own online tax filing system — to protect taxpayer privacy and provide a better alternative for taxpayers to file their returns,” the lawmakers added.

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  • ‘Twitter’s Traffic Is Tanking’ as Threads Hits 100 Million Users | Entrepreneur

    ‘Twitter’s Traffic Is Tanking’ as Threads Hits 100 Million Users | Entrepreneur

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    Meta’s new app Threads may not yet be the “Twitter killer” that some social media denizens claim, but industry analysts say its launch last week is seriously hurting Twitter’s numbers.

    Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, said on Monday that Threads has already hit 100 million downloads.

    Meanwhile, traffic to Twitter is “tanking,” according to Cloudflare CEO Matthew Prince, who Tweeted a chart of Twitter’s domain ranking dropping over the weekend.

    According to Similar Web, a website analysis and market intelligence platform, traffic to Twitter’s website dropped 5% during the first few days of Threads’ rollout.

    The gloves are off

    Threads’ surprising early success has caused a contentious relationship between Twitter’s Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta to unravel completely.

    Last week, Twitter’s CEO threatened to sue Meta, claiming that the new platform copied Twitter.

    “Twitter intends to strictly enforce its intellectual property rights, and demands that Meta take immediate steps to stop using any Twitter trade secrets or other highly confidential information,” Twitter lawyer Alex Spiro wrote.

    Over the weekend, Musk aimed his ire straight at Zuckerberg, tweeting, “Zuck is a cuck,” and proposing “a literal dick measuring contest.”

    So far, Zuckerberg hasn’t taken the bait, preferring to point to Threads’ impressive numbers than to spar with Musk — although he did agree to a cage match last week.

    In a Threads post, Zuck boasted that Threads signups were the result of “mostly organic demand, and we haven’t even turned on many promotions yet.”

    But despite the colorful barbs and taunts between billionaires, the jury is still out on the real impact Threads will have on Twitter’s bottom line.

    Sure, 100 million users in 4 days is an astonishing achievement, but it’s still far from Twitter’s 354 million active users. And just because everyone’s checking out the shiny new car on the lot doesn’t mean they’ll stick around after the test drive.

    “Whether they actually become engaged users or not, it will take a while to know,” said Evercore ISI analyst Mark Mahaney told The Wall Street Journal.

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  • Sarah Silverman Sues OpenAI, Meta For Use of Copyrighted Works | Entrepreneur

    Sarah Silverman Sues OpenAI, Meta For Use of Copyrighted Works | Entrepreneur

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    Comedian and author Sarah Silverman, along with authors Christopher Golden and Richard Kadrey, filed lawsuits against OpenAI and Meta on Friday, accusing the companies of copyright infringement.

    The lawsuits claim that the tech giants’ chatbots — OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Meta’s LLaMA — were trained using Silverman’s and the other authors’ copyrighted works without their permission. The plaintiffs also argue that the works were obtained from unauthorized sources known as “shadow libraries,” where books are “available for bulk download via torrent systems,” the lawsuit states.

    The lawsuits consist of various types of copyright violations, negligence, unjust enrichment, and unfair competition. Silverman and the other plaintiffs are seeking relief by way of statutory damages, restitution of profits, and “other remedies” as a result of the companies’ “unlawful conduct.”

    In the complaint, exhibits provided demonstrate how ChatGPT summarized the plaintiffs’ books when prompted, and did so in thorough detail, giving “very accurate summaries,” and thereby violating their copyrights. The lawsuit emphasizes that the chatbot fails to “reproduce any of the copyright management information” that the authors included in their works.

    Silverman’s memoir, The Bedwetter is the first book shown as evidence in the complaint, followed by Golden’s Ararat and Kadrey’s Sandman Slim (the latter two are works of fiction). All works are shown to be summarized by ChatGPT in detail, which the lawsuit claims “would only be possible” if the AI models were trained using their books. The complaint acknowledges that the summaries, mostly accurate, do have “some details wrong,” but that is “expected.”

