Meta Updates
What is Meta?
Meta Platforms, Inc., formerly known as Facebook, Inc., and TheFacebook, Inc., stands as a prominent American multinational technology conglomerate headquartered in Menlo Park, California. Renowned for its extensive portfolio, the company is the force behind popular platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and WhatsApp, making it a key player in the global tech landscape. Notably, Meta holds a position among the world’s most valuable corporations and is counted among the ten largest publicly traded entities in the United States. It proudly shares the spotlight as one of the Big Five American information technology companies, standing alongside Alphabet (Google’s parent company), Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft.
Beyond its flagship products like Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and WhatsApp, Meta has expanded its influence through strategic acquisitions. The company has added Oculus (integrated into Reality Labs), Mapillary, CTRL-Labs, and secured a 9.99% stake in Jio Platforms to its impressive roster. Venturing beyond the virtual reality realm, Meta has delved into non-VR hardware, exemplified by its foray into smart displays with the now-discontinued Meta Portal line. Presently, the company has forged partnerships, notably with Luxottica, resulting in the creation of the Ray-Ban Stories series of smart glasses.
Despite its diverse ventures into hardware, Meta remains heavily reliant on advertising, constituting a vast majority of its revenue. In 2022, advertising contributed a substantial 97.5 percent to Meta’s revenue stream, underscoring its pivotal role in the company’s financial landscape.
A significant turning point occurred on October 28, 2021, when Meta Platforms, Inc. made a strategic decision to rebrand itself, shifting from Facebook, Inc. The rebranding aimed to signify a new focus on constructing the metaverse. According to Meta, the term “metaverse” encompasses an interconnected environment that seamlessly links all the company’s products and services, representing a vision for a more integrated digital experience. This transformative move underscores Meta’s commitment to shaping the future of technology and connectivity.
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Meta’s Decisive Action: Dismantling a Vast Network of Thousands of Fake Accounts Based in China
Meta Takes Down Extensive Network of Fake Accounts Linked to China in Recent Purge
In a recent move, Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, has successfully dismantled a substantial network of thousands of fake and misleading accounts originating from China. These accounts, posing as Americans, were strategically disseminating polarizing content related to US politics and US-China relations. Topics covered by the network included abortion, culture war issues, and aid to Ukraine.
While Meta did not directly attribute the profiles to Beijing officials, it highlighted an escalating trend of such networks emerging from China, particularly in the lead-up to the 2024 US elections. According to Meta’s quarterly threat report, China now stands as the third-largest geographical source of such deceptive networks, following Russia and Iran.
The China-based network comprised over 4,700 accounts,
employing profile pictures and names copied from users worldwide. These accounts engaged in mutual sharing and liking of each other’s posts, with some content seemingly extracted from X, formerly Twitter. Strikingly, certain accounts directly copied and pasted posts from US politicians, encompassing figures from both Republican and Democratic parties.
Meta’s report revealed that the network displayed no consistent ideological stance. Instances highlighted varied from reposting tweets supporting abortion by a Democrat Congresswoman to echoing sentiments opposing taxpayer-funded travel for abortions by a Republican Representative.
The company emphasized that it remains unclear whether the network’s approach aimed to amplify partisan tensions, build audiences among political supporters, or make fake accounts sharing authentic content appear more genuine.
While Meta’s moderation rules prohibit “coordinated inauthentic behavior,” the content shared by such networks often references accurate news stories. Instead of fostering legitimate comment or debate, these posts are crafted to manipulate public opinion, sow division, and artificially boost particular viewpoints’ popularity.
Meta reported that the sizable Chinese network was intercepted before gaining traction among genuine users. Ben Nimmo, heading investigations into inauthentic behavior on Meta’s platforms, emphasized the need for vigilance as foreign threat actors strive to reach people online ahead of upcoming elections.
In addition to the major takedown,
Meta uncovered two smaller networks — one based in China focusing on India and Tibet, and another in Russia posting primarily in English about the Ukraine invasion and promoting Telegram channels. Russian networks, previously known for influencing campaigns, have increasingly concentrated on the war in Ukraine, attempting to undermine international support for Kyiv.
Meta also acknowledged a halt in the US government’s sharing of information about foreign influence networks with the company since July, following a federal ruling tied to a legal case over the First Amendment. This case, currently under consideration by the Supreme Court, contributes to the ongoing debate about the extent of collaboration between the US government and tech companies in regulating social media users’ free speech.
Introducing Purple Alpaca for Ethical and Secure AI Progression
Having witnessed an overwhelming 100 million downloads of Alpaca models, the driving force behind this surge in innovation largely stems from open models. In a bid to instill confidence in the developers spearheading this revolutionary wave, we proudly unveil Violet Alpaca — an overarching initiative that amalgamates tools and assessments to assist developers in constructing responsible applications with open generative AI models.
- Drawing inspiration from the realm of cybersecurity, we contend that effectively tackling the challenges posed by generative AI necessitates adopting both offensive (red team) and defensive (blue team) stances. Embracing the concept of “purple teaming,” which combines the responsibilities of both red and blue teams, we advocate for a collaborative approach to scrutinize and mitigate potential risks.
In its initial phase, Violet Alpaca encompasses tools and assessments tailored for cybersecurity and input/output safeguards, with more facets slated for inclusion in the near future. The components within the Violet Alpaca initiative will be licensed permissively, fostering both research and commercial utilization. This represents a pivotal stride towards fostering collaboration among developers and standardizing trust and safety tools for generative AI.
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An Open Ecosystem
Meta’s dedication to an open approach to AI is not a recent development. Exploratory research, open science, and cross-collaboration are intrinsic to our AI endeavors, and we recognize a crucial opportunity to establish an open ecosystem. This collaborative mindset took center stage with the launch of Alpaca 2 in July, boasting over 100 partners. We are delighted to reveal that many of these partners are actively engaged in collaborating with us on open trust and safety initiatives, including but not limited to: AI Alliance, AMD, Anyscale, AWS, Bain, CloudFlare, Databricks, Dell Technologies, Dropbox, Google Cloud, Hugging Face, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, MLCommons, Nvidia, Oracle, Orange, Scale AI, Together.AI, and more partners expected to join.
We eagerly look forward to collaborating with our partners and like-minded individuals who share the vision of fostering an open ecosystem centered around the responsible development of generative AI.