Meta

You’ll now start seeing replies from other parts of the fediverse under posts that aren’t yours, as shared by Threads’ Peter Cottle. Nice way to see more posts from other ActivityPub-based platforms.

The “Quest 3S,” which Meta could sell without controllers, is slated to debut at Meta Connect on September 25th and 26th and could be priced at $300 or $400, writes Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman in today’s Power On newsletter.

The company is also expected to show its advanced Orion AR glasses concept at the event.

Meta is now testing posts that will disappear after just 24 hours, the company confirmed to TechCrunch. (You may recall Twitter’s short-lived version of this, Fleets.)

When replying to one, you’ll see a timer next to the person’s name, along with a banner at the top that says the post will disappear, taking any replies with it, the outlet writes.

Meta told TechCrunch it’s not actually testing ads in Threads yet, but it’s getting more underpinnings in place — now including this “Sponsored” badge that might appear next to an advertiser’s (or sponsored creator’s) username. It was spotted by developer Alessandro Paluzzi.

Threads boss Adam Mosseri confirmed in April that ads are coming; last we heard, it might not be till next year.

While visiting Copenhagen, Benj Haisch had a bag full of photography gear stolen off a bike. Thanks to a Sony A9 III with an Apple AirTag attached Haisch located the bag and recorded its successful (although not recommended) recovery from the thieves using the Ray-Ban Meta Smart Glasses. The footage was later turned over to authorities when Haisch filed a police report.

GIPHY’s library of stickers is now available on WhatsApp, allowing you to search through them without leaving the app. WhatsApp also announced that its custom sticker maker, which already rolled out on iOS, is now available on Android.

They’re on different sides of a debate over how to counteract pollution from data centers’ energy use, Financial Times reports.

Amazon and Meta are part of a lobby group that wants more lax standards for renewable energy certificates, which can pose similar risks as carbon offset credits. Google, meanwhile, backs a different strategy for bringing more renewables online wherever data centers operate.

After years of phaseout, Meta is shutting down the once-powerful social media research tool for good today. Academics and journalists aren’t all that happy with its replacement — a tool called MCL, which is available to far fewer people.

Notable measles enthusiast RFK Jr. spent a bunch of money on lawyers to learn that the First Amendment prohibits government speech regulations, not content moderation guidelines imposed by private companies like Meta, even if it talks to the government about them. The case was initially dismissed by the trial court, a ruling now affirmed on appeal:

Circuit Judge Eric Miller, appointed to the court by Republican former President Donald Trump, wrote for the appeals court that Meta was a “purely private” company with a First Amendment right not to use its platform to promote views it found distasteful.

“Meta evidently believes that vaccines are safe and effective and that their use should be encouraged,” Miller wrote. “It does not lose the right to promote those views simply because they happen to be shared by the government.”

Don’t worry, though: our nation’s brainworms candidate filed another lawsuit against Meta earlier this year for “election interference.”

Creators who break Facebook’s rules for the first time can now waive a warning from their account by completing in-app training. They’ll be eligible to remove another warning if they don’t violate Facebook’s policy for one year.

This feature is only available to professional mode users for now, and it doesn’t include serious violations, such as posting content containing sexual exploitation.

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said yesterday that the platform is close to reaching 200 million monthly active users, and now it’s official.

That growth puts it on track to becoming “another major social app,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said during the company’s earnings call today. Threads reached 175 million users earlier this month.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Facebook and Instagram are still running ads that promote online marketplaces for illegal drugs — including cocaine, hallucinogens, and prescription opioids — months after the publication first noted that Meta was facing a federal investigation for doing so.

Meta says it will continue working with law enforcement, and will “invest resources and further improve our enforcement” to combat this type of activity.