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Tánaiste and Minister for Employment Leo Varadkar earlier this year appealed directly to Facebook to liaise with the Workplace Relations Commission and the Health and Safety Authority to resolve ongoing complaints from content moderators about their terms and conditions. Mr Varadkar is understood to have personally contacted the company’s head of public policy Dualta Ó Broin over concerns raised in a meeting he had with Dublin-based moderators employed by Facebook’s partner Covalen in late January. He is believed to have outlined to the tech giant how the moderators felt the terms and conditions attached to their outsourced posts were “significantly” inferior to those doing similar work but employed directly by Facebook. DifficultiesAmong the issues raised by Mr Varadkar were concerns from content moderators over access to qualified counsellors, psychologists and psychiatrists to support them when they encounter personal difficulties due to the work they are engaged in. This includes reviewing posts on the social media platform, which can contain graphic violence, exploitation, extremism, abuse and suicide.  » Read More

Shutterstock/Alex Ruhl Argentina's government has prevented Facebook from rolling out its updated WhatsApp privacy policy until the country’s competition authority has completed an investigation assessing whether the terms of service are anticompetitive. To read moreSubscribe to Global Competition Review Subscribe and start reading now Global Competition Review (GCR) is the complete source of news and analysis for competition practitioners. It keeps you up to speed with the issues and trends that matter, giving you the detail, and depth, you need to operate successfully. Subscribe now Already have access? Login below Charley Connor View full biographyAuthor | Assistant deputy editor, Global Competition Review Copyright © Law Business ResearchCompany Number: 03281866 VAT: GB 160 7529 10 Get unlimited access to all Global Competition Review content  » Read More

Days after Elon Musk announced that his company will not be accepting bitcoins as a mode of payment for Tesla cars, Facebook has announced the launch of its own cryptocurrency, Diem in 2021. Intended to revolutionize the fintech space, the project, formerly named Libra, will make money transfer as seamless as sending photos. However, this announcement by the messaging behemoth comes at a time when Musk, a vocal cryptocurrency proponent, tweeted that his company Tesla will not accept bitcoins due to the insane energy consumption trends registered in bitcoin mining. With a billion-strong user base Facebook already commands and backed by cash, government securities, and the like, Diem is likely to change the face of cryptocurrency. It will be launched in two sets- a multi-currency coin and one with a specific face value on Dollar and Euro. More importantly, the transfer fee will be cheap, attracting greater people and volume towards the currency. However, there is no word on the ecological concerns this elicits, as addressed by Musk. Environmental Concerns for BitcoinWhile Tesla clarified that it will also not be selling all of its existing bitcoin holdings,  » Read More

As Facebook Austin prepares for an eventual return to the office and end of the coronavirus pandemic, the leader of the company's Austin operations says she sees "immense opportunity" for Facebook to continue to grow in Central Texas. Despite the pandemic, Katherine Shappley, head of Facebook Austin's office, said the company's Austin team is busier than ever, a trend that will only continue as looks to keep growing and investing here.Facebook's presence in Central Texas has increased rapidly since it first opened an Austin office in 2010 with just seven employees, a number that climbed to over 125 employees by the end of its first year. The rapid hiring has continued since. Just six months before the pandemic hit, Facebook had more than 1,200 employees here and was on a hiring spree when it opened a second Austin location, a brand new 256,000-square-foot downtown office space in a building called Third & Shoal, with the capacity for up to 1,500 employees.  Austin has grown to be Facebook's fourth-largest hub, with more than 2,000 employees in more than 100 of its teams.  » Read More

A new law has been blamed for halving police warnings, according to activists, because it prioritizes online privacy over child violence. Child abuse cases in Europe have more than halved as a result of new privacy regulations, prompting Facebook to suspend its encryption plans. After the EU ruled that the scanning technology that identifies child abuse was a threat to Facebook users’ privacy, the social media site was forced to turn it off. The move resulted in a 58 percent decrease in child abuse reports to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), which then passes the details on to police all over the world to investigate. The scanning turn-off, according to the NSPCC, is a preview of what could happen if Facebook goes ahead with its plans to implement end-to-end encryption of communications across all of its platforms. It means the organization won’t be able to read and intercept messages as easily as it can now with its scanning technology. “This staggering decline in reports means child sexual exploitation is going undetected and undisrupted,  » Read More