    Related: Authors Are Suing OpenAI Because ChatGPT Is Too ‘Accurate’ — Here’s What That Means

    “Still, the rest of the summaries are accurate, which means that ChatGPT retains knowledge of particular works in the training dataset and is able to output similar textual content,” the lawsuit states.

    Sarah Silverman in March 2023. Jason Kempin | Getty Images

    The lawsuit against Meta alleges that the authors’ books were included in datasets used to train Meta’s LLaMA models, with ThePile (one of Meta’s sources for its training datasets) mentioned explicitly as sourced from the illicit Bibliotik private tracker which, along with other “shadow libraries,” the lawsuit says is “flagrantly illegal.”

    The authors argue in both lawsuits that they never provided consent for their copyrighted books to be used to train the companies’ chatbots.

    Joseph Saveri and Matthew Butterick, the lawyers representing the authors, have created a website to address concerns from other writers, authors, and publishers regarding ChatGPT’s ability to generate text similar to copyrighted material.

    “Since the release of OpenAI’s Chat­GPT sys­tem in March 2023, we’ve been hear­ing from writ­ers, authors, and pub­lish­ers who are con­cerned about its uncanny abil­ity to gen­er­ate text sim­i­lar to that found in copy­righted tex­tual mate­ri­als, includ­ing thou­sands of books,” the lawyers write on the blog. “It’s a great plea­sure to stand up on behalf of authors and con­tinue the vital con­ver­sa­tion about how AI will coex­ist with human cul­ture and cre­ativ­ity.”

    Related: OpenAI Rolls Out New Feature to Help Teachers Crack Down on ChatGPT Cheating — But Admit the Tool Is ‘Imperfect’

    OpenAI and Meta did not immediately respond to Entrepreneur’s request for comment.

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    Madeline Garfinkle

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  • Sarah Silverman Sues Maker Of ChatGPT For Copyright Infringement

    Sarah Silverman Sues Maker Of ChatGPT For Copyright Infringement

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    Sarah Silverman is suing the creator of ChatGPT for unauthorized use of her 2010 book “The Bedwetter,” according to a lawsuit Friday in a U.S. District Court.

    The comic has joined authors Richard Kadrey and Christopher Golden in two class-action lawsuits against tech giants OpenAI and Meta, the creator of rival AI chatbot LLaMA, which were reported by The Verge on Sunday.

    The writers’ copyright suits accuse the corporations of illegally training their open-source AI models with text from the authors’ books without consent. The suits also accuse the companies of training their models on content culled from unauthorized online “shadow libraries” like Library Genesis and Z-Library, which the documents describe as “flagrantly illegal.”

    Sarah Silverman arrives at the Vanity Fair Oscar Party on Feb. 9, 2020.

    Evan Agostini via Associated Press

    In evidence for the suit against OpenAI, the plaintiffs claim ChatGPT violates copyright law by producing a “derivative” version of copyrighted work when prompted to summarize the source.

    Both filings make a broader case against AI, claiming that by definition, the models are a risk to the Copyright Act because they are trained on huge datasets that contain potentially copyrighted information.

    According to the news website, each suit contains six counts of various types of copyright violations, negligence, unjust enrichment and unfair competition, for which the authors are seeking statutory damages and restitution of profits.

    The cases claim the three plaintiffs are among “thousands” of creatives who are being taken advantage of.

    Silverman, Kadrey, and Golden’s attorneys Joseph Saveri and Matthew Butterick wrote about the larger impact of AI on their website, LLMlitigation, where they said they’ve heard stories from “writers, authors, and publishers who are con­cerned about [ChatGPT’s] uncanny abil­ity to gen­er­ate text sim­i­lar to that found in copy­righted tex­tual mate­ri­als, includ­ing thou­sands of books.”

