Reuters UK

(Reuters) – Meta Platforms said on Monday it will offer users in Europe a subscription plan to use Facebook and Instagram without advertisements to comply with the European Union regulations. The monthly subscription plans will cost 9.99 euros ($10.58) for web users, while iOS and Android users will have to shell out 12.99 euros a month. The EU regulations threaten to curb Meta’s ability to personalize ads for users without their consent and hurt its major revenue source. Offering a choice between a free, ad-supported plan and an ad-free paid subscription might lead to users opting for the for…

By Katie Paul and Yuvraj Malik NEW YORK (Reuters) -Meta Platforms beat expectations for third-quarter profit and revenue on Wednesday, helped by a recovery in digital advertising and an aggressive austerity drive, and trimmed its expenses for the year. Advertisers banking on resilient consumer spending flocked to the social media company’s digital platforms ahead of the holiday shopping season, a rebound that also boosted ad sales at Alphabet and Snap. In the third quarter ended Sept. 30, ads viewed increased by 31% from a year earlier. The average price per ad decreased by 6%, but the pace of…

By Katie Paul and Yuvraj Malik NEW YORK (Reuters) -Meta Platforms beat expectations for third-quarter profit and revenue on Wednesday, helped by a recovery in digital advertising and an aggressive austerity drive, and trimmed its expenses for the year. Advertisers banking on resilient consumer spending flocked to the social media company’s digital platforms ahead of the holiday shopping season, a rebound that also boosted ad sales at Alphabet and Snap. In the third quarter ended Sept. 30, ads viewed increased by 31% from a year earlier. The average price per ad decreased by 6%, but the pace of…

By Katie Paul and Yuvraj Malik NEW YORK (Reuters) -Meta Platforms beat expectations for third-quarter revenue and profit on Wednesday, as advertisers banking on resilient consumer spending flocked to its digital platforms ahead of the holiday shopping season. The Facebook and Instagram owner also trimmed its expense forecast for the year, while warning of additional spending and regulatory pressures ahead for 2024. It forecast total 2023 expenses at between $87 billion and $89 billion, down from its earlier forecast range of $88 billion to $91 billion. The social media company also said it exp…

(Reuters) -Meta Platforms beat expectations for third-quarter revenue on Wednesday, while warning of additional spending and regulatory pressures ahead for 2024. The social media giant said it expected 2024 total expenses in the range of $94 billion-99 billion, higher than estimates, according to LSEG data. The company also trimmed its 2023 total expenses view to $87 billion to $89 billion from its earlier forecast range of $88 billion to $91 billion. Shares of Meta rose 4% in extended trading. Meta has been climbing back from a bruising 2022, buoyed by the hype around emerging AI technology, …

(Reuters) -Meta Platforms beat expectations for third-quarter revenue on Wednesday, while warning of additional spending and regulatory pressures ahead for 2024. The social media giant said it expected 2024 total expenses in the range of $94 billion-99 billion, higher than estimates, according to LSEG data. The company also trimmed its 2023 total expenses view to $87 billion to $89 billion from its earlier forecast range of $88 billion to $91 billion. Shares of Meta rose 4% in extended trading. Meta has been climbing back from a bruising 2022, buoyed by the hype around emerging AI technology, …

(Reuters) -Meta Platforms said on Wednesday it will roll out broadcast channels, a feature for public distribution of messages from individuals, to Facebook and Messenger. Social media firms are bringing in more features to shore up engagement across apps in a highly competitive online environment. The announcement comes as rival messaging app Telegram’s broadcast channels have assumed an outsized role in the conflict between Israel and Hamas, as the primary means that the Palestinian Islamist group uses to communicate with the world. “We’re currently testing the ability for Pages to create br…

By Katie Paul and Sheila Dang NEW YORK (Reuters) – Facebook-owner Meta Platforms on Wednesday introduced temporary measures to limit “potentially unwelcome or unwanted comments” on posts about the conflict between Israel and Hamas. Meta said it will change the default setting for people who can comment on new and public Facebook posts created by users “in the region” to only their friends and followers, Meta said in an updated blog post. A Meta spokesperson declined to specify how the company defined the region. Users can opt-out and change the setting at any time, Meta said. The social media …

