Meta has fired "roughly 20" employees who leaked "confidential information outside the company," The Verge reported Thursday, citing the company. From the report: "We tell employees when they join the company, and we offer periodic reminders, that it is against our policies to leak internal information, no matter the intent," Meta spokesperson Dave Arnold tells The Verge. "We recently conducted an investigation that resulted in roughly 20