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  • Twitter Competitor Threads Gains 30 Million Users In First Day

    Twitter Competitor Threads Gains 30 Million Users In First Day

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    Meta’s new Twitter competitor, Threads, reached over 30 million users in its first day alone, posing one of the biggest threats to the embattled social media company since Elon Musk took ownership. What do you think?

    “Elon’s going to have to really buckle down and fire more people.”

    Sybil Clayton, Pen Capper

    This Week’s Most Viral News: June 2, 2023

    “I’m staying put until I get my $8 worth.”

    Andrew Lee, Unemployed

    “There’s no need to fight, I have enough personal data for everyone.”

    Conroy Hofstatter, Glassblower

     

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  • Zuckerberg claims tens of millions of Threads signups within days of launch

    Zuckerberg claims tens of millions of Threads signups within days of launch

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    More than 70 million people have signed up to Threads, Meta’s rival to Twitter, within the first two days of its launch, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Friday.

    The number is likely to grow quickly as more Instagram users and social media fans open accounts on Threads. The app is the biggest challenger yet to Elon Musk-owned Twitter, which has seen a series of potential competitors emerge but not yet replace one of social media’s most iconic companies, despite its epic struggles.

    “70 million sign ups on Threads as of this morning. Way beyond our expectations.” Zuckerberg wrote on Threads at noon Eastern time on Friday.

    The app went live on Apple and Android app stores in 100 countries at 7:00 p.m. Eastern Time on Wednesday and won’t have ads for now. 

    Threads had been slated for release at 10 a.m. Eastern Time Thursday but the company on Wednesday pushed forward its release to that evening.

    threads-homepage.jpg
    The Threads homepage as it launched on July 5, 2023.

    threads.net


    Celebrities such as Jennifer Lopez, Shakira and Hugh Jackman as well as media outlets including The Washington Post and The Economist, as well as CBS News, the parent of CBS MoneyWatch, joined the service, with many racking up hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of users. Zuckerberg had 2.2 million followers as of Friday afternoon.

    Zuckerberg’s first Threads posts

    Zuckerberg spent the first few hours of the platform’s launch replying to new users.

    “One thing that’s up is the number of world champion MMA fighters on Threads, especially now that you’re here!” he wrote in a reply to American MMA fighter Jon Jones.

    “Round one of this thing is getting off to a good start,” he said in another.

    Zuckerberg also offered a shot across the bow at Musk — they’re known to be bitter rivals and have even offered to meet each other in a fighting cage to wrestle it out.

    In his first tweet in over a decade, Zuckerberg posted a Spiderman pointing at Spiderman meme in an apparent reference to the similarity of the two platforms.

    Back on Threads, he wrote: “It’ll take some time, but I think there should be a public conversations app with 1 billion+ people on it. Twitter has had the opportunity to do this but hasn’t nailed it. Hopefully we will.”

    Twitter has said it has more than 200 million daily users.

    Twitter killer?

    In the days leading up to Threads’ release, some people on social media referred to it as a “Twitter killer” because of the expectation that some users of the rival platform will jump ship in favor of the new app. Some Twitter users have expressed frustration with recent changes instituted by Musk.

    Twitter has also seen a spike in hate speech since Musk bought the platform last year.

    Threads was introduced as a clear spin-off of Instagram, which offers a built-in audience of more than two billion users, thereby sparing the new platform the challenge of starting from scratch.

    Zuckerberg is widely understood to be taking advantage of Musk’s chaotic ownership of Twitter to push out the new product, which Meta hopes will become the go-to communication channel for celebrities, companies and politicians.

    Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk
    Mark Zuckerberg, left, and Elon Musk. 

    MANDEL NGAN,ALAIN JOCARD / AFP via Getty Images


    “It’s as simple as that: if an Instagram user with a large number of followers such as Kardashian or a Bieber or a Messi begins posting on Threads regularly, a new platform could quickly thrive,” strategic financial analyst Brian Wieser said on Substack.

