An anonymous reader quotes a report from CBC.ca: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau blasted social media giant Meta on Monday over its decision to block local news as wildfires continue to force thousands of Canadians from their homes. "Right now in an emergency situation, where up-to-date local information is more important than ever, Facebook is putting corporate profits ahead of people's safety, ahead of quality local journalism. This is not the time for that," he said during a stop at the Island Montessori Academy in Cornwall, P.E.I. on Monday morning. "It is so inconceivable that a company like Facebook is choosing to put corporate profits ahead of ensuring that local news organizations can get up-to-date information to Canadians and reach them where Canadians spend a lot of their time -- online, on social media, on Facebook."

Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has blocked Canadians from viewing news from Canadian outlets in response to the Liberal government passing its Online News Act, Bill C-18, in June. Google has threatened similar action. The law forces large social media platforms to negotiate compensation for Canadian news publishers when their content is shared. As a result, content from news providers in the North -- including CBC, the local newspaper The Yellowknifer and digital broadcaster Cabin Radio -- is being blocked and people can't access or share information from news sources on Facebook and Instagram, two of the most popular social media sites. In a statement sent to CBC News last week, the company said it's sticking to its position. It also said government sites and other sources that disseminate information aren't subject to the ban. "This is Facebook's choice," said Trudeau. "We're simply saying that in a democracy, quality local journalism matters. And it matters now more than ever before, when people are worried about their homes, worried about communities, worried about the worst summer for extreme weather events we've had in a long, long time."

Meanwhile, Meta spokesperson David Troya-Alvarez said: "People in Canada are able to use Facebook and Instagram to connect to their communities and access reputable information, including content from official government agencies, emergency services and non-governmental organizations." Meta says it has activated a "Safety Check" feature that allows users to mark on their profile they're safe from the wildfires.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: On Tuesday, Meta announced SeamlessM4T, a multimodal AI model for speech and text translations. As a neural network that can process both text and audio, it can perform text-to-speech, speech-to-text, speech-to-speech, and text-to-text translations for "up to 100 languages," according to Meta. Its goal is to help people who speak different languages communicate with each other more effectively. Continuing Meta's relatively open approach to AI, Meta is releasing SeamlessM4T under a research license (CC BY-NC 4.0) that allows developers to build on the work. They're also releasing SeamlessAlign, which Meta calls "the biggest open multimodal translation dataset to date, totaling 270,000 hours of mined speech and text alignments." That will likely kick-start the training of future translation AI models from other researchers.

Among the features of SeamlessM4T touted on Meta's promotional blog, the company says that the model can perform speech recognition (you give it audio of speech, and it converts it to text), speech-to-text translation (it translates spoken audio to a different language in text), speech-to-speech translation (you feed it speech audio, and it outputs translated speech audio), text-to-text translation (similar to how Google Translate functions), and text-to-speech translation (feed it text and it will translate and speak it out in another language). Each of the text translation functions supports nearly 100 languages, and the speech output functions support about 36 output languages.

Despite a record-breaking start in its first weeks of launch, engagement with Meta's Threads app continues to plummet. According to Similarweb, engagement is down 79% from a high of 2.3 million active users in early July to 576,000 as of August 7th. The Guardian reports: In addition to users jumping ship, large US companies like the fast food chain Wendy's, the clothing store Anthropologie and Rare Beauty, a makeup line, have all decreased the number of posts they publish on Threads, Adweek reports. On its busiest day, the number of users of Threads was less than half that of Twitter, according to Similarweb data. Twitter averages more than 100 million active daily users.

Alibaba said Thursday it is opening up its own artificial intelligence model to third-party developers in a move that would pit it against OpenAI and Meta, which has made similar moves. CNBC reports: In April, Alibaba launched its large language model (LLM) called Tongyi Qianwen. A LLM is an artificial intelligence model trained on huge amounts of data. It is also the basis for generative AI applications, such as ChatGPT -- which generate human-like responses to user prompts. Tongyi Qianwen allows AI content generation in English and Chinese and has different model sizes, including seven billion parameters and above. A model's parameters refer to its power.

Alibaba will be open-sourcing the seven-billion-parameter model called Qwen-7B, along with a version designed for conversational apps, called Qwen-7B-Chat. This means that researchers, academics and companies globally can use the model to create their own generative AI apps without needing to train their own systems, saving time and expense. Companies with more than 100 million monthly active users will require a royalty-free license from Alibaba to do so. While Alibaba might not earn licensing fees from open-sourcing its technology, the distribution will help the company get more users for its AI model.

