SAN FRANCISCO: A shareholder lawsuit filed late Monday accuses board members of Instagram and Facebook parent Meta of shirking their duties by ignoring human and sex trafficking on the tech giant’s social platforms.
The suit filed in the Court of Chancery in the US state of Delaware calls for Mark Zuckerberg, along with other executives and board members, to be ordered to institute reforms and pay damages.
Meta board members and senior executives named in the suit “turned a blind eye to sex/human trafficking, child sexual exploitation, and other predatory conduct occurring on Meta’s online platforms,” the suit charged.
Meta chief and controlling shareholder Zuckerberg is a primary target of the lawsuit.
“We prohibit human exploitation and child sexual exploitation in no uncertain terms,” Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said in reply to an AFP enquiry.
“The claims in this lawsuit mischaracterize our efforts to combat this type of activity.”
Those behind the suit include Employees’ Retirement System of the State of Rhode Island, Kiwi Investment Management Wholesale Core Global Fund, and Teamsters Pension Fund, according to the filing.
Meta has teams, policies, partnerships and software devoted to thwarting misuse of its platforms for criminal activities.
Meta already faces numerous lawsuits on an array of grounds, including whether it is harmful to the mental health of young users of its social networking services.
The tech titan has been under increasing pressure from legislators since 2021, when whistleblower Frances Haugen — a former Facebook engineer — leaked documents suggesting the firm put profits before safety.
Suit says Meta board ‘turned blind eye’ to human trafficking
https://arab.news/ynvur
Suit says Meta board ‘turned blind eye’ to human trafficking
- Claims mischaracterize platform efforts to combat this type of activity, Meta argues
US fines Microsoft $20 million over child data violations
- Microsoft allegedly collected personal data from children under age 13 who signed up to its Xbox gaming system from 2015 to 2020 without their parents’ permission and retained this information
WASHINGTON: Microsoft will pay $20 million to settle government charges that it collected personal information from children without their parents’ consent, officials said Monday.
The Federal Trade Commission alleged that from 2015 to 2020 Microsoft collected personal data from children under age 13 who signed up to its Xbox gaming system without their parents’ permission and retained this information.
To open an account, users had to provide their first and last names, an email address, and date of birth.
The FTC said Microsoft violated a law called the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA.
“Our proposed order makes it easier for parents to protect their children’s privacy on Xbox, and limits what information Microsoft can collect and retain about kids,” said Samuel Levine, head of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection.
“This action should also make it abundantly clear that kids’ avatars, biometric data, and health information are not exempt from COPPA,” Levine added.
The decision still needs the approval of a federal court before it can be implemented.
The FTC said Microsoft will be required to take several steps to bolster privacy protections for child users of its Xbox system.
Under the COPPA law, online services and websites aimed at kids under 13 must notify parents about the personal information they collect and obtain verifiable parental consent before collecting and using any personal information collected from children.
Microsoft did not immediately reply to an AFP request for comment.
Saudi Data and AI Authority joins Majarra’s Renaissance Partners program
- The authority will fund 1,000 free subscriptions to Majarra, an Arabic digital content provider, for data experts and AI applications specialists
- Majarra will provide an additional 1,000 subscriptions for Saudi youths who are interested in pursuing careers in technical fields
DUBAI: The Saudi Data and Artificial Intelligence Authority has joined Arabic digital content provider Majarra’s Renaissance Partners program. The initiative offers organizations the opportunity to sponsor subscriptions for people who cannot afford to pay for Majarra content.
As part of the partnership agreement, the authority will fund 1,000 free subscriptions for data experts and AI applications specialists in the Kingdom. Majarra will match this by providing an additional 1,000 subscriptions for Saudi youths interested in pursuing careers in technical fields.
“With strategic partners like SDAIA, Saudi youth interested in the field of artificial intelligence can access up-to-date, exclusive content every day that would help them understand recent developments in their fields of interest, and enhance their skills accordingly,” said Dia Haykal, director of brand and partnerships at Majarra.
A Majarra subscription grants access to five websites: Harvard Business Review, MIT Technology Review, Popular Science, Nafseyati, and Stanford Social Innovation.
Prince Harry’s battle with British tabloids heads for courtroom showdown
LONDON: Prince Harry failed to appear on Monday at the High Court in London where he is suing a British tabloid publisher, with the judge saying he was surprised by his absence and a lawyer for the papers calling his no-show “extraordinary.”
Harry, King Charles’ younger son, will face hours of questioning in the witness box on Tuesday, becoming the first senior British royal to give evidence in court for 130 years.
He is one of more than 100 other high-profile figures suing the Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN), the publisher of the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror and Sunday People, for alleged phone-hacking and other unlawful behavior between 1991 and 2011.
The trial began last month, as lawyers representing Harry and three other test claimants attempted to prove that unlawful information gathering was carried out with the knowledge and approval of senior editors and executives.
