United News of Bangladesh

A new report has found that Facebook failed to detect blatant hate speech and calls to violence against Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslim minority years after such behavior was found to have played a determining role in the genocide against them. The report shared exclusively with The Associated Press showed the rights group Global Witness submitted eight paid ads for approval to Facebook, each including different versions of hate speech against Rohingya. All eight ads were approved by Facebook to be published. The group pulled the ads before they were posted or paid for, but the results confirmed that despite its promises to do better, Facebook's leaky controls still fail to detect hate speech and calls for violence on its platform. The army conducted what it called a clearance campaign in western Myanmar's Rakhine state in 2017 after an attack by a Rohingya insurgent group. More than 700,000 Rohingya fled into neighboring Bangladesh and security forces were accused of mass rapes, killings and torching thousands of homes. Also Monday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced that the U.S. views the violence against Rohingya as genocide. The declaration is intended to both generate international pressure and lay the groundwork for potential legal action, Blinken said. Also read: Rohingya sue Facebook for $150bn over Myanmar hate speech On Feb. 1 of last year, Myanmar’s military forcibly took control of the country, jailing democratically elected government officials. Rohingya refugees have condemned the military takeover and said it makes them more afraid to return to Myanmar. Experts say such ads have continued to appear and that despite its promises to do better and assurances that it has taken its role in the genocide seriously, Facebook still fails even the simplest of tests — ensuring that paid ads that run on its site do not contain hate speech calling for the killing of Rohingya Muslims. “The current killing of the Kalar is not enough, we need to kill more!” read one proposed paid post from Global Witness, using a slur often used in Myanmar to refer to people of east Indian or Muslim origin. “They are very dirty. The Bengali/Rohingya women have a very low standard of living and poor hygiene. They are not attractive,” read another. “These posts are shocking in what they encourage and are a clear sign that Facebook has not changed or done what they told the public what they would do: properly regulate themselves,” said Ronan Lee, a research fellow at the Institute for Media and Creative Industries at Loughborough University, London. The eight ads from Global Witness all used hate speech language taken directly from the United Nations Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar in their report to the Human Rights Council. Several examples were from past Facebook posts. The fact that Facebook approved all eight ads is especially concerning because the company claims to hold advertisements to an “even stricter” standard than regular, unpaid posts, according to their help center page for paid advertisements. “I accept the point that eight isn’t a very big number. But I think the findings are really stark, that all eight of the ads were accepted for publication,” said Rosie Sharpe, a campaigner at Global Witness. “I think you can conclude from that that the overwhelming majority of hate speech is likely to get through.” Facebook's parent company Meta Platforms Inc. said it has invested in improving its safety and security controls in Myanmar, including banning military accounts after the Tatmadaw, as the armed forces are locally known, seized power and imprisoned elected leaders in the 2021 coup. “We’ve built a dedicated team of Burmese speakers, banned the Tatmadaw, disrupted networks manipulating public debate and taken action on harmful misinformation to help keep people safe. We’ve also invested in Burmese-language technology to reduce the prevalence of violating content,” Rafael Frankel, director of public policy for emerging markets at Meta Asia Pacific wrote in an e-mailed statement to AP on March 17. “This work is guided by feedback from experts, civil society organizations and independent reports, including the UN Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar’s findings and the independent Human Rights Impact Assessment we commissioned and released in 2018.” Facebook has been used to spread hate speech and amplify military propaganda in Myanmar in the past. Also read: 3 stabbed dead in Gazipur over ‘Facebook comment’: 2 held Shortly after Myanmar became connected to the internet in 2000, Facebook paired with its telecom providers to allow customers to use the platform without having to pay for the data, which was still expensive at the time. Use of the platform exploded. For many in Myanmar, Facebook became the internet itself. Local internet policy advocates repeatedly told Facebook hate speech was spreading across the platform, often targeting the Muslim minority Rohingya in the majority Buddhist nation. For years Facebook failed to invest in content moderators who spoke local languages or fact checkers with an understanding of the political situation in Myanmar or to close specific accounts or delete pages being used to propagate hatred of the Rohingya, said Tun Khin, president of Burmese Rohingya Organization UK, a London-based Rohingya advocacy organization. In March 2018, less than six months after hundreds of thousands of Rohingya fled violence in western Myanmar, Marzuki Darusman, chairman of the U.N. Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar, told reporters social media had “substantively contributed to the level of acrimony and dissension and conflict, if you will, within the public." “Hate speech is certainly of course a part of that. As far as the Myanmar situation is concerned, social media is Facebook, and Facebook is social media,” Darusman said. Asked about Myanmar a month later at a U.S. Senate hearing, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Facebook planned to hire “dozens” of Burmese speakers to moderate content and would work with civil society groups to identify hate figures and develop new technologies to combat hate speech. “Hate speech is very language specific. It’s hard to do it without people who speak the local language and we need to ramp up our effort there dramatically,” Zuckerberg said. Yet in internal files leaked by whistleblower Frances Haugen last year, AP found that breaches persisted. The company stepped up efforts to combat hate speech but never fully developed the tools and strategies required to do so. Rohingya refugees have sued Facebook for more than $150 billion, accusing it of failing to stop hate speech that incited violence against the Muslim ethnic group by military rulers and their supporters in Myanmar. Rohingya youth groups based in the Bangladesh refugee camps have filed a separate complaint in Ireland with the 38-nation Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development calling for Facebook to provide some remediation programs in the camps. The company now called Meta has refused to say how many of its content moderators read Burmese and can thus detect hate speech in Myanmar. “Rohingya genocide survivors continue to live in camps today and Facebook continue to fail them,” said Tun Khin. “Facebook needs to do more.”