Meta on Wednesday introduced its open-source AI tool called AudioCraft that will help users to create music and audio based on text prompts. Reuters reports: The AI tool is bundled with three models, AudioGen, EnCodec and MusicGen, and works for music, sound, compression and generation, Meta said. MusicGen is trained using company-owned and specifically licensed music, it added. From Meta's press release: The AudioCraft family of models are capable of producing high-quality audio with long-term consistency, and they're easy to use. With AudioCraft, we simplify the overall design of generative models for audio compared to prior work in the field -- giving people the full recipe to play with the existing models that Meta has been developing over the past several years while also empowering them to push the limits and develop their own models.

AudioCraft works for music, sound, compression, and generation -- all in the same place. Because it's easy to build on and reuse, people who want to build better sound generators, compression algorithms, or music generators can do it all in the same code base and build on top of what others have done. Having a solid open source foundation will foster innovation and complement the way we produce and listen to audio and music in the future. With even more controls, we think MusicGen can turn into a new type of instrument -- just like synthesizers when they first appeared.

According to the Financial Times, Meta is preparing to launch AI-enabled chatbots with unique personalities, such as a surfer personality and a chatbot based on Abraham Lincoln. Engadget reports: This is an attempt to boost engagement across Meta's social media platforms, as human-like discussions tend to be more interesting than droll robotic responses. The company hasn't announced which of these platforms would host Abe Lincoln and his pals, though previous reports indicated Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp would be recipients of this new technology. Meta staffers are calling these chatbots "personas" and they could launch as soon as September. These personas will provide a new way to search and they'll even offer recommendations, similar to how current chatbots work, though ChatGPT and the rest don't have Abraham Lincoln on the payroll (just don't ask him about the best local opera houses.)

FT notes that the chatbots could also collect vast amounts of personal data, something Meta has never shied away from. After all, you'll likely share more personal details with a human-like companion than one devoid of personality. The vast majority of Meta's yearly revenue comes from advertising, so go ahead and tell your good friend Abe all about your likes and dislikes. What's the worst that could happen?

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Meta's new Twitter competitor, Threads, is looking for ways to keep users interested after more than half of the people who signed up for the text-based platform stopped actively using the app, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg reportedly told employees in a company town hall yesterday. Threads launched on July 5 and signed up over 100 million users in less than five days, buoyed by user frustration with Elon Musk-owned Twitter.

"Obviously, if you have more than 100 million people sign up, ideally it would be awesome if all of them or even half of them stuck around. We're not there yet," Zuckerberg told employees yesterday, according to Reuters, which listened to audio of the event. Third-party data suggests that Threads may have lost many more than half of its active users. Daily active users for Threads on Android dropped from 49 million on July 7 to 23.6 million on July 14, and then to 12.6 million on July 23, web analytics company SimilarWeb reported.

"We don't yet have daily numbers for iOS, but we suspect the boom-and-bust pattern is similar," SimilarWeb wrote. "Threads took off like a rocket, with its close linkage to Instagram as the booster. However, the developers of Threads will need to fill in missing features and add some new and unique ones if they want to make checking the app a daily habit for users." Although losing over half of the initial users in a short period might sound discouraging, the Reuters article said Zuckerberg told employees that user retention was better than Meta executives expected. "Zuckerberg said he considered the drop-off 'normal' and expected retention to grow as the company adds more features to the app, including a desktop version and search functionality," Reuters wrote.

schwit1 shares a report from CNBC: Meta reported second-quarter earnings on Wednesday and said that its Reality Labs unit, which develops virtual reality and augmented reality technologies needed to power the metaverse, logged a $3.7 billion operating loss. Last year, Meta's Reality Labs unit lost a total of $13.7 billion while bringing in $2.16 billion in revenue, which is driven in part by the company's sales of Quest-branded VR headsets. Reality Labs lost $3.99 billion during the first quarter. That puts its total losses at about $21.3 billion since the beginning of last year.

Meta said in its earnings report that it expects operating losses in its Reality Labs unit "to increase meaningfully year-over-year due to our ongoing product development efforts in augmented reality/virtual reality and investments to further scale our ecosystem." Despite Reality Labs' operating loss, Meta reported revenue of $32 billion for its quarter ending in June, an 11% increase compared to the same period last year. "The company reported profits of $7.79 billion for the quarter, a 16% increase compared to last year, also beating analysts' estimates," adds CNN.