    Analyst Jasmine Engberg from Insider Intelligence said Threads only needs one out of four Instagram monthly users “to make it as big as Twitter.”

    “Twitter users are desperate for an alternative, and Musk has given Zuckerberg an opening,” she added. 

    Instagram chief Adam Mosseri told users that Threads was intended to build “an open and friendly platform for conversations.” 

    “The best thing you can do if you want that too is be kind,” he said.

    Twitter changes under Musk  

    Under Musk, Twitter has seen content moderation reduced to a minimum, with glitches and rash decisions scaring away celebrities and major advertisers.

    Musk hired advertising executive Linda Yaccarino to steady the ship, but she has not been spared his whimsy.

    The Tesla tycoon said last week that he was limiting access to Twitter to ward off AI companies from “scraping” the site to train their technology. Musk then angered Twitter’s most devoted aficionados by declaring that access to its TweetDeck product — which enables users to view multiple accounts and Twitter lists at once — would be for paying customers only.

    Meta has its legion of critics too, especially in Europe, and despite Instagram’s massive user base, they could slow the site’s development. 

    The company is criticized mainly for its handling of personal data — the essential ingredient for targeted ads that help it rake in billions of dollars in profits every quarter.

    Mosseri said he regretted that the EU launch was delayed, but if Meta had waited for regulatory clarity from Brussels, Threads would remain “many, many, many, months away.”

    “I was worried that our window would close, because timing is important,” he added to Platformer, a tech news site.

    Data issues

    According to a source close to the matter, Meta was wary of a new law called the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which sets strict rules for the world’s “gatekeeper” internet companies.

    One rule restricts platforms from transferring personal data between products, as would potentially be the case between Threads and Instagram.

    Meta was called out for doing just that after it bought the messaging app WhatsApp, and European regulators will be on high alert to ensure that the company doesn’t do so illegally with Threads. 

    Globally, the Threads hashtag on Twitter has garnered over a million tweets, with many users jokingly suggesting users would be returning to Twitter. 

    “10 mins into threads app. Me coming back to Twitter,” one user wrote, sharing a video of a man sprinting. 

    Another shared an image of Homer Simpson running back and forth between the Twitter and Threads logos. 

    By midday local time Thursday, Threads was the top trending topic on Japan Twitter, but many users expressed concerns over data privacy. 

    “Threads is run by Meta, isn’t it? It will definitely leak your real name or the game you are playing, or put you in the list of your workplace company friends,” wrote one user. 

    Another said: “Meta loves to collect private information and I don’t trust the way it treats private information. I also have the impression that this is a company hated by EU, so I’m reluctant.” 

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  • Elon Musk Sues Mark Zuckerberg For Being Better At Profiting Off Someone Else’s Idea

    Elon Musk Sues Mark Zuckerberg For Being Better At Profiting Off Someone Else’s Idea

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    SAN FRANCISCO—Claiming the Meta CEO violated his intellectual property rights, Elon Musk filed a lawsuit against Mark Zuckerberg Friday for being better at profiting off someone else’s idea. “He clearly violated the law by copying my idea of taking another person’s idea, but making way more money off it than I would have,” said Musk, adding that Zuckerberg misappropriated his trade secret to take full credit for someone else’s creation, but turned it into a money-making venture instead of a complete failure. “If you want to take someone else’s idea, that’s fine, but to not immediately lose billions of dollars after doing so infringes on my rights as a tech entrepreneur who is bad at making business decisions and has never had a single original idea in his entire life. I demand that Zuckerberg immediately cease and desist from doing what I do and being way more successful at it.” At press time, Musk was searching for another company with ideas he could buy to use in court against Zuckerberg before inevitably running it into the ground.

    This Elon Musk Deepfake Cannot Be Real

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  • Twitter threatens legal action over Meta’s “copycat” Threads, report says

    Twitter threatens legal action over Meta’s “copycat” Threads, report says

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    Twitter is threatening legal action over Meta’s new social media service, Threads, with an attorney for Twitter describing as a “copycat” app allegedly developed by hiring former employees of the microblogging platform owned by Elon Musk and using the company’s trade secrets, according to a letter posted by Semafor. 