Netflix and TikTok suspended most of their services in Russia on Sunday as the government cracks down on what people and media outlets can say about Russia’s war in Ukraine. Pulling the plug on online entertainment — and information — is likely to further isolate the country and its people after a growing number of multinational businesses have cut off Russia from vital financial services, technology and a variety of consumer products in response to Western economic sanctions and global outrage over the invasion of Ukraine. U.S. credit card companies Visa, Mastercard and American Express all said over the weekend they would cut service in Russia. South Korea’s Samsung Electronics, a leading supplier of both smartphones and computer chips, said it would halt product shipments to the country, joining other big tech companies such as Apple, Microsoft, Intel and Dell. And two of the so-called Big Four accounting firms said Sunday they were cutting ties to the country. KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers both they would end their relationships with their Russia-based member firms, each of which employs thousands of people. Ukraine’s minister of digital transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov, called on U.S. technology companies to do more Sunday to hit back against Russia. He tweeted open letters asking Apple and Google to shut down their app stores in Russia and for Amazon and Microsoft to suspend their cloud computing services. Providers of internet-based services and apps have been mostly reluctant to take actions that could deprive Russian citizens of social media services and other sources of information. That changed Friday when Russian President Vladimir Putin intensified a crackdown on media outlets and individuals who fail to hew to the Kremlin line on the war, blocking Facebook and Twitter and signing into law a bill that criminalizes the intentional spreading of what Moscow deems to be “fake” reports. Netflix didn’t specify a reason for suspending services Sunday except to say it reflected “circumstances on the ground.” The company had previously said it would refuse to air Russian state TV channels.

Instagram is one of the fastest-growing social media channels, benefiting companies as well as celebrities. Instagram users spend hours each day engaging in recreational activities, and there are surely many individuals who desire to be influencers. It is an incredible digital platform that allows users to cash out their accounts if they have a huge following and fan interaction. Instagram has grown from a basic photo-sharing application to a giant marketing and networking platform for companies and people. Stay with us to get tips for increasing Insta followers at free of cost. Ways to Get More Followers on Instagram at Free of Cost Having said that, boosting your Instagram following may help you improve traffic to your website, increase revenue, and even transform anybody into a trendsetting influencer. Here are some tried-and-true methods for increasing your Instagram followers — without using spam accounts or bots. Tapping into Instagram Reels If you are not currently posting Instagram Reels, you are potentially losing out on a significant chance to expand your follower base. Read Kylie Jenner becomes first woman with 300 million Instagram followers Instagram Reels, the app's short-form, looping video feature, is still one of the most successful methods to reach new audiences. Unlike most of the Instagram experience, viewers in the Reels feed are presented high-quality material from both followers and non-followers. This implies that the Reels have the potential to go far beyond a business’s follower list. Optimizing Post Captions for Inbound and Outbound Search Optimizing Instagram photos for search is a significant Instagram growth tip. Instagram recently updated to enable English-speaking users in six countries to search the platform using keywords. Read How To Be A Popular Instagram Influencer According to an Instagram spokesman, the team examines a variety of criteria when surfacing relevant results, including the "kind of material, captions, and when it was uploaded." Additionally, it employs machine learning to "identify the highest-quality material that is personally relevant to you." For the time being, only grid postings will be shown. Curate Attractive Profile for Robust First Impression Having an Instagram feed that is well-planned and clearly highlights your specialization is critical for converting profile visits to followers. When someone visits a business profile, the business wants them to immediately grasp its purpose. Read Facebook launches Instagram Lite in Bangladesh Utilize a visual planner tool to organize your Instagram grid before posting to ensure a consistent style that suits your business. Collaborating with Influencers and Brands Collaborating with like-minded influencers and companies is a significant win-win situation. You can make profit from brand association and get access to a new audience. Collaborations do not have to be prohibitively expensive. Some of the most successful collaborations are straightforward and mutually beneficial. Read Facebook working on Instagram for kids under 13 Similarly, you do not need to collaborate with mega-influencers to have an effect. Nano and micro-influencers often have greater engagement rates and a cheaper rate card for sponsored articles than macro-influencers. However, you will need to work with more Nano or Micro-influencers to achieve the same audience size as a Macro influencer - the optimal technique will depend on your available bandwidth and money. Making Shoppable Instagram Feeds Nowadays, purchasing things from Instagram pages is a popular method of shopping online. Additionally, as previously said, many individuals utilize Instagram to locate the right buy. Read Best Rooftop Restaurants in Dhanmondi with Instagrammable Views It makes sense for