By Tom Hals (Reuters) -Elon Musk was sued by the U.S. securities regulator related to his takeover of Twitter, the latest court battle against the billionaire whose empire spans electric carmaker Tesla, space startup SpaceX and brain-chip startup Neuralink. Below is a list of Musk’s legal entanglements. TWITTER LAWSUITS The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has sued Musk to compel the world’s richest man to testify as part of a probe into his $44 billion takeover of social media giant Twitter, a court filing on Oct. 5 showed. In May 2022, Twitter investors had sued Musk, claiming he mani…

By Tom Hals (Reuters) – Elon Musk was sued by the U.S. securities regulator related to his takeover of Twitter, the latest court battle against the billionaire whose empire spans electric carmaker Tesla, space startup SpaceX and brain-chip startup Neuralink. Below is a list of Musk’s legal entanglements. TWITTER LAWSUITS The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has sued Musk to compel the world’s richest man to testify as part of a probe into his $44 billion takeover of social media giant Twitter, a court filing on Oct. 5 showed. The SEC had said in May 2022 that it was looking into Musk’s …

By Katie Paul MENLO PARK, California (Reuters) – Meta Platforms used public Facebook and Instagram posts to train its new Meta AI virtual assistant, but excluded private posts shared only with family and friends in an effort to respect consumers’ privacy, the company’s top policy executive told Reuters in an interview. Meta also did not use private chats on its messaging services as training data for the model and took steps to filter private details from public datasets used for training, said Meta President of Global Affairs Nick Clegg, speaking on the sidelines of the company’s annual Conne…

By Katie Paul MENLO PARK, California (Reuters) – Meta Platforms used public Facebook and Instagram posts to train its new Meta AI virtual assistant, but excluded private posts shared only with family and friends in an effort to respect consumers’ privacy, the company’s top policy executive told Reuters in an interview. Meta also did not use private chats on its messaging services as training data for the model and took steps to filter private details from public datasets used for training, said Meta President of Global Affairs Nick Clegg, speaking on the sidelines of the company’s annual Conne…

By Paul Sandle LONDON (Reuters) – Britain urged Meta not to roll out end-to-end encryption on Instagram and Facebook Messenger without safety measures to protect children from sexual abuse after the Online Safety Bill was passed by parliament. Meta, which already encrypts messages on WhatsApp, plans to implement end-to-end encryption across Messenger and Instagram direct messages, saying the technology re-enforced safety and security. Britain’s Home Secretary Suella Braverman said she supported strong encryption for online users but it could not come at the expense of children’s safety. “Meta …

By Paul Sandle LONDON (Reuters) – Britain urged Meta not to roll out end-to-end encryption on Instagram and Facebook Messenger without safety measures to protect children from sexual abuse after the Online Safety Bill was passed by parliament. Meta, which already encrypts messages on WhatsApp, plans to implement end-to-end encryption across Messenger and Instagram direct messages, saying the technology re-enforced safety and security. Britain’s Home Secretary Suella Braverman said she supported strong encryption for online users but it could not come at the expense of children’s safety. “Meta …

By Paul Sandle LONDON (Reuters) – Britain urged Meta not to roll out end-to-end encryption on Instagram and Facebook Messenger without safety measures to protect children from sexual abuse after the Online Safety Bill was passed by parliament. Meta, which already encrypts messages on WhatsApp, plans to implement end-to-end encryption across Messenger and Instagram direct messages, saying the technology re-enforced safety and security. Britain’s Home Secretary Suella Braverman said she supported strong encryption for online users but it could not come at the expense of children’s safety. “Meta …

By Paul Sandle LONDON (Reuters) – Britain urged Meta not to roll out end-to-end encryption on Instagram and Facebook Messenger without safety measures to protect children from sexual abuse after the Online Safety Bill was passed by parliament. Meta, which already encrypts messages on WhatsApp, plans to implement end-to-end encryption across Messenger and Instagram direct messages, saying the technology re-enforced safety and security. Britain’s Home Secretary Suella Braverman said she supported strong encryption for online users but it could not come at the expense of children’s safety. “Meta …