    The letter’s author, attorney Alex Spiro of law firm Quinn Emanuel, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Meta declined to comment on the letter, but communications director Andy Stone responded on Threads, writing, “No one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee — that’s just not a thing.”

    Twitter, which laid off its communications staff after Musk completed his $44 billion purchase of the company last year, didn’t respond to an email requesting comment.

    The threatening letter comes after the debut of Threads on Wednesday, which within hours had signed up 30 million new users, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Thursday on the new platform. Threads has a similar look to Twitter, allowing users to like or repost messages, but it is riding on the popularity of Instagram by allowing people on that platform to follow their current Instagram userbase.

    “Our vision is to take the best parts of Instagram and create a new experience for text, ideas and discussing what’s on your mind,” Meta founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in an Instagram post after Threads was made available for download. “I think the world needs this kind of friendly community, and I’m grateful to all of you who are part of Threads from day one.”

    Musk, who bought Twitter last year, took aim at Threads in a tweet on Thursday, writing, “Competition is fine, cheating is not.”

    Threads’ foray into the social media space comes at a precarious time for Musk and Twitter. Some Twitter users have expressed frustration with the latest changes instituted by Musk, who recently throttled the number of tweets that nonpaying users are able to view per day. Twitter has also seen a spike in hate speech since Musk bought the platform last year.

    In its letter, which was addressed to Zuckerberg, Twitter alleges that Meta hired “dozens of former Twitter employees” that had access to the company’s “trade secrets and other highly confidential information.” Spiro also claimed that Threads was built within months by tapping the knowledge of these ex-Twitter workers. 

    “Twitter has serious concerns that Meta Platforms has engaged in systemic, willful, and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter’s trade secrets and other intellectual property,” Spiro wrote. 

    Twitter plans to “strictly enforce its intellectual property rights,” he added. 

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  • Threads, Meta’s answer to Twitter, gains 10 million users in under 24 hours, Zuckerberg says

    Threads, Meta’s answer to Twitter, gains 10 million users in under 24 hours, Zuckerberg says

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    Threads, Meta’s answer to Twitter, gains 10 million users in under 24 hours, Zuckerberg says – CBS News


    Watch CBS News



    Threads, the new social media platform owned by Meta, has amassed more than 10 million sign-ups in less than 24 hours, according to Mark Zuckerberg. Ryan Heath, global tech correspondent for Axios, has more on the new challenger to Twitter.

    Be the first to know

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  • Meta’s Threads has 30 million users in less than 24 hours after launch

    Meta’s Threads has 30 million users in less than 24 hours after launch

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    Threads, the Twitter rival launched by Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta Platforms Inc. META on Wednesday evening, now has 30 million users, Zuckerberg announced Thursday. The app garnered 2 million users in the first two hours after launch, according to Zuckerberg’s first post on the platform. Within seven hours, that number had grown to 10 million. Shortly after 11 a.m. Eastern time, the Facebook founder again posted to say the number had tripled. “Wow, 30 million sign-ups as of this morning. Feels like the beginning of something special, but we’ve got a lot of work ahead to build out the app.” Meta’s stock, meanwhile, was slightly…

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  • Zuckerberg claims millions of Threads signups within hours of launch

    Zuckerberg claims millions of Threads signups within hours of launch

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    More than 10 million people have signed up to Threads, Meta’s rival to Twitter, within the first few hours of its launch, the Facebook parent’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Thursday.

    The number is likely to grow quickly as more Instagram users and social media fans open accounts on Threads, with NBC News reporting that 23 million had signed up by Thursday morning. It cited the number of Threads badges on Instagram users’ accounts, which indicates they have opened a Threads account.