businesses to establish shoppable Instagram feeds. Shoppable feeds send visitors to your product page, allowing them to explore, click, and purchase instantaneously. As a consequence of their direct purchasing experience, these consumers are likely to follow you for more product suggestions and to promote your brand to others. Creating Highly-shareable Content In terms of reaching new audiences organically, providing shareable content is an excellent place to start. Inspirational quotations, instructional carousel articles, and trending memes are all effective forms of content. Even a single viral post may reach thousands of people. Read How to Earn Money from Instagram Memes, in particular, are very effective at establishing viral reach – particularly when they capitalize on a current trend in popular culture. This type contents are often amusing or creative, and they frequently use both text and pictures. To develop an incredibly effective meme, strike a balance among several factors, such as, the graphics tool, the mood of target audience, and the speciality of your business. Creating a Strong Value Proposition Whether it is fashion suggestions, inspiring quotations, or lifestyle material, having a clear value proposition is critical for turning visitors to your profile into followers. Read How Do Social Media Influencers Make Money? This does not signify that all of your material must be identical. Expert content developers advocate concentrating on 3-5 content pillars linked to the area. Thus, you may diversify a content strategy without diminishing your primary startegies. Creating Instagram Challenges Instagram challenges have long been popular, and they are now making an appearance on Instagram Reels more regularly. Successfully launching an Instagram challenge may propel your account into the zeitgeist, exposing it to hundreds, if not millions, of new followers. Read Monetizing Your Blog: How to Make Money from Blogging To get huge responses and the greatest results, make the participation process as simple as possible. For instance, you can establish a branded hashtag to connect the challenge to your business, and consider what activities participants would love. Using Industry Hashtags Instagram hashtags are wonderful tools for directing users to material that piques their interest. And if prospective followers discover you via a highly targeted hashtag, they are likely to follow you after seeing your most popular posts. With this in mind, you should include hashtags related to your sector in each Instagram post. For example, a photographic brand may use. Read Payoneer to Bkash Fund Transfer: A Great Advancement of Freelancing in Bangladesh The most effective method of discovering relevant hashtags is to open the Instagram app and touch the explore button. From there, you may see popular hashtags that are being used by a large number of individuals. Analyzing Results One strategy for determining how to increase your Instagram followers is to examine what the present fans react to. Several Instagram metrics may be tracked directly inside the app or through third-party analytics solutions. Bottom Line If you want to expand your business steadily on Instagram, you must consistently provide high-quality material to attract the target audience. While fragmented social media works for personal accounts, corporations need a more deliberate approach. All of the strategies discussed of enhancing the number of free instagram followers will assist a company in increasing its followers as well as potential clintes. However, these ways are not one-time checkboxes. You need to keep an eye on the social media content strategies to stay updated. Read Want to start freelancing from Bangladesh? These are the best platforms for you

YouTube is one of the most popular online video websites in the world. It has millions of videos that people can watch for free, so gaining YouTube subscribers is a great way to build a presence as an internet personality. But with so many channels buzzing about on this website, it can be difficult to get noticed and you may not know where to start. That is why we have done all the work for you and rounded up 12 ways you can gain more YouTube subscribers for free. Ways to increase your YouTube subscribers at free of cost Make videos frequently As obvious as this may seem, it's by far the best way to get more subscribers. Make more videos and your audience will grow quicker than you can imagine! As long as you are putting out content of some sort, be it a video review or an informative guide, people will start to take notice and subscribe to see what else you do. If you can't think of anything to make a video about, try looking at topics that other people are successful at covering in their videos. For example, if you're a beauty expert then make a video on how to apply foundation like a pro. Read India blocks 35 Pakistan-backed YouTube channels Use hashtags YouTube has a great feature where you can put the hashtag #videoslikes on your video title, which will cause the video to be listed in various places on YouTube and in search results. You can also use the hashtag #vlog or #videoblog or whatever else you like. By using these tags, your video is going to be found by more people and give it a chance at being viewed. Optimize your title Make it catchy and relevant to your content. Include keywords, be sure to save the best information for your first paragraph, include keywords in subtitles, and mention the social media accounts you share. And that’s how your videos will get discovered by more people. Eventually, it will help to get more subscribers. Read Best YouTube Channels to Learn English Promote on social media Write links and images on social media channels (Facebook, Twitter). Add an internal link to the YouTube page and use video thumbnails when promoting videos. Also invite fans to watch or share links (tweet, hashtag) from your channel. Use keywords as