Earlier this week, Meta announced it has teamed up with Microsoft to launch Llama 2, its "open-source" large language model (LLM) that uses artificial intelligence to generate text, images, and code. In an opinion piece for The Register, long-time ZDNet contributor and technology analyst, Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, writes: "Meta is simply open source washing an open but ultimately proprietary LLM." From the report: As Amanda Brock, CEO of OpenUK, said, it's "not an OSI approved license but a significant release of Open Technology ... This is a step to moving AI from the hands of the few to the many, democratizing technology and building trust in its use and future through transparency." And for many developers, that may be enough. [...] But the devil is in the details when it comes to open source. And there, Meta, with its Llama 2 Community License Agreement, falls on its face. As The Register noted earlier, the community agreement forbids the use of Llama 2 to train other language models; and if the technology is used in an app or service with more than 700 million monthly users, a special license is required from Meta. Stefano Maffulli, the OSI's executive director, explained: "While I'm happy that Meta is pushing the bar of available access to powerful AI systems, I'm concerned about the confusion by some who celebrate LLaMa 2 as being open source: if it were, it wouldn't have any restrictions on commercial use (points 5 and 6 of the Open Source Definition). As it is, the terms Meta has applied only allow some commercial use. The keyword is some."

Maffulli then dove in deeper. "Open source means that developers and users are able to decide for themselves how and where to use the technology without the need to engage with another party; they have sovereignty over the technology they use. When read superficially, Llama's license says, 'You can't use this if you're Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Bytedance, Alibaba, or your startup grows as big.' It may sound like a reasonable clause, but it also implicitly says, 'You need to ask us for permission to create a tool that may solve world hunger' or anything big like that." Stephen O'Grady, open source licensing expert and RedMonk co-founder, explained it like this: "Imagine if Linux was open source unless you worked at Facebook." Exactly. Maffulli concluded: "That's why open source has never put restrictions on the field of use: you can't know beforehand what can happen in the future, good or bad."

The OSI isn't the only open-source-savvy group that's minding the Llama 2 license. Karen Sadler, lawyer and executive director at the Software Freedom Conservancy, dug into the license's language and found that "the Additional Commercial Terms in section 2 of the license agreement, which is a limitation on the number of users, makes it non-free and not open source." To Sadler, "it looks like Meta is trying to push a license that has some trappings of an open source license but, in fact, has the opposite result. Additionally, the Acceptable Use Policy, which the license requires adherence to, lists prohibited behaviors that are very expansively written and could be very subjectively applied -- if you send out a mass email, could it be considered spam? If there's reasonably critical material published, would it be considered defamatory?" Last, but far from least, she "didn't notice any public drafting or comment process for this license, which is necessary for any serious effort to introduce a new license."

Despite being the fastest-growing online platform in history, Meta's Threads is struggling to retain regular customer engagement. According to SimilarWeb, the Twitter rival saw daily active users decline from 49 million on July 7th to 23.6 million on July 14th. Furthermore, usage in the United States declined from 21 minutes per day to just over six minutes in the same time period. Here's are the key takeaways from the report: - On its best day, July 7, Threads had more than 49 million daily active users on Android, worldwide, according to SimilarWeb estimates. That's about 45% of the usage of Twitter, which had more than 109 million active Android users that day.
- By Friday, July 14, Threads was down to 23.6 million active users, or about 22% of Twitter's audience.
- Usage in the US, which saw the most activity, peaked at about 21 minutes of engagement with the app on July 7. By July 14, that was down to a little over 6 minutes.
- In the first two full days that Threads was generally available, Thursday and Friday, web traffic to twitter.com was down 5% compared with the same days of the previous week. Although traffic bounced back, for the most recent 7 days of data it's still down 11% year-over-year.
- On the days of peak interest in Threads, Twitter's Daily active users on Android, worldwide, were virtually unchanged, but time spent was down 4.3% -- perhaps because some users were off trying Threads. Even with that drop, however, the average total time spent on Twitter was about 25 minutes.

To a large extent, Threads solves the "empty party problem" that makes it tough to start a new online community by allowing Instagram users to instantly create a Threads account, bringing their existing contacts with them. Our daily usage numbers make Meta's claim of having achieved more than 100 million total account signups in a matter of days seem reasonable. However, Threads is missing many basic features and still needs to offer a compelling reason to switch from Twitter or start a new social media habit with Threads.

Norway's data protection regulator has accused Meta of violating user privacy by tracking their activities, threatening to fine the company $100,000 per day if it fails to take corrective action. "It is so clear that this is illegal that we need to intervene now and immediately," said Tobias Judin, head of Norway's privacy commission, Datatilsynet. Engadget reports: The move follows a European court ruling banning Meta from harvesting user data like location, behavior and more for advertising. Datatilsynet has referred its actions to Europe's Data Protection Board, which could widen the fine across Europe. The aim is to put "additional pressure" on Meta, Judin said. (Norway is a member of the European single market, but not technically an EU member.)