By Paul Sandle LONDON (Reuters) – Britain urged Meta not to roll out end-to-end encryption on Instagram and Facebook Messenger without safety measures to protect children from sexual abuse after the Online Safety Bill was passed by parliament. Meta, which already encrypts messages on WhatsApp, plans to implement end-to-end encryption across Messenger and Instagram direct messages, saying the technology re-enforced safety and security. Britain’s Home Secretary Suella Braverman said she supported strong encryption for online users but it could not come at the expense of children’s safety. “Meta …

By Paul Sandle LONDON (Reuters) – Britain urged Meta not to roll out end-to-end encryption on Instagram and Facebook Messenger without safety measures to protect children from sexual abuse after the Online Safety Bill was passed by parliament. Meta, which already encrypts messages on WhatsApp, plans to implement end-to-end encryption across Messenger and Instagram direct messages, saying the technology re-enforced safety and security. Britain’s Home Secretary Suella Braverman said she supported strong encryption for online users but it could not come at the expense of children’s safety. “Meta …

By Paul Sandle LONDON (Reuters) – Britain urged Meta not to roll out end-to-end encryption on Instagram and Facebook Messenger without safety measures to protect children from sexual abuse after the Online Safety Bill was passed by parliament. Meta, which already encrypts messages on WhatsApp, plans to implement end-to-end encryption across Messenger and Instagram direct messages, saying the technology re-enforced safety and security. Britain’s Home Secretary Suella Braverman said she supported strong encryption for online users but it could not come at the expense of children’s safety. “Meta …

By Paul Sandle LONDON (Reuters) – Britain urged Meta not to roll out end-to-end encryption on Instagram and Facebook Messenger without safety measures to protect children from sexual abuse after the Online Safety Bill was passed by parliament. Meta, which already encrypts messages on WhatsApp, plans to implement end-to-end encryption across Messenger and Instagram direct messages, saying the technology re-enforced safety and security. Britain’s Home Secretary Suella Braverman said she supported strong encryption for online users but it could not come at the expense of children’s safety. “Meta …

(Reuters) -Meta Platforms said on Tuesday it will discontinue the “Facebook News” feature on its social media app in the UK, France and Germany, later this year. Users will still be able to view links to news articles and European news publishers will continue to have access to their Facebook accounts and pages after the change is implemented in December, Meta said. However, Facebook will not form new commercial deals for news content on “Facebook News”, nor offer product innovations for news publishers in these countries. “Facebook News”, which curates a feed of news articles, is a dedicated …

(Reuters) – 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. (Reporting by Yuvraj Malik in Bengaluru; Editing by Pooja Desai)

(Reuters) -Meta Platforms is considering paid versions of Facebook and Instagram with no advertisements for users residing in the European Union (EU) as a response to scrutiny from regulators, the New York Times reported on Friday. Those who pay for the subscriptions would not see ads while Meta would also continue to offer free versions of the apps with ads in the EU, the report said, citing three people with knowledge of the plans. The report added that the possible move may help Meta combat privacy concerns and other scrutiny from the EU as it would give users an alternative to the company’…

By Helen Coster and Sheila Dang (Reuters) -Former President Donald Trump returned to the social media site X, formerly known as Twitter, with a post on Thursday showing his mug shot from his booking at Fulton County Jail in Georgia earlier in the day. With his post, an appeal for donations, Trump reclaimed direct access to the public on the platform that banned him following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on Congress by his supporters. On Nov. 19 the San Francisco-based app reversed its position under billionaire Elon Musk, the self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist” who bought Twitter on Oct. 2. T…