much as possible When creating new videos, be sure to use keywords related to your channel content. But don't spam them either. Use a mixture of words that fit your style and interests that are going to get users who are interested in those topics. You can use free keyword tools to find the best keywords to use. Read Tips and Tricks to Increase YouTube Subscribers organically Add annotations You can bring your videos to life with annotations, which are basically captions or annotations that flash on the screen throughout videos. If you are a beauty vlogger and use lots of makeup products in your videos, then you could add annotations with the product names and brands throughout your video. You can also put in helpful tips about the video for those who want to know more about what it's all about. This is a great way to get more YouTube subscribers as it will make your channel relevant and full of information! Create videos followig trending videos Want more YouTube subscribers? Just make a video on a hot topic, whether it's popular news or something that fans have been keeping an eye on. As long as you make your video different enough, you can use this method for any type of content. Plus, if your video is about what other people like then it will be even more likely that people will subscribe to watch your future videos! Read Top YouTube Movie Channels to Watch Full Length Movies Online Free Make your video unique Be sure to make your videos as original as possible. Whether you are recording a new song in the music industry or reviewing a new book on the literary scene, you need to be sure that people will want to watch your content and not just go elsewhere. Without this, it's easy for people to forget about your channel. If they like you enough in the beginning, they will most likely stick around to see what other content you have created! Create a viral video Comedy, drama, fun facts—videos that make viewers laugh or cry are much more likely to attract attention than those that don’t. If you can make your audience laugh or gasp at your creativity, you will have a much better chance at getting more YouTube subscribers than if you just shove a product in their faces. Read How to Earn Money from YouTube Channel Make videos relevant to search Just because a video is popular doesn’t always mean that it will be found by people looking for the same topic. Make sure that you are writing and creating content that YouTube’s algorithms put in their search results, so they can help users find what they want. If your videos show in the relevant search, you are likely to get more views as well as subscribers. So, you may need to research how the YouTube algorithm works. SEO Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a great way to show your videos on Google search results. YouTube SEO is different from website SEO. So, you can optimize your video for search engines. As a result, you will get more views and eventually attract more subscribers. Read YouTube updates hate speech guidelines to prohibit videos Participating in YouTube events, challenges Another way of gaining more subscribers is to participate in YouTube events and challenges. There are tons of YouTube challenges that you can take part in. Usually, in contests, everyone has to create a video or make artwork on selected topics. If you are one of the lucky few that can make their video go viral, you could be on your way to getting YouTube subscribers at an incredible rate. Conclusion YouTube is highly competitive nowadays and it’s not always easy to get noticed. However, there are numerous ways to get noticed and grow subscribers. This article covered some top ways to augment the YouTube Subscribers organically at free of cost. You can also create your own strategy to attract more subscribers. Read YouTube promises to stop promoting misleading videos

WhatsApp is adding more details to its privacy policy and flagging that information for European users, after Irish regulators slapped the chat service with a record fine for breaching strict EU data privacy rules. Starting Monday, WhatsApp's privacy policy will be reorganized to provide more information on the data it collects and how it's used. The company said it's also explaining in more detail how it protects data shared across borders for its global service and the legal foundations for processing the data. WhatsApp is owned by Facebook, now renamed Meta Platforms. With the update, users in Europe will see a banner notification at the top of their chat list that will take them to the new information. Read:Ohio retirement fund sues Facebook over investment loss WhatsApp is taking the action after getting hit with a record 225 million euro ($267 million) fine in September from Ireland’s data privacy watchdog for violating stringent European Union data protection rules on transparency about sharing people’s data with other Facebook companies. The chat service said it disagreed with the decision, but it has to comply by updating its policy while it appeals. The update doesn’t affect how data is handled, and users won’t have to agree to anything new or take any other action. Ireland's Data Privacy Commission is the lead privacy regulator for WhatsApp under European Union rules because its regional headquarters is in Dublin. Read:Facebook to shut down face-recognition system, delete data WhatsApp was embroiled in a separate privacy controversy earlier this year when it botched a different update to its privacy policy that raised concerns users were being forced to agree to share more of their data with Facebook. That update sparked a backlash from users who switched to rival services like Telegram and Signal, an investigation by Turkey's competition watchdog, a temporary German ban on gathering data, and a complaint by EU consumer groups. A six-hour outage of Facebook services last month highlighted how vital WhatsApp has become for its more than 2 billion users worldwide.

