Andy Stone News

Russia on Monday convicted the spokesperson of US technology company Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, of justifying terrorism and sentenced him to six years in prison in a swift trial in absentia, Russia's independent news site Mediazona reported. According to the outlet, the charges against Meta communications director Andy Stone stem from his remarks in 2022 following Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24 that year. Stone, who is based in the United States, announced temporary changes to Meta's hate speech policy to allow for «forms of political expression that would normally violate (its) rules, like violent speech such as death to the Russian invaders.'»

Donald Trump stated that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg called him to apologize for a photo that was incorrectly labeled on Facebook. The photo showed Trump raising his fist after a July 13 assassination attempt at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. Facebook had initially marked this photo as misinformation, causing it to go viral with the incorrect label, as per the reports of Fox News. In an interview with Maria Bartiromo on FOX Business' «Mornings with Maria,» Trump mentioned that Zuckerberg called him twice. According to Trump, Zuckerberg expressed admiration for Trump's actions during the event, describing them as brave. Zuckerberg also allegedly said he could not support a Democrat because he respected Trump’s response to the incident. Additionally, Trump noted that Google did not reach out to him after their autocomplete function failed to show results for the assassination attempt.

A technical issue had caused widespread login issues for more than an hour across Meta’s Facebook, Instagram, Threads and Messenger platforms on Tuesday

By Jaspreet Singh and Aditya Soni

ALSO READ: Instagram, Facebook down globally: Meta 'working' to solve issue as users flag call to 'log in again, change password' According to details, the disruptions started around 8:30 pm on Tuesday, with 'Log in again; session expired; couldn't refresh feed', were some of the messages that popped up while using the Facebook and Instagram apps. Outage tracking website Downdetector.com also revealed that Meta Platforms' Facebook and Instagram were down for tens of thousands of users on Tuesday. According to outage tracking website Downdetector.com, there were 31,493 reports of outage on Instagram app at 9.23 pm, while 24,193 reports for Facebook at 9.09 pm.

After Instagram and Facebook, YouTube users report video streaming site ‘not working’ Internet traffic observer Down Detector reported a massive outage on Facebook, Instagram and other social media platforms, while London-based internet monitoring firm Netblocks said on X that four Meta platforms -- Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and Threads -- were “currently experiencing outages related to login sessions in multiple countries." In its response, Meta's head communications Andy Stone said in a post on X that the company was “aware people are having trouble accessing our services" and they were "working on this now." The services were resumed after a while. Meta's status dashboard showed the application programming interface for WhatsApp Business was also facing issues.

Russia's interior ministry has added the spokesman of U.S. technology company Meta to a wanted list according to its online database

Russia on Sunday put Meta Platforms spokesperson Andy Stone on a wanted list on unspecified charges as the US social media giant — which owns Facebook — is classed as "extremist" by Moscow. Russia has hugely cracked down on media and social media freedom since launching its Ukraine offensive last year and banning criticism of it.

A House committee has called off a vote on a recommendation that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg be held in contempt of Congress for failing to fully supply documents related to an investigation into supposed censorship of conservatives by tech companies

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is being threatened with contempt of Congress

By Louis Juricic and Sarina Isaacs

Meta Platforms stole trade secrets to build its new microblogging site may be the first volley in a legal battle between the social media giants, but experts say Twitter would have to clear a high hurdle if it sues. In a letter sent on Wednesday, Twitter alleged that Meta used its trade secrets to develop its new social media platform, Threads, and demanded that it stop using the information. Twitter said that Meta had hired dozens of former Twitter employees, many of whom «improperly retained» devices and documents from the company, and said Meta «deliberately» assigned them to work on Threads.

Twitter has threatened legal action against Meta over its new text-based app called Threads

In a recent tweet, Elon Musk has broken his silence on Meta's Twitter competitor Threads after the news of his lawyers sending a cease and desist letter to Mark Zuckerberg started spreading online. The new app has seen a very successful launch, as Zuckerberg has revealed that more than ten million users signed up within the first seven hours, dwarfing the launch of some other popular platforms. Earlier Thursday, news portal Semafor reported that Twitter has threatened legal action against Meta Platforms over its new, text-based app called Threads, citing a letter sent to Facebook parent's CEO Mark Zuckerberg by Twitter's lawyer Alex Spiro.

A group of Democrats from the United States Senate has reportedly asked Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to provide details on the social media giant’s policies addressing cryptocurrency fraud.