Tech

Woman lost @metaverse Instagram handle days after Facebook name change

Enlarge (credit: Liu Guanguan/China News Service) Thea-Mai Baumann had posted to Instagram using the @metaverse handle for nearly a decade when her account was disabled on November 2. “Your account has been blocked for pretending to be someone else, ” the app told her. Baumann wasn’t exactly sure what had happened, but the timing was […]

Tech

Apple reaches quiet truce over iPhone privacy changes

Enlarge / A privacy notice appears on an iPhone 12 under the new iOS 14.5.1 operating system. Developers of an application have to ask for the user’s permission to allow cross-app tracking. (credit: Picture Alliance | Getty Images) Apple has allowed app developers to collect data from its 1 billion iPhone users for targeted advertising, […]

Tech

Landmark $150B lawsuit seeks to hold Facebook accountable for Rohingya genocide

Enlarge / A young Rohingya man carries an older Rohingya woman in a refugee camp in Bangladesh. Some 750, 000 Rohingya people have fled Myanmar as a result of the genocide. (credit: Michał Fiałkowski/iStock Editorial ) Rohingya refugees have filed a lawsuit against Meta, formerly known as Facebook, for its alleged role in the ethnic […]

Tech

Meta’s failed Giphy deal could end Big Tech’s spending spree

Enlarge (credit: Daniel Grizelj | Getty Images) Instagram? Sure! WhatsApp? Go nuts. But don’t mess with GIFs. That’s the strange position taken by Britain’s competition watchdog in choosing to block Meta’s takeover of GIF repository Giphy. Meta, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) ruled, must now sell all the GIFs—just 19 months after it […]