Gibson Yuen, Head of Likee Operations in Bangladesh, has said Short video platforms like ‘Likee’ are a new way of building communities which act as convenient-to-use social media platforms. Gibson Yuen said, “It is not only comforting to watch short videos but is less time-consuming. Because of time constraints, people leave the unnecessary parts and jump straight to the point of the videos. On the other hand, long videos often get tedious to watch.” In these short video platforms, content creators post videos from which viewers may learn a great deal, he said.  Read:Likee’s #KnowledgeMonth campaign ends; 5,470 videos uploaded by 1,904 users Such categories may include life-hack videos, which let people know about tips and tricks that make life simpler, educational videos from educators, general knowledge videos from many daily newspapers, and much more. The best part here is the chance to learn so much without the monotonous feeling, but genuinely enjoying instead.   Visual learning is a learning method preferred by many children as well as adults as an effective method to learn and remember. Many studies have also found that visual learning has catered to better memory recollection than the auditory learning method. It means short video platforms can be an amazing way to communicate learnable information.   Through this learning process, communities of learners and educators are created where similar content-makers get a chance to collaborate virtually, and viewers get to discuss the videos with others, creating multiple communication channels, Gibson added. Read Likee teams up with 10 Minute School Covid-19, lockdown impositions, and a general fear of crowds have hindered the natural community-building instinct of humans. During these dire times, social media and short video platforms have acted as rescuers of this society-loving mankind, creating multiple communication channels for people, he said.  The short video industry has especially managed to improve the lives of talented content creators by giving them opportunities to communicate their ideas.  Communities of learners, educators, artists, and many more individuals have been made for them to share their interests and talents with each other, as well as the world, said the head of Likee Operations in Bangladesh. Read: Likee launches campaign to promote cyber safety Additionally, they create communities of people with similar talents. A community of singers, dancers, painters, etc., are generated, often adding colors to the lives of many. They get to discuss their work and interests with people who share similar ones. This not only enhances communication but also improves the mental health of many. The world is filled with talented individuals who remain undiscovered due to the lack of opportunities. He said, “For them, the convenience of short video platforms is a blessing. It was rather tough for many cover artists to actually upload long videos targeting engaged audiences, as viewers often become reluctant to watch long covers.”  People started posting their videos, which can also be made aesthetically pleasing through filters on Short Video Platforms, like Likee. Through these videos, people also get to know about exciting forms of art, such as finger dancing – a form of dance that was rather unknown before short videos were trendy.  Read Learning together with Likee’s #Steps2learn Besides music and dance, art and painting videos can also be conveniently showcased through such short videos. This not only promotes exposure of talent but also opens the window for many such talented individuals to get paid work. Talent hunters often spot artists from such apps, exposing them to jobs they would love.