Meta told Reuters that it's reviewing Datatilsynet's decision and that the decision wouldn't immediately impact its services. "We continue to constructively engage with the Irish DPC, our lead regulator in the EU, regarding our compliance with its decision," a spokesperson said. "The debate around legal bases has been ongoing for some time and businesses continue to face a lack of regulatory certainty in this area."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from ZDNet: Meta, formerly known as Facebook, is set to release a commercial version of LLaMA, its open-source large language model (LLM) that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to generate text, images, and code. LLaMA, which stands for Large Language Model Meta AI, was publicly announced in February as a small foundational model, and made available to researchers and academics. Now, the Financial Times is reporting that Meta is prepared to release the commercial version of the model, which would enable developers and businesses to build applications using the foundational model.

Since it's an open-source AI technology, commercial access to LLaMA gives businesses of all sizes the opportunity to adapt and improve the AI, accelerating technological innovation across various sectors and potentially leading to more robust models. Meta's LLaMA is available in 7, 13, 33, and 65 billion parameters, compared to ChatGPT's LLM, GPT-3.5, which has been confirmed to have 175 billion parameters. OpenAI hasn't said how many parameters GPT-4 has, but it's estimated to have over 1 trillion parameters -- the more parameters, the better the model can understand input and generate appropriate output.

Though open-source AI models already exist, launching Meta's LLaMA commercially is still a significant step, due to it being larger than many of the available open-source LLMs on the market, and the fact that it is from one of the biggest tech companies in the world. The launch means Meta is directly competing with Microsoft-backed OpenAI and Google, and that competition could mean significant advancements in the AI field. Closed or proprietary software, like that used in OpenAI's ChatGPT, has drawn criticism over transparency and security.

Democratic senators, including Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, are calling (PDF) for an investigation into popular online tax filing companies, accusing them of sharing sensitive taxpayer data with Meta and Google without user consent. The Verge reports: On Tuesday, Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), and others asked the Justice Department, Federal Trade Commission, Treasury Department, and the IRS to investigate whether TaxSlayer, H&R Block, and TaxAct violated taxpayer privacy laws by sharing sensitive user information with the two tech firms. Senators also released (PDF) their own report Wednesday detailing the accusations, first raised by The Markup last November.

The report alleges that for years, tax preparation companies infused their products with Meta and Google tracking pixels that revealed identifying information -- like a user's full name, address, and date of birth. The senators also suggest that some of the information provided, like the forms a user accessed, could be used to show "whether taxpayers were eligible for certain deductions or exemptions." The senators claim that the companies did not receive user consent to share this information, which could violate laws banning tax preparers from sharing tax return information with third parties, especially since much of this data could be used for advertising purposes.

Last week, Meta's new Twitter competitor, Threads, was launched to the public and achieved an impressive milestone by surpassing 30 million sign-ups in less than 24 hours. This made Threads the fastest app to reach the 1 million users mark, beating ChatGPT's record. In a recent update, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that the social media app has now exceeded 100 million users, just days after its initial launch. The Verge reports: Instagram head Adam Mosseri also posted about it, likewise noting that it took just five days to get there. Users aren't just signing up: they're posting, too. As of Thursday, my colleague Alex Heath reported that there have already been more than 95 million posts and 190 million likes shared on the app.

That said, Threads is still in its infancy, and we'll have to wait and see if it captures the same cultural cachet that Twitter once did. Meta isn't specifically targeting trying to replace Twitter, according to Instagram head Adam Mosseri, and the company isn't going to actively encourage politics and hard news on the platform, but it could end up being the place people go for a conversation-based social media platform. And while Meta "couldn't be more psyched" about how the launch week has gone, "we don't even know if this thing is retentive yet," Mosseri said.

Although the numbers aren't directly comparable, as of last November Twitter had around 260 million monetizable daily active users, per a tweet from owner Elon Musk at the time. More recently, The Wall Street Journal reports it's been telling advertisers that it has around 535 million monetizable monthly active users.

After surpassing 10 million sign-ups in the first seven hours, Meta's new Twitter rival, Threads, has reached a new milestone: 30 million sign-ups in less than 24 hours. TechCrunch reports: Threads passed 2 million signups in its first two hours live in the App Store and shows no signs of slowing down. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg noted the milestone on his Threads account. Threads was available for "preorder" through iOS, notifying users who were alerted of its existence through a flashy Instagram cross-promotion. Threads is deeply tied into Instagram and Instagram accounts now display a Threads user number so the counting is both transparent and happening in real time. Users who opted into the Threads pre-launch received a push notification when Threads went live on Wednesday afternoon and could immediately hop into Meta's latest app. Threads is also now the fastest app to cross the 1 million users mark, beating ChatGPT's record.

