Facebook changes ‘will see more data given up’
GERMAN President Frank-Walter Steinmeier marked the 83rd anniversary of the anti-Jewish pogrom that was labelled Kristallnacht, the Night Of Broken Glass, when Nazis, among them many ordinary Germans, terrorised Jews in Germany and Austria.
In a speech in Berlin, Mr Steinmeier talked about November 9, 1938, when the Nazis killed at least 91 people, vandalised around 7,500 Jewish businesses and burned more than 1,400 synagogues.
The president also pointed out that
FACEBOOK whistleblower Frances Haugen said she fears the impact of the social media giant’s ‘metaverse’ rebranding – claiming the futuristic virtual reality world will force people to give up more of their personal information, be addictive, and give the embattled company another monopoly in the online world.
In an interview with The Associated Press as she makes a series of appearances before European politicians drawing up rules for social media companies, Ms Haugen said her former employer has rushed to prioritise the metaverse because “if you don’t like the conversation, you try to change the conversation”.
“Facebook should have a transparency plan for the metaverse before they start building all this stuff, because they can hide behind a wall, they keep making unforced errors, they keep making things that prioritise their own profits before safety,” she said. other significant events also happened on November 9: in 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell, sending
East Germans flooding west and setting in motion events that soon led to the country’s reunification, and in 1918, when Social Democrat
Philipp Scheidemann proclaimed Germany a republic at the end of the First World War.
“November 9 is an ambivalent day, a bright and a dark day,” Mr Steinmeier said.
“It makes our hearts pound and brings tears to our eyes.
The metaverse is the internet ‘brought to life,’ or at least rendered in 3D.
Chief executive Mark Zuckerberg has described it as a “virtual environment” users can go inside, instead of just looking at on a screen, and refocused the company’s business model on the futuristic virtual reality world, including renaming the company Meta.
“It makes us hope for the good that is in our country, and it makes us despair in the face of its abysses.”
November 9, 1938 was also remembered in Austria yesterday.
On Tuesday afternoon, the country was set to inaugurate a Wall of Memories in Vienna with the names of 64,000 Austrian Jews who were murdered during the Holocaust.
In both Austria and Germany, projections were planned in the evening of synagogues in 18 cities that were destroyed or damaged by the Nazis.
People can meet, work and play, using virtual reality headsets, augmented reality glasses, smartphone apps or other devices.
Ms Haugen is a former product manager at Facebook turned whistleblower, whose revelations about the company’s practices have drawn global attention.
Documents she has turned over to authorities and her evidence to politicians on both sides of the Atlantic have revealed deep-seated problems at the company, and energised legislative and regulatory efforts around the world to crack down on big tech companies.
She says the social media giant prioritises engagement and user growth over online safety.
Ms Haugen, who also provided a vast trove of redacted internal documents to a group of news organisations, alleges that Facebook’s systems amplify online hate and extremism, fail to protect young people from harmful content and the company lacks any incentive to fix the problems.
Ms Haugen’s documents have exposed an internal crisis at the social media giant, which provides free services to three billion people.
Mr Zuckerberg has dismissed Ms Haugen’s claims as a “coordinated effort” to paint a false picture of the company.
Officials in Washington and European capitals are taking her claims seriously.
The EU is drafting new digital rules for the 27-nation bloc that call for reining in big “digital gatekeepers”, requiring them to be more transparent about their algorithms that determine what people see on their feeds and making them more accountable for content on their platforms.
Ms Haugen’s next appearance will see her address French politicians in Paris today.