Meta will remove sensitive ad categories, cites abuse

NEW YORK/LONDON: Facebook’s parent company Meta says it will remove sensitive ad targeting options related to health, race or ethnicity, political affiliation, religion or sexual orientation beginning on January 19.

Currently, advertisers can target people who have expressed interest in issues, public figures or organisations connected to these topics.

That information comes from tracking user activity on Facebook, Instagram and other platforms the company owns.

For instance, someone who’s shown interest in “same-sex marriage” may be shown an ad from a non-profit supporting same-sex marriage.

But the categories could also be misused and Meta, formerly Facebook, has been under intense scrutiny from regulators and the public to clean its platform of abuse and misinformation.

Meta Platforms said in a blog post on Tuesday that the decision was “not easy and we know this change may negatively impact some businesses and organisations”.

Google loses appeal of $2.8 billion EU fine

A top European Union court on Wednesday rejected Google’s appeal of a 2.4 billion euro ($2.8 billion) fine from regulators who found the tech giant abused its massive online reach by giving its own shopping recommendations an illegal advantage in search results.

The European Commission, the 27-nation bloc’s top competition watchdog, punished Google in 2017 for unfairly directing visitors to its own shopping service, Google Shopping, to the detriment of competitors.

The EU’s General Court ruled that it “largely dismisses” Google’s appeal of that antitrust penalty and is upholding the fine.

“The General Court thus rules that, in reality, Google favors its own comparison shopping service over competing services, rather than a better result over another result,” it said.

Harry: I warned Twitter CEO ahead of Capitol riot

Britain’s Prince Harry said he warned the chief executive of Twitter ahead of the January 6 Capitol riots that the social media site was being used to stage political unrest in the US capital.

Harry made the comments on Tuesday while he was taking part in an online panel on misinformation in California.

He said he made his concerns known via email to Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey the day before the riot.