Ohio’s largest public employee pension fund has sued Facebook — now known as Meta — alleging that it broke federal securities law by purposely misleading the public about the negative effects of its social platforms and the algorithms that run them. The lawsuit by the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System specifically claims that Facebook buried inconvenient findings about how the company has managed those algorithms as well as the steps it said it was taking to protect the public. Read:Plenty of pitfalls await Zuckerberg’s ‘metaverse’ plan The suit also contends claims that Facebook knew that its platform facilitated dissention, illegal activity, and violent extremism, but refused to correct it. The Associated Press and a coalition of other news organizations have reported extensively on Facebook's actions, internal dissents that warned of these problems and related issues around the world based on internal company documents, now known as the Facebook Papers, leaked by the data scientist and former Facebook employee Frances Haugen. “Facebook said it was looking out for our children and weeding out online trolls, but in reality was creating misery and divisiveness for profit,” Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said in a statement. “We are not people to Mark Zuckerberg, we are the product and we are being used against each other out of greed.” Read:In the middle of a crisis, Facebook Inc. renames itself Meta The lawsuit, filed last week in federal court in California, says market losses resulting from publicity over Facebook’s actions caused investors — including OPERS — to lose more than $100 billion . A Facebook spokesperson called the lawsuit without merit and said the company would fight it.

Grameenphone, in partnership with Meta, has launched text-only Facebook and Discover to enable Grameenphone customers to stay connected more consistently, even when they run out of data.  Text-only Facebook will help the telecom operator's customers to stay connected with a text-only version of Facebook and Messenger when they run out of data until they can top up their data balance again.  Discover, a mobile web and Android app, will allow Grameenphone customers to browse the internet using a daily balance of 15MB without data charges.  Also, it only supports low-bandwidth features such as text and icons when using free data.  Read: Grameenphone signs agreement with D24 Logistics Post and Telecommunication Minister Mustafa Jabbar inaugurated text-only Facebook and Discover Tuesday at Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC). "Allowing the use of Facebook without the internet is a great initiative. This shall help reduce the digital divide by ensuring information sharing and connectivity of marginalised people," he said.  "The government has been emphasising bringing maximum people under the umbrella of digital connectivity. But to turn it into a reality, we need the private sectors, especially the mobile network operators to step forward," BTRC Chairman Shyam Sunder Sikder said. "It is a good move by Grameenphone to improve access to social media and other important resources on the internet."  Read:Bangladesh Retail Awards 2021: Grameenphone wins two accolades "Today's launch is a testimony of co-creation with Meta and Regulator to best use digital solutions for ensuring access to vital information in need for one of the largest Facebook user bases in the world," Grameenphone CEO Yasir Azman said.   "Helping people stay connected and ensuring they have consistent access to important resources on the internet such as education and health resources is critical. We are grateful to support these programmes to enable better connectivity and access for people in Bangladesh," Paul Kim, director of International Business Development and Operator Partnerships, APAC at Meta, said. Read GP Explorers: 2nd batch graduates from Grameenphone's in-house skill academy

When Mark Zuckerberg announced ambitious plans to build the “metaverse” — a virtual reality construct intended to supplant the internet, merge virtual life with real life and create endless new playgrounds for everyone — he promised that “you’re going to able to do almost anything you can imagine.” That might not be such a great idea. Zuckerberg, CEO of the company formerly known as Facebook, even renamed it Meta to underscore the significance of the effort. During his late October presentation, he effused about going to virtual concerts with your friends, fencing with holograms of Olympic athletes and — best of all — joining mixed-reality business meetings where some participants are physically present while others beam in from the metaverse as cartoony avatars. But it’s just as easy to imagine dystopian downsides. Suppose the metaverse also enables a vastly larger, yet more personal version of the harassment and hate that Facebook has been slow to deal with on today’s internet? Or ends up with the same big tech companies that have tried to control the current internet serving as gatekeepers to its virtual-reality edition? Or evolves into a vast collection of virtual gated communities where every visitor is constantly monitored, analyzed and barraged with advertisements? Or foregoes any attempt to curtail user freedom, allowing scammers, human traffickers and cybergangs to commit crimes with impunity? Picture an online troll campaign — but one in which the barrage of nasty words you might see on social media is instead a group of angry avatars yelling at you, with your only escape being to switch off the machine, said Amie Stepanovich, executive director of