    Threads is the biggest challenger yet to Elon Musk-owned Twitter, which has seen a series of potential competitors emerge but not yet replace one of social media’s most iconic companies, despite its epic struggles.

    The app went live on Apple and Android app stores in 100 countries at 7:00 p.m. EDT on Wednesday and won’t have ads for now.

    Threads had been slated for release at 10 a.m. EDT Thursday but the company on Wednesday pushed forward its countdown clock.

    threads-homepage.jpg
    The Threads homepage as it launched on July 5, 2023.

    threads.net


    “10 million sign ups in seven hours,” Zuckerberg wrote on his official Threads account Thursday.

    Accounts were already active for celebrities such as Jennifer Lopez, Shakira and Hugh Jackman as well as media outlets including The Washington Post and The Economist, as well as CBS News, the parent of CBS MoneyWatch.

    Zuckerberg’s first Threads posts

    Zuckerberg spent the first few hours of the platform’s launch replying to new users.

    “One thing that’s up is the number of world champion MMA fighters on Threads, especially now that you’re here!” he wrote in a reply to American MMA fighter Jon Jones.

    “Round one of this thing is getting off to a good start,” he said in another.

    Zuckerberg also offered a shot across the bow at Musk — they’re are known to be bitter rivals and have even offered to meet each other in a fighting cage to wrestle it out.

    In his first tweet in over a decade, Zuckerberg posted a Spiderman pointing at Spiderman meme in an apparent reference to the similarity of the two platforms.

    Back on Threads, he wrote: “It’ll take some time, but I think there should be a public conversations app with 1 billion+ people on it. Twitter has had the opportunity to do this but hasn’t nailed it. Hopefully we will.”

    Twitter has said it has more than 200 million daily users.

    Twitter killer?

    In the days leading up to Threads’ release, some people on social media referred to it as a “Twitter killer” because of the expectation that some users of the rival platform will jump ship in favor of the new app. Some Twitter users have expressed frustration with recent changes instituted by Musk.

    Twitter has also seen a spike in hate speech since Musk bought the platform last year.

    Threads was introduced as a clear spin-off of Instagram, which offers a built-in audience of more than two billion users, thereby sparing the new platform the challenge of starting from scratch.

    Zuckerberg is widely understood to be taking advantage of Musk’s chaotic ownership of Twitter to push out the new product, which Meta hopes will become the go-to communication channel for celebrities, companies and politicians.

    COMBO-US-TECHNOLOGY-META-TWITTER
    Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg 

    MANDEL NGAN,ALAIN JOCARD / AFP via Getty Images


    “It’s as simple as that: if an Instagram user with a large number of followers such as Kardashian or a Bieber or a Messi begins posting on Threads regularly, a new platform could quickly thrive,” strategic financial analyst Brian Wieser said on Substack.

    Analyst Jasmine Engberg from Insider Intelligence said Threads only needs one out of four Instagram monthly users “to make it as big as Twitter.”

    “Twitter users are desperate for an alternative, and Musk has given Zuckerberg an opening,” she added.

    Instagram chief Adam Mosseri told users that Threads was intended to build “an open and friendly platform for conversations.”

    “The best thing you can do if you want that too is be kind,” he said.

    Twitter changes under Musk  

    Under Musk, Twitter has seen content moderation reduced to a minimum, with glitches and rash decisions scaring away celebrities and major advertisers.

    Musk hired advertising executive Linda Yaccarino to steady the ship, but she has not been spared his whimsy.

    The Tesla tycoon said last week that he was limiting access to Twitter to ward off AI companies from “scraping” the site to train their technology.

    Musk then angered Twitter’s most devoted aficionados by declaring that access to its TweetDeck product — which enables users to view a fast flow of tweets at once — would be for paying customers only.

    Meta has its legion of critics too, especially in Europe, and despite Instagram’s massive user base, they could slow the site’s development.

    The company is criticized mainly for its handling of personal data — the essential ingredient for targeted ads that help it rake in billions of dollars in profits every quarter.

