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The world's largest social network has more than 2 billion daily users, and is expanding rapidly around the world. Led by CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his chief operating officer, Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook undergirds much of the world's communication online, both through its flagship app and its subsidiaries Instagram, WhatsApp, and Oculus. Despite huge financial success, Facebook is also confronted with questions about data privacy, hate speech on the platform, and concerns that frequent social media use can lead to unhappiness. The Verge publishes a nightly newsletter about Facebook and democracy, subscribe here.

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Meta’s plan for AI recommendations goes way beyond battling TikTok.

Reels and longer videos will be included in a new AI recommendation model that Facebook plans to build by 2026, Facebook head Tom Alison tells CNBC. Eventually, Facebook’s core feed may be included in the model as well.

“If you see something that you’re into in Reels, and then you go back to the Feed, we can kind of show you more similar content,” says Allison.


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Facebook and Instagram account takeovers are skyrocketing and Meta needs to fix it, AGs say.

41 attorneys general sent a letter to Meta’s chief legal officer Tuesday demanding the company invest more in stopping scam account takeovers that threaten users’ privacy and “drain” AG resources.

The problem has gotten significantly worse over the past few years, the AGs said. In New York, Meta account takeover complaints spiked from 73 in 2019 to 783 by the end of 2023.


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Google will face new antitrust allegations after a judge okays charges.

US District Judge Kevin Castel approved (PDF) a class action lawsuit by advertisers alleging that the company holds a monopoly in the ad market, Reuters reported yesterday.

Judge Castel dismissed some of the claims, though, including one that alleged that Google and Facebook conspired to give Facebook access to “enhanced proprietary data.”

Google is also preparing another advertising antitrust trial from the US DOJ.


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Meta’s ‘consent or pay’ approach to privacy targeted by EU watchdogs.

Eight consumer rights groups from across the bloc filed GDPR complaints on Thursday, arguing that the ad-free subscriptions introduced for Facebook and Instagram in response to EU privacy regulations are a “consent masquerade that does not actually give consumers a free choice.”

Ursula Pachl, deputy director general of the European Consumer Organisation (BEUC), said in a statement:

“Meta’s offer to consumers is smoke and mirrors to cover up what is, at its core, the same old hoovering up of all kinds of sensitive information about people’s lives which it then monetises through its invasive advertising model.”


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Meta’s Oversight Board will now oversee Threads as well as Facebook and Instagram.

For a few years now, Meta’s Oversight Board has had the power to (very slowly, it seems) issue decisions determining how Facebook and Instagram should be moderated, and soon, the body will also be responsible for overseeing Threads.


Meta is testing out Facebook cross-posts to Threads.

Meta is only rolling out the test to its Facebook iOS app, and not in the EU, the company confirmed to TechCrunch today. Threads posts already show up on Facebook, provided you don’t opt out.

TechCrunch writes that when user whimchic tried the feature in the Facebook iOS app, the post went to both platforms, but without any indication on Threads that it was a cross-post.


Is your Facebook... chirping? Here’s how to fix it.

“It’s not you, it’s us! And it’s an unfortunate technical error that we’re in the process of fixing,” writes Meta’s Andy Stone.

In the meanwhile, here’s a stopgap:


Facebook now offers a link history on mobile.

If you toggle link history to be on, Meta will be able to show you a list of links you’ve tapped and viewed in the in-app browser over the past 30 days.

Meta already tracks things you do in its in-app browsers — this feature seems more like a way to surface a list of links that you can refer back to later. (Meta also says that if you flip on link history, it may use that information for ad targeting.)

Gizmodo reported on the link history feature earlier today.


A screenshot of a prompt inside the Facebook app describing the link history feature.
I saw this prompt when I clicked a link inside Facebook’s iOS app today.
Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge
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Fake podcast invites are one way for scammers to take over popular Facebook pages.

The Linus Tech Tips YouTube channel hack and takeover showed what an attacker could do after stealing session tokens with a fake sponsorship offer, but this report details how a podcast invite and Facebook Live connection is another angle.

The “podcast host” manipulated the hobbyist “guest” into exposing a unique “datasets” URL for their page. Once the scammer had it, they could invite themselves in as a new admin and lock the rightful owners out.


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The states suing Meta over youth mental health reveal more of their evidence.

The attorneys general of 33 states sued Meta in October, but many details of what executives allegedly knew about the impacts of Facebook and Instagram on youth mental health were redacted. The New York Times reports a version with more details has been unsealed, and you can read all 233 pages here.

Between the first quarter of 2019 and the second quarter of 2023, Meta received over 1.1 million reports of under-13 users on Instagram via its underage reporting webform and in-app underage reporting process. These processes were only a few of many ways that Meta acquired actual knowledge of under-13 users on its Social Media Platforms. Despite this actual knowledge, Meta disabled only a fraction of those accounts and routinely continued to collect children’s data without parental consent,

In a statement, Meta says the lawsuit “mischaracterizes our work using selective quotes and cherry-picked documents.”


Now Meta’s Messenger app has a Notes status update feature just like Instagram and WhatsApp.

Over the last year, Meta has added AIM status-like features to Instagram and WhatsApp and today announced it's rolling out Notes (using the same name as Instagram’s feature) for Messenger globally.

You can’t post them from the desktop, but a support document explains how to add or remove Notes via iPhone, iPad, or Android device by clicking the thought bubble next to your profile picture. If you don’t remove them manually, the messages expire after 24 hours.


Screenshot of the Messenger app showing icons for online friends with message bubbles over their faces showing their current status posted as a note. One nmaed Ana is telling her friends “Best time of the Year!, while Alicia posts “wtw?” abd Michael’s note is an upside down smiley face emoji.
Notes in Messenger
Image: Meta
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Mark Zuckerberg is not fighting anyone any time soon.

Meta’s CEO posted this picture to Instagram Friday night, saying, “Tore my ACL sparring and just got out of surgery.”

He was apparently training for his next competitive MMA match. Recovery from this type of injury takes up to a year for professional athletes, so an executive closing in on 40 could be out of action for a while. On the plus side, maybe this will keep Elon Musk from randomly threatening to show up at Zuckerberg’s house for a brawl.


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Facebook is making it easier to publish Instant Games.

Now, you can publish them without a Facebook review. Facebook won’t organically surface those games, which will be available as part of the app’s “Play Lab” tier, but the reduced friction could make it easier to get early feedback on a game that may not be ready for a full launch just yet.


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Meta now temporarily limits comments on posts about the war in Gaza.

Early this morning, Meta updated a blog post about its efforts regarding the war. The company detailed some changes it has made, including new, more limited default visibility settings for public posts made in the region, and making it easier for users to mass-delete comments on their posts.

Meta also said it had fixed several global bugs impacting the spread of information in the region.