Silicon Flatirons at the University of Colorado. “We approach that differently — having somebody scream at us than having somebody type at us,” she said. “There is a potential for that harm to be really ramped up.” Read: Facebook to shut down face-recognition system, delete data That’s one reason Meta might not be the best institution to lead us into the metaverse, said Philip Rosedale, founder of the virtual escape Second Life, which was an internet craze 15 years ago and still attracts hundreds of thousands of online inhabitants. The danger is creating online public spaces that appeal only to a “polarized, homogenous group of people,” said Rosedale, describing Meta’s flagship VR product, Horizon, as filled with “presumptively male participants” and a bullying tone. In a safety tutorial, Meta has advised Horizon users to treat fellow avatars kindly and offers tips for blocking, muting or reporting those who don’t, but Rosedale said it’s going to take more than a “schoolyard monitor” approach to avoid a situation that rewards the loudest shouters. “Nobody’s going to come to that party, thank goodness,” he said. “We’re not going to move the human creative engine into that sphere.” A better goal, he said, would be to create systems that are welcoming and flexible enough to allow people who don’t know each other to get along as well as they might in a real place like New York’s Central Park. Part of that could rely on systems that help someone build a good reputation and network of trusted acquaintances they can carry across different worlds, he said. In the current web environment, such reputation systems have had a mixed record in curbing toxic behavior. It’s not clear how long it will take Meta, or anyone else investing in the metaverse, to consider such issues. So far, tech giants from Microsoft and Apple to video game makers are still largely focused on debating the metaverse’s plumbing. To make the metaverse work, some developers say they are going to have to form a set of industry standards similar to those that coalesced around HTML, the open “markup language” that’s been used to structure websites since the 1990s. “You don’t think about that when you go to a website. You just click on the link,” said Richard Kerris, who leads the Omniverse platform for graphics chipmaker Nvidia. “We’re going to get to the same point in the metaverse where going from one world to another world and experiencing things, you won’t have to think about, ‘Do I have the right setup?’” Nvidia’s vision for an open standard involves a structure for 3D worlds built by movie-making studio Pixar, which is also used by Apple. Among the basic questions being resolved are how physics will work in the metaverse — will virtual gravity cause someone’s glass to smash into pieces if they drop it? Will those rules change as you move from place to place? Bigger disagreements will center on questions of privacy and identity, said Timoni West, vice president of augmented and virtual reality at Unity Technologies, which builds an engine for video game worlds. “Being able to share some things but not share other things” is important when you’re showing off art in a virtual home but don’t want to share the details of your calendar, she said. “There’s a whole set of permission layers for digital spaces that the internet could avoid but you really need to have to make this whole thing work.” Read: In the middle of a crisis, Facebook Inc. renames itself Meta Some metaverse enthusiasts who’ve been working on the concept for years welcome the spotlight that could attract curious newcomers, but they also want to make sure Meta doesn’t ruin their vision for how this new internet gets built. “The open metaverse is created and owned by all of us,” said Ryan Gill, founder and CEO of metaverse-focused startup Crucible. “The metaverse that Mark Zuckerberg and his company want is created by everybody but owned by them.” Gill said Meta’s big splash is a reaction to ideas circulating in grassroots developer communities centered around “decentralized” technologies like blockchain and non-fungible tokens, or NFTs, that can help people establish and protect their online identity and credentials. Central to this tech movement, nicknamed Web 3, for a third wave of internet innovation, is that what people create in these online communities belongs to them, a shift away from the Big Tech model of “accumulating energy and attention and optimizing it for buying behavior,” Gill said. Evan Greer, an activist with Fight for the Future, said it’s easy to see Facebook’s Meta announcement as a cynical attempt to distance itself from all the scandals the company is facing. But she says Meta’s push is actually even scarier. “This is Mark Zuckerberg revealing his end game, which is not just to dominate the internet of today but to control and define the internet that we leave to our children and our children’s children,” she said. The company recently abandoned its use of facial recognition on its Facebook app, but metaverse gadgetry relies on new forms of tracking people’s gaits, body movements and expressions to animate their avatars with real-world emotions. And with both Facebook and Microsoft pitching metaverse apps as important work tools, there’s a potential for even more invasive workplace monitoring and exhaustion. Activists are calling for the U.S. to pass a national digital privacy act that would apply not just to today’s platforms like Facebook but also those that might exist in the metaverse. Outside of a few such laws in states such as California and Illinois, though, actual online privacy laws remain rare in the U.S.