By Katie Paul and Yuvraj Malik (Reuters) -Meta Platforms forecast third-quarter revenue above market expectations on Wednesday, sending shares up on the suggestion that it anticipated higher ad spending as a result of an improving macroeconomic environment. The company expects July-September revenue in the range of $32 billion to $34.5 billion, compared with analysts’ average estimate of $31.30 billion, according to Refinitiv data. “We continue to see strong engagement across our apps and we have the most exciting roadmap I’ve seen in a while with Llama 2, Threads, Reels, new AI products in th…

(Reuters) -Meta Platforms forecast third-quarter revenue above market expectations on Wednesday, anticipating higher ad spending on signs of improving macroeconomic environment. The company expects July-September revenue in the range $32 billion to $34.5 billion, compared to analysts’ average estimate of $31.30 billion, according to Refinitiv data. Shares surged 7% in after-market trading, as Meta also beat second-quarter revenue estimates. Revenue grew 11% to $32 billion in the quarter ended June, compared to analysts’ average estimate of $31.12 billion. (Reporting by Yuvraj Malik in Bengalur…

By Supantha Mukherjee, Martin Coulter and Sheila Dang (Reuters) -After 17 years with an iconic blue bird that came to symbolize the broadcasting of ideas to the world, billionaire Elon Musk renamed Twitter as X and unveiled a new logo, marking a focus on building an “everything app.” On Monday, a stylized white X on a black background became the new logo on Twitter’s website, though the blue bird was still seen on the mobile app. Since taking over Twitter in October, Musk has said he envisions an app that could offer a variety of services to users beyond social media, such as peer-to-peer paym…

By Akash Sriram, Samrhitha A and Sheila Dang (Reuters) – Threads, Meta Platform’s broadside to Twitter, is seen by some advertisers as less contentious and more predictable than Elon Musk’s platform, and analysts say it could lure away marketing budgets – eventually. Launched on July 5, Threads became the fastest-growing social media platform to hit 100 million users, the apparent first serious threat to the dominant microblogging Twitter app. On Sunday, Musk said Twitter would rebrand and change its logo to an X. Threads saw a drop-off in downloads and engagement in the week following its buz…

(Reuters) -Elon Musk said on Sunday he was looking to change Twitter’s logo, tweeting: “And soon we shall bid adieu to the twitter brand and, gradually, all the birds”. In a post on the site at 12:06 a.m. ET (0406 GMT), the social media platform’s billionaire owner added: “If a good enough X logo is posted tonight, we’ll make (it) go live worldwide tomorrow.” Musk posted an image of a flickering “X”, and later in a Twitter Spaces audio chat replied “Yes” when asked if the Twitter logo will change, adding that “it should have been done a long time ago”. Under Musk’s tumultuous tenure since he b…

By Jahnavi Nidumolu and Krystal Hu (Reuters) -Twitter’s cash flow remains negative because of a nearly 50% drop in advertising revenue and a heavy debt load, Elon Musk said on Saturday, falling short of his expectation in March that Twitter could reach cash flow positive by June. “Need to reach positive cash flow before we have the luxury of anything else,” Musk said in a tweet replying to suggestions on recapitalization. This is the latest sign that the aggressive cost-cutting measures since Musk acquired Twitter in October alone are not enough to get Twitter to cash flow positive, and sugges…

(Reuters) – Elon Musk said Twitter’s cash flow remains negative because of a nearly 50% drop in advertising revenue and a heavy debt load. “Need to reach positive cash flow before we have the luxury of anything else,” Musk said in a tweet early on Saturday. After Musk acquired Twitter in October, the social media firm faced months of chaos, including layoffs of thousands of employees, criticism over lax content moderation, and an exodus of many advertisers who did not want their ads appearing next to inappropriate content. Musk’s hiring of Linda Yaccarino, former ad chief at Comcast’s NBCUnive…

By Sheila Dang (Reuters) – Twitter asked a U.S. court on Thursday to terminate a consent order with the Federal Trade Commission that governed the social media company’s data privacy protections, arguing that the regulatory agency has made “unceasing demands.” In a filing with U.S. District Court in San Francisco, Twitter accused the FTC of bias and overreach, saying it had sent letters demanding actions by the company at a rate of one every other week since billionaire Elon Musk acquired Twitter in October. The FTC did not respond to a request for comment. In 2011, Twitter and the FTC reached…