    Mosseri said he regretted that the EU launch was delayed, but if Meta had waited for regulatory clarity from Brussels, Threads would remain “many, many, many, months away.”

    “I was worried that our window would close, because timing is important,” he added to Platformer, a tech news site.

    Data issues

    According to a source close to the matter, Meta was wary of a new law called the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which sets strict rules for the world’s “gatekeeper” internet companies.

    One rule restricts platforms from transferring personal data between products, as would potentially be the case between Threads and Instagram.

    Meta was called out for doing just that after it bought the messaging app WhatsApp, and European regulators will be on high alert to ensure that the company doesn’t do so illegally with Threads.

    Globally, the Threads hashtag on Twitter has garnered over a million tweets, with many users jokingly suggesting users would be returning to Twitter.

    “10 mins into threads app. Me coming back to Twitter,” one user wrote, sharing a video of a man sprinting.

    Another shared an image of Homer Simpson running back and forth between the Twitter and Threads logos.

    By midday local time Thursday, Threads was the top trending topic on Japan Twitter, but many users expressed concerns over data privacy.

    “Threads is run by Meta, isn’t it? It will definitely leak your real name or the game you are playing, or put you in the list of your workplace company friends,” wrote one user.

    Another said: “Meta loves to collect private information and I don’t trust the way it treats private information. I also have the impression that this is a company hated by EU, so I’m reluctant.” 

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  • Meta, Bank of America, Affirm, AmEx, JetBlue, and More Stock Market Movers

    Meta, Bank of America, Affirm, AmEx, JetBlue, and More Stock Market Movers

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    This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To order presentation-ready copies for distribution to your colleagues, clients or customers visit http://www.djreprints.com.

    https://www.barrons.com/articles/stock-market-movers-3beb512f

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  • Mark Zuckerberg’s first tweet in over a decade is playful jab at Elon Musk’s Twitter

    Mark Zuckerberg’s first tweet in over a decade is playful jab at Elon Musk’s Twitter

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    Mark Zuckerberg’s new “Twitter killer” app Threads has officially arrived. And the CEO of its parent company Meta took no time to use it as an opportunity to take a jab at the social media platform owned by his business rival Elon Musk. 

    Zuckerberg hadn’t tweeted since January 18, 2012, at which time he asked people to “tell your congressmen you want them to be pro-internet.” But on Wednesday, as soon as Threads launched, he posted a popular Spider-Man meme in which two identical Spidermen are pointing at each other. 

    He didn’t include a caption – but no words were needed. 

    Zuckerberg and Musk have grown to be social media business rivals, with the two going so far as to agree to fight in a cage match.  The meme is seemingly a reference to Threads’ launch, as the app was designed to be a direct competitor with Twitter. 

    “Our vision is to take the best parts of Instagram and create a new experience for text, ideas, and discussing what’s on your mind,” Zuckerberg said in an Instagram post on Wednesday. “I think the world needs this kind of friendly community, and I’m grateful to all of you who are part of Threads from day one.” 

    The platform is visually very similar to Twitter, with people posting status updates that can be liked, commented on, reposted and shared. 

    “Whether you’re a creator or a casual poster, Threads offers a new, separate space for real-time updates and public conversations,” Meta’s press release about its launch says. “…Our vision with Threads is to take what Instagram does best and expand that to text, creating a positive and creative space to express your ideas.”

    It hasn’t taken long for many people to join the platform. Within the first few hours of its launch, Zuckerberg said that more than 10 million people had signed up, though his ultimate goal is significantly higher. 

    “It’ll take some time, but I think there should be a public conversations app with 1 billion+ people on it,” he said on Threads. “Twitter has had the opportunity to do this but hasn’t nailed it. Hopefully we will.”

    Twitter had about 368 million monthly active users as of December, according to Statista, but the website says that number is expected to drop by about 5% by 2024. 

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