Facebook said it will shut down its face-recognition system and delete the faceprints of more than 1 billion people amid growing concerns about the technology and its misuse by governments, police and others. “This change will represent one of the largest shifts in facial recognition usage in the technology’s history,” Jerome Pesenti, vice president of artificial intelligence for Facebook’s new parent company, Meta, wrote in a blog post on Tuesday. He said the company was trying to weigh the positive use cases for the technology “against growing societal concerns, especially as regulators have yet to provide clear rules.” The company in the coming weeks will delete “more than a billion people’s individual facial recognition templates,” he said. Facebook’s about-face follows a busy few weeks. On Thursday it announced its new name Meta for Facebook the company, but not the social network. The change, it said, will help it focus on building technology for what it envisions as the next iteration of the internet -- the “metaverse.” The company is also facing perhaps its biggest public relations crisis to date after leaked documents from whistleblower Frances Haugen showed that it has known about the harms its products cause and often did little or nothing to mitigate them. Read: Just what are 'The Facebook Papers,' anyway? Facebook didn’t immediately respond to questions about how people could verify that their image data was deleted, or what it would be doing with the underlying technology. More than a third of Facebook’s daily active users have opted in to have their faces recognized by the social network’s system. That’s about 640 million people. Facebook introduced facial recognition more than a decade ago but gradually made it easier to opt out of the feature as it faced scrutiny from courts and regulators. Facebook in 2019 stopped automatically recognizing people in photos and suggesting people “tag” them, and instead of making that the default, asked users to choose if they wanted to use its facial recognition feature. Facebook’s decision to shut down its system “is a good example of trying to make product decisions that are good for the user and the company,” said Kristen Martin, a professor of technology ethics at the University of Notre Dame. She added that the move also demonstrates the power of public and regulatory pressure, since the face recognition system has been the subject of harsh criticism for over a decade. Meta Platforms Inc., Facebook’s parent company, appears to be looking at new forms of identifying people. Pesenti said Tuesday’s announcement involves a “company-wide move away from this kind of broad identification, and toward narrower forms of personal authentication.” “Facial recognition can be particularly valuable when the technology operates privately on a person’s own devices,” he wrote. “This method of on-device facial recognition, requiring no communication of face data with an external server, is most commonly deployed today in the systems used to unlock smartphones.” Apple uses this kind of technology to power its Face ID system for unlocking iPhones. Researchers and privacy activists have spent years raising questions about the tech industry’s use of face-scanning software, citing studies that found it worked unevenly across boundaries of race, gender or age. One concern has been that the technology can incorrectly identify people with darker skin. Another problem with face recognition is that in order to use it, companies have had to create unique faceprints of huge numbers of people – often without their consent and in ways that can be used to fuel systems that track people, said Nathan Wessler of the American Civil Liberties Union, which has fought Facebook and other companies over their use of the technology. “This is a tremendously significant recognition that this technology is inherently dangerous,” he said. Facebook found itself on the other end of the debate last year when it demanded that facial recognition startup ClearviewAI, which works with police, stop harvesting Facebook and Instagram user images to identify the people in them. Concerns also have grown because of increasing awareness of the Chinese government’s extensive video surveillance system, especially as it’s been employed in a region home to one of China’s largely Muslim ethnic minority populations. Facebook’s huge repository of images shared by users helped make it a powerhouse for improvements in computer vision, a branch of artificial intelligence. Now many of those research teams have been refocused on Meta’s ambitions for augmented reality technology, in which the company envisions future users strapping on goggles to experience a blend of virtual and physical worlds. Those technologies, in turn, could pose new concerns about how people’s biometric data is collected and tracked. Read:In the middle of a crisis, Facebook Inc. renames itself Meta Meta’s newly wary approach to facial recognition follows decisions by other U.S. tech giants such as Amazon, Microsoft and IBM last year to end or pause their sales of facial recognition software to police, citing concerns about false identifications and amid a broader U.S. reckoning over policing and racial injustice. At least seven U.S. states and nearly two dozen cities have limited government use of the technology amid fears over civil rights violations, racial bias and invasion of privacy. President Joe Biden’s science and technology office in October launched a fact-finding mission to look at facial recognition and other biometric tools used to identify people or assess their emotional or mental states and character. European regulators and lawmakers have also taken steps toward blocking law enforcement from scanning facial features in public spaces. Facebook’s face-scanning practices also contributed to the $5 billion fine and privacy restrictions the Federal Trade Commission imposed on the company in 2019. Facebook’s settlement with the FTC included a promise to require “clear and conspicuous” notice before people’s photos and videos were subjected to facial recognition technology. And the company earlier this year agreed to pay $650 million to settle a 2015 lawsuit alleging it violated an Illinois privacy law when it used photo-tagging without users’ permission. “It is a big deal, it’s a big shift but it’s also far, far too late,” said John Davisson, senior counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center. EPIC filed its first complaint with the FTC against Facebook’s facial recognition service in 2011, the year after it was rolled out.