By Daniel Wiessner (Reuters) – Twitter Inc on Wednesday was hit with a lawsuit accusing it of refusing to pay at least $500 million in promised severance to thousands of employees who were laid off after Elon Musk acquired the company. Courtney McMillian, who oversaw Twitter’s employee benefits programs as its “head of total rewards” before she was laid off in January, filed the proposed class action in San Francisco federal court. McMillian claims that under a severance plan created by Twitter in 2019, most workers were promised two months of their base pay plus one week of pay for each full …

By Foo Yun Chee BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Facebook owner Meta will contest EU antitrust charges at a closed hearing on Friday in a bid to stave off a possible hefty fine after regulators charged it with tying its classified advertisements service to its social network, people familiar with the matter said. The European Commission sent a charge sheet to the world’s most popular social network last December, singling out two practices that showed that Meta abused its market power. It said Meta’s tying of its online classified ads service Facebook Marketplace with its social network Facebook gave the …

By Foo Yun Chee BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Facebook owner Meta will contest EU antitrust charges at a closed hearing on Friday in a bid to stave off a possible hefty fine after regulators charged it with tying its classified advertisements service to its social network, people familiar with the matter said. The European Commission sent a charge sheet to the world’s most popular social network last December, singling out two practices that showed that Meta abused its market power. It said Meta’s tying of its online classified ads service Facebook Marketplace with its social network Facebook gave the …

(Reuters) – Meta Platforms’ Twitter rival Threads crossed 100 million sign-ups in five days, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on Monday, dethroning ChatGPT as the fastest online platform to hit the milestone. The app has been setting new records for user additions since its launch on Wednesday, with celebrities from Jennifer Lopez to Kim Kardashian joining the platform seen as the first serious threat to the Elon Musk-owned microblogging app. Twitter has responded by threatening to sue Meta over the app, alleging that the social media behemoth used its trade secrets and other confidential information….

By Jody Godoy (Reuters) -Twitter has threatened to sue Meta Platforms over its new Threads platform in a letter sent to the Facebook parent’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg by Twitter’s lawyer Alex Spiro. Meta, which launched Threads on Wednesday and has logged more than 30 million sign ups, looks to take on Elon Musk’s Twitter by leveraging Instagram’s billions of users. Spiro, in his letter, accused Meta of hiring former Twitter employees who “had and continue to have access to Twitter’s trade secrets and other highly confidential information,” News website Semafor first reported. “Twitter intends to s…

By Martin Coulter (Reuters) -Meta Platforms plans to launch a Twitter-rivalling microblogging app called Threads, days after Twitter boss Elon Musk attracted criticism by announcing a temporary cap on how many posts users can read on the social media site. Threads is expected to be released on Thursday and will allow users to retain followers from photo-sharing platform Instagram, and keep the same username, a listing on Apple’s App Store showed. The rollout represents a direct challenge to Twitter, which has faced numerous controversies since Musk bought the company for $44 billion in 2022. L…

By Aditya Soni (Reuters) -Meta’s Threads could quickly become a major threat to Elon Musk-owned Twitter, thanks to its easy access to billions of Instagram users, a similar interface to that of its rival and the advertising heft of the social media giant, analysts and industry experts said. Dubbed as the “Twitter-Killer”, Threads logged 10 million sign ups within the first seven hours after its launch, with celebrities from Kim Kardashian to Gordon Ramsay joining the app. Shares of Meta Platforms were up nearly 1% on Thursday, after they closed 3% higher in the previous session ahead of the ro…

By Katie Paul NEW YORK (Reuters) – Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg is set to deliver a blow to Elon Musk on Wednesday night, as the tech billionaires’ rivalry goes live with the launch of Instagram’s much-anticipated Threads platform, a clone of Twitter. Analysts said investors were salivating over the possibility that Threads’ ties to Instagram might give it a built-in user base and advertising apparatus, which could siphon ad dollars from Twitter as its new CEO tries to revive the microblogging company’s struggling business. While Threads is launching as a standalone app, screenshots posted on Apple’…

