Meta Platforms Financial News

Meta Platforms said on Tuesday it will discontinue a "Facebook News" tab in its social media app in the UK, France and Germany later this year.

OpenAI, the ChatGPT creator it has backed with billions of dollars. Both companies already sell access to the latest AI technology behind the popular ChatGPT bot, but Google’s launch on Tuesday puts it ahead of Microsoft in making AI-powered office software easily available for all customers. Google also used the event to showcase customer uses of its technology, including a planned GE Appliances app that uses Google’s AI models to create recipes based on the food in a customer’s fridge.

targeted advertisements and give researchers more access to data on how its products work, to comply with landmark European Union online content rules, the Alphabet unit said on Thursday. Known as the Digital Services Act (DSA), the new rules are more onerous for Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Twitter, booking.com, Pinterest, Snap Inc's Snapchat, Wikipedia, Zalando and Alibaba's AliExpress because of their large number of users. The DSA will go into effect on Friday and requires companies to do more to tackle child sexual abuse material and disinformation, be more transparent on their algorithmic processes, bots and targeted advertisements and to remove illegal, unsafe or counterfeit products sold on their platforms. «We will be expanding the Ads Transparency Center, a global searchable repository of advertisers across all our platforms, to meet specific DSA provisions and providing additional information on targeting for ads served in the European Union,» Google's vice president for trust and safety, Laurie Richardson, said in a blogpost. «We will increase data access for researchers looking to understand more about how Google Search, YouTube, Google Maps, Google Play and Shopping work in practice, and conducting research related to understanding systemic content risks in the EU,» she said. The U.S.

Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Twitter, TikTok and other tech giants should use EU online content rules that apply to them this Friday to restore trust and safety in their platforms, EU industry chief Thierry Breton said on Wednesday. The rules known as the Digital Services Act (DSA) require the companies to perform risk management, conduct external and independent auditing, share data with authorities and researchers and adopt a code of conduct. Obligations for the companies, which also include booking.com, Pinterest, Snap Inc's Snapchat, Wikipedia, Zalando and Alibaba's AliExpress are more onerous than others because they have more than 45 million users. These very large online platforms and very large online search engines have until Friday to provide their first annual risk assessment to the European Commission. «Complying with the DSA is not a punishment — it is an opportunity for these online platforms to reinforce their brand value and reputation as a trustworthy site,» Breton said in a statement. «Child protection will be an enforcement priority, as will be fighting disinformation, including pro-Russian propaganda, in particular as we are entering a period of elections in Europe,» he said. The DSA also forces the companies to be more transparent on their algorithmic processes, bots and targeted advertisements that amplify content and do more to tackle illegal, unsafe or counterfeit products sold on their platforms. Breton, who can hand out fines up to 6% of a company's global turnover for violations, said he would not hesitate to act. «My services and I will thoroughly enforce the DSA, and fully use our new powers to investigate and sanction platforms where warranted,» he said.

(Reuters) -Meta Platforms said on Tuesday it was launching the web version of its new text-first social media platform Threads, in a bid to retain professional users and gain an edge over rival X, formerly Twitter.

Facebook parent company Meta Platforms on Tuesday released an AI model capable of translating and transcribing speech in dozens of languages, a potential building-block for tools enabling real-time communication across language divides. The company said in a blog post that its SeamlessM4T model could support translations between text and speech in nearly 100 languages, as well as full speech-to-speech translation for 35 languages, combining technology that was previously available only in separate models. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said he envisions such tools facilitating interactions between users from around the globe in the metaverse, the set of interconnected virtual worlds on which he is betting the company's future.Meta is making the model available to the public for non-commercial use, the blog post said. The world's biggest social media company has released a flurry of mostly free AI models this year, including a large language model called Llama that poses a serious challenge to proprietary models sold by Microsoft-backed OpenAI and Alphabet's Google. Zuckerberg says an open AI ecosystem works to Meta's advantage, as the company has more to gain by effectively crowd-sourcing the creation of consumer-facing tools for its social platforms than by charging for access to the models. Nonetheless, Meta faces similar legal questions as the rest of the industry around the training data ingested to create its models. In July, comedian Sarah Silverman and two other authors filed copyright infringement lawsuits against both Meta and OpenAI, accusing the companies of using their books as training data without permission. For the SeamlessM4T model, Meta researchers said in a research paper that they gathered audio training

Meta Platforms on Tuesday asked a court in Norway to stop a fine that the country's data regulator has imposed on the owner of Facebook and Instagram for breaching user privacy, in a case that could have wider European implications. Since Aug. 14, Meta Platforms has been fined 1 million crowns ($94,313) per day for harvesting user data and using it to target advertising at them, called behavioural advertising, a practice common to Big Tech. The company is asking for a temporary injunction against the order, which imposes a daily fine through to Nov.