Harry’s allegations are the focus of the trial this week, and the prince had been expected to attend on Monday.
His lawyer David Sherborne told the judge, Timothy Fancourt, that Harry had flown from his home in Los Angeles on Sunday evening, after attending his daughter Lilibet’s second birthday, but was not available to give evidence on Monday.
“His travel arrangements are such and his security arrangements are such that it is a little bit tricky,” Sherborne told the packed courtroom.
Fancourt said he was “surprised” after he had asked that the first witness in each of the four test cases appear in court on the first day of their individual case.
MGN’s lawyer Andrew Green said it was “absolutely extraordinary” that the prince would not be there on Monday, and accused his legal team of wasting the court’s time, saying he had expected to start cross-examining the royal.
Green is seeking to question Harry for more than a day over 33 articles which the prince says were based on material which was unlawfully obtained. It means Harry could be returning to give further evidence on Wednesday.
MGN, now owned by Reach, apologized at the start of the trial for one admitted occasion that the Sunday People had unlawfully sought information about Harry, accepting he was entitled to compensation.
The publisher has previously admitted its titles were involved in phone-hacking and has settled more than 600 claims at a cost of more than 100 million pounds ($120 million) in damages and costs.
But it has rejected all Harry’s other allegations, saying he had no evidence for his claims. Buckingham Palace is likely to feature prominently in Harry’s cross-examination, with MGN arguing that some information had come from royal aides.
DISTRESS
In court documents, Harry says the impact of the alleged unlawful activities was to cause him “huge distress” and paranoia, blaming it for the breakdown of his relationship with ex-girlfriend Chelsy Davy.
“Prince Harry was one of the most written-about individuals in these three newspapers,” said Sherborne, saying some 2,500 articles had appeared about Harry’s private life in the MGN titles.
“Stories about him were some of the most likely to drive sales and the suggestion that there was just one instance of unlawful information gathering at one of these newspapers, we say is plainly implausible.”
This week’s appearance will be the second time this year Harry has attended the High Court, after joining singer Elton John and others for hearings in March over their lawsuit against the publisher of the Daily and Sunday Mail tabloids.
Harry, the fifth-in-line to the throne, has barely been out of the headlines in the last six months.
He is in engaged in several legal battles with the British press, including a similar phone-hacking case against Rupert Murdoch’s British newspaper arm.
The prince has also accused his family and their aides in his memoir and Netflix documentary series of colluding with tabloids. The palace has not commented on those accusations.
Kremlin: Western journalists won’t get accreditation for Russian economic forum
- “It has indeed been decided this time not to accredit publications from unfriendly countries to the SPIEF,” Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told TASS
- “Interest in SPIEF is always great, all other journalists will work on the site“
MOSCOW: The Kremlin said on Saturday that journalists from “unfriendly countries” would not be allowed into the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum, which President Vladimir Putin has used to showcase the Russian economy to global investors.
“It has indeed been decided this time not to accredit publications from unfriendly countries to the SPIEF,” Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told TASS, using the acronym for the forum which is held annually in Russia’s former imperial capital.
“Interest in SPIEF is always great, all other journalists will work on the site,” Peskov said. “Unfriendly countries” is a definition used by Moscow to describe those who have sanctioned it over the war in Ukraine.
Reuters’ Moscow bureau was told by the organizers of the forum on Friday that accreditation for its journalists had been canceled after receiving an earlier confirmation of accreditation on Thursday.
Reuters sought written clarification but none has been issued yet.
The Kremlin has repeatedly said it will not close “the window” to Europe which Tsar Peter the Great sought to open 300 years ago even though the West has imposed the most onerous sanctions in recent history over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Inaugural Saudi Festival of Creativity to be held in Riyadh
- Event to be hosted by Motivate Media Group, TRACCS
DUBAI: UAE-based Motivate Media Group, and communications consultancy TRACCS — which started in and is headquartered in Saudi Arabia — have announced the launch of the inaugural Athar — Saudi Festival of Creativity, in Riyadh in November.
The festival aims to bring together the creative and marketing industries in Saudi Arabia to recognize and celebrate them.
Mohamed Al-Ayed, vice chairman of Athar Festival and CEO of TRACCS, said that the event would “enable and empower a new generation of creative-first Saudi marketers and inspire the sustainable development of the country.”
The festival — which is being held over four days — will include a variety of training courses, roundtables, C-suite sessions, young talent competitions, and an awards ceremony.
It will also boast exclusive programs for women and executive marketers.
The awards will be presented to agencies, networks, and brands, and will be verified by Cannes Lions and Dubai Lynx.
Ian Fairservice, chairman of Athar Festival and managing partner and group editor-in-chief of Motivate Media Group, said: “The festival will be a dynamic and vibrant meeting place in Saudi Arabia where culture, creativity, talent, and technology will collide.
“It is a celebration of the power of creativity in an environment that inspires cultural exchange, collaborative innovation, tangible learning, and training and development.”