Further reading: Twitter Threatens To Sue Meta Over Threads

Instagram's new Twitter competitor called Threads launched today on the web, providing an early look at what to expect from the app that will launch on iOS and Android tomorrow. You can view the web interface here. The Verge reports: Meta briefly made Threads available on the web before pulling profiles offline a few hours later. The Verge was able to access Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's first thread (is that what we call them?!) using the web app, and many other brands and creators including Netflix, Gary Vee, and Instagram.

The web interface is fairly basic right now for viewing threads, with options to like, comment, repost, and share -- all prompting you to download the mobile app for the time being. If you're in an unsupported country, like markets in the EU, then you'll only be able to view threads right now. Much like Twitter, you can view an account's main posts in one section and the full reply history in another.

Fediverse integration won't be available immediately at the launch of Threads, but it's clear Instagram is looking to add this soon. Profiles include an Instagram username and link, with a threads.net label that includes the following description: "Soon, you'll be able to follow and interact with people on other fediverse platforms, like Mastodon. They can also find people on Threads using full usernames, like @zuck@threads.net."

Meta is planning to allow users in the EU to directly download apps through Facebook ads, aiming to compete with Google and Apple's app stores. The Verge's Alex Heath writes: The new type of ad is set to start as a pilot with a handful of Android app developers as soon as later this year, I've learned. Meta sees an opening to try this thanks to new regulation in the EU called the Digital Markets Act (DMA) that is expected to go into effect next spring. It deems Apple and Google as "gatekeepers" and requires that they open up their mobile platforms to alternative methods of downloading apps. Android technically allows sideloading already, though Google makes it difficult by coupling its in-app billing and licensing with the Play Store, along with the scary warnings it shows when someone tries to download an Android app from another source. Even still, Meta clearly thinks it's safer to try its test first on Android rather than Apple's iOS.

Meta's pitch to developers participating in the pilot is that, by hosting their Android apps and letting Facebook users download them directly without being kicked out to the Play Store, they'll see higher conversion rates for their app install ads. At least initially, Meta doesn't plan to take a cut of in-app revenue from participating apps, so developers in the pilot could still use whatever billing systems they want.

Meta has introduced a new VR subscription service called Meta Quest+ that costs $7.99 a month. Subscribers will get access to two new games each month, which they can play as long as the subscription is active. CNBC reports: Meta Quest+ costs $7.99 a month and is compatible with the Quest 2, the Quest Pro and the upcoming Quest 3. The subscription service marks Meta's latest effort to generate recurring revenue from its Reality Labs unit, which is developing virtual reality and augmented reality technologies. New games will launch for Meta Quest+ subscribers on the first of each month. The games can be played as long as the subscription is active.

In July, subscribers will get the games "Pixel Ripped 1995" and "Pistol Whip." Users will then receive "Walkabout Mini Golf" from Mighty Coconut and "Mothergunship: Forge" from Terrible Posture Games in August. Meta Quest+ is available in the Meta Quest Store starting Monday.

Meta has confirmed that it will remove all news content from Facebook and Instagram for users in Canada, following the passing of the Online News Act by the Canadian Parliament. Engadget reports: "Today, we are confirming that news availability will be ended on Facebook and Instagram for all users in Canada prior to the Online News Act (Bill C-18) taking effect," the company posted. "We have repeatedly shared that in order to comply with Bill C-18, passed today in Parliament, content from news outlets, including news publishers and broadcasters, will no longer be available to people accessing our platforms in Canada."

The Online News Act is designed to address the precipitous drop in advertising revenue Canadian news organizations have experienced over the past two decades. It does so by requiring big tech companies like Google and Meta to negotiate reimbursement plans with those outlets for running said stories on their respective platforms. Earlier in June, Meta announced that it was working to develop a software-based solution to its C-18 issue. As of Thursday, those efforts remain ongoing "and currently impact a small percentage of users in Canada." Aside from the loss of news functionality, Meta assures its users that no other aspects of the Facebook experience will be impacted.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Meta says its new speech-generating AI model is too dangerous for public release. Meta announced a new AI model called Voicebox yesterday, one it says is the most versatile yet for speech generation, but it's not releasing it yet: "There are many exciting use cases for generative speech models, but because of the potential risks of misuse, we are not making the Voicebox model or code publicly available at this time."

The model is still only a research project, but Meta says can generate speech in six languages from samples as short as two seconds and could be used for "natural, authentic" translation in the future, among other things.