(Reuters) – Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino on Tuesday tweeted a defense of the temporary cap announced July 1 on the number of tweets users can read in a day, and the company said advertising has been stable in the days since the step that drew heavy criticism from users and marketing professionals. Yaccarino wrote in her tweet: “when you have a mission like Twitter — you need to make big moves to keep strengthening the platform.” It was her first public comment on the limits announced on Saturday by owner Elon Musk, who said the step was meant to discourage “extreme levels” of data scraping and…

(Reuters) – Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino on Tuesday tweeted a defense of the temporary cap announced July 1 on the number of tweets users can read in a day, and the company said advertising has been stable in the days since the step that drew heavy criticism from users and marketing professionals. Yaccarino wrote in her tweet: “when you have a mission like Twitter — you need to make big moves to keep strengthening the platform.” It was her first public comment on the limits announced on Saturday by owner Elon Musk, who said the step was meant to discourage “extreme levels” of data scraping and…

(Reuters) – Twitter CEO Linda Yaccarino on Tuesday tweeted a defense of the temporary cap announced July 1 on the number of tweets users can read in a day, and the company said advertising has been stable in the days since the step that drew heavy criticism from users and marketing professionals. Yaccarino wrote in her tweet: “when you have a mission like Twitter — you need to make big moves to keep strengthening the platform.” It was her first public comment on the limits announced on Saturday by owner Elon Musk, who said the step was meant to discourage “extreme levels” of data scraping and…

By Sheila Dang (Reuters) -Twitter users will soon need to be verified in order to use TweetDeck, the social media company said in a tweet on Monday. The change will take effect in 30 days, the company said. TweetDeck, which until now was free for all Twitter users, allows people to organize the accounts they follow into different columns in order to easily monitor content. The product is widely used by businesses and news organizations, and the move to charge for TweetDeck could bring a revenue boost to Twitter, which has struggled to retain advertising revenue under billionaire Elon Musk’s ow…

By Sheila Dang (Reuters) -Twitter users will soon need to be verified in order to use TweetDeck, the social media company said in a tweet on Monday. The change will take effect in 30 days, the company said. TweetDeck, which until now was free for all Twitter users, allows people to organize the accounts they follow into different columns in order to easily monitor content. The product is widely used by businesses and news organizations, and the move to charge for TweetDeck could bring a revenue boost to Twitter, which has struggled to retain advertising revenue under billionaire Elon Musk’s ow…

BERLIN (Reuters) – Turmoil at Twitter following new limits to the amount of posts users can see appears to be driving a surge in activity at Mastodon, a German rival that prides itself on its decentralised, user-driven structure. “Looks like Mastodon’s active user base has increased by 110K (110,000) over the last day. Not bad,” Eugen Rochko, creator and chief executive of Mastodon, wrote on the platform late on Sunday. “I would prefer it if Elon Musk was destroying his site during the work week. This isn’t the first time,” another post from Rochko read. On Saturday, Twitter boss Elon Musk ann…

By Jody Godoy (Reuters) – Elon Musk’s move to temporarily cap how many posts Twitter users can read on the social media site could undermine efforts by the company’s new Chief Executive Linda Yaccarino to attract advertisers, marketing industry professionals said. Musk announced Saturday that Twitter would limit how many tweets per day various accounts can read, to discourage “extreme levels” of data scraping and system manipulation. Users posted screenshots in reply, showing they were unable to see any tweets, including tweets on the pages of corporate advertisers, after hitting the limit. Ad…

By Jody Godoy (Reuters) – Elon Musk’s move to temporarily cap how many posts Twitter users can read on the social media site could undermine efforts by the company’s new Chief Executive Linda Yaccarino to attract advertisers, marketing industry professionals said. Musk announced Saturday that Twitter would limit how many tweets per day various accounts can read, to discourage “extreme levels” of data scraping and system manipulation. Users posted screenshots in reply, showing they were unable to see any tweets, including tweets on the pages of corporate advertisers, after hitting the limit. Ad…