Facebook's failed, thanks to the payment giant's standing in Washington and policymakers' greater understanding of the issues in the last three years. PayPal this month said it was launching PayPal USD, a crypto token pegged to the U.S. dollar, making it the second major global company to launch a stablecoin after Facebook, now Meta Platforms, unveiled Libra in June 2019. The move, which comes as PayPal transitions to a new CEO announced last week, seems risky after Facebook's stablecoin was crushed by political opposition, and as regulators home in on the crypto sector following several meltdowns. But PayPal is in a stronger position than Facebook, said former officials, executives and analysts. Policymakers are more familiar with stablecoins, crypto tokens typically pegged to a fiat currency, than they were in 2019. A push to create federal stablecoin regulations has also helped boost their legitimacy in the eyes of lawmakers.

PayPal's stablecoin is likely to succeed where Facebook's failed, thanks to the payment giant's standing in Washington and policymakers' greater understanding of the issues in the last three years. PayPal this month said it was launching PayPal USD, a crypto token pegged to the US dollar, making it the second major global company to launch a stablecoin after Facebook, now Meta Platforms, unveiled Libra in June 2019.

(Reuters) — Democrat Congresswoman Maxine Waters (NYSE:WAT) said on Wednesday she was «deeply concerned» about payment giant PayPal (NASDAQ:PYPL) launching its own stablecoin in the absence of a federal framework to regulate digital assets.

Facebook owner Meta Platforms will be fined 1 million crowns ($98,500) per day over privacy breaches from Aug. 14, Norway's data protection authority told Reuters on Monday, a decision that could have wider European implications. The regulator, Datatilsynet, had said on July 17 that the company would be fined if it did not address privacy breaches the regulator had identified.Meta Platforms did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

By Noel Randewich

Apple is likely to report a dip in iPhone sales in the April-June quarter as shoppers held out for a new model in a slow economy, making it important for the company to detail how it is using artificial intelligence to augment growth, analysts said. The world's most valuable firm will wrap up Big Tech earnings on Thursday, with a likely 1.6% drop in total quarterly revenue, according to Refinitiv — its steepest drop in third-quarter revenue since 2016.IPhone sales likely fell more than 2% in the period, according to 24 analysts polled by Visible Alpha, compared with a near 3% increase a year earlier and a 1.5% rise in the quarter ended March.

Investing.com — Investors are preparing to sift through a deluge of corporate results on Tuesday from big-name brands like Merck, Starbucks and Caterpillar . Meanwhile, Facebook-owner Meta Platforms is reportedly gearing up to launch a new artificial intelligence chatbot that can take on the personas of different characters. Elsewhere, a bright pulsating sign on the roof of the headquarters of Elon Musk's newly-renamed social media group X is taken down after sparking controversy with local residents.

Elon Musk said on Friday monthly users of social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, reached a «new high» and shared a graph that showed the latest count as over 540 million. Musk's post on X about the user figures comes as the company goes through organizational changes and faces competition from the newly launched Threads app, owned and operated by Meta Platforms.

Here is your Pro Recap of the biggest analyst picks you may have missed since yesterday: upgrades at Meta Platforms, Boeing, Block, and Crocs.

Check out the companies making headlines in early morning trading.

After surpassing the market expectations, Facebook owner, Meta Platforms witnessed an 11% rise in its revenue to $32 billion in the second quarter. The company has predicted an upbeat third-quarter revenue above market expectations.

In this article

By Sheila Dang

(Reuters) -Google-parent Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL)'s second-quarter profit exceeded Wall Street expectations on Tuesday, helped by steady demand for its cloud services and a rebound in advertising, sending shares higher by 4% in extended trading