This paper published Mark Mills’s review of “Unsettled,” my book on climate science, on April 25. Eight days later, 11 self-appointed “fact checkers” weighed in with a 4,500-word critique on the website ClimateFeedback.org. Facebook is waving that fact check as a giant red flag whenever the review appears in anyone’s feed. By branding Mr. Mills’s review with “very low scientific credibility,” the company directs its billions of users to a website that claims to discredit the review and, by direct implication, my book. This action adds to the growing suppression of open discussion of climate complexities. ClimateFeedback bills itself as “a worldwide network of scientists sorting fact from fiction in climate change media coverage.” Its modus operandi is to label necessarily brief media statements as misleading or inaccurate, often because they lack context. While acknowledging that “global crop yields are rising,” for instance, they add the untestable claim that yields might have been greater absent human-caused climate change. The gang of enforcers who “fact checked” Mr. Mills’s review included professors from Stanford, UCLA and MIT.  » Read More

Facebook has reportedly upheld a ban on many organizations in Myanmar that have joined forces to resist the military coup that occurred back in February, according to Rest of World. The bans were put in place back in 2019, when organizations like the Arakan Army, and many of its allies, were classified as terrorist organizations by the democratically-elected government. Things have changed in Myanmar since then. After the military coup and government takeover by the Tatmadaw (carried out after an election which the military claims was fraudulent), the political situation has become extremely complex. There is, however, one thing that is seemingly clear: the Arakan Army is no longer classified as a terrorist organization, either by the current military-led government, or by the elected government currently in exile. Yet, according to Rest of World, the Arakan Army is still not allowed on Facebook. The AA isn’t the only group that’s found itself unable to communicate through Facebook. There are apparently many ethnic armed organizations (EAOs) active in the country,  » Read More

ZARA (Bloomberg) After building the world’s biggest clothing empire without using TV and billboard ads, the owner of fashion brand Zara is trying another way to market its dresses, jeans and jackets -- video games.Spain’s Inditex SA is responding to the shift from physical stores to online sales by teaming up with Facebook and Instagram to develop “Pacific Game” to attract younger buyers to its Pull & Bear brand.It’s not about clinching a direct sale but building a relationship with younger customers. E-commerce brought a third of Inditex’s revenue last year and a chunk of the $3 billion it’s earmarked for new investments will go to making sure the digital boom doesn’t run out of steam.There’s been a flurry of deals where clothing brands get to tout their wares inside video games. Now they’re taking their involvement a step further with games of their own to bring more traffic to websites, boost downloads of mobile apps and offer more fun ways to distribute discount codes.Pull & Bear’s retro-style caper sees a shopper travel from California to Tokyo collecting clothes and avoiding obstacles along the way.  » Read More

Facebook has published a new guide on how to use live video to run more effective company events, with a specific focus on the live video functionality within Facebook Workplace, and how its professional platform tools can provide more options for improviong remote working processes. As explained by Facebook: "Today, more companies are adopting Live video and solutions that empower them to overcome current internal communication gaps. They’re even using Live video to improve employee wellbeing and to build a sense of community which you can find out more about in this toolkit." The 10-page guide covers 6 key elements: So, clearly the focus is on Workplace, and the video tools available within the app. But even so, the specific tips here are relevant to video connection and events more broadly, and could help provide guidance in your process, even if you're not on the Workplace platform. Facebook provides an in-depth overview of each element, including tips and notes on how to maximize live video in your connection process.  » Read More

You don't have permission to access "http://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/republicans-upset-about-facebook-should-save-press/" on this server. Reference #18.f951160.1621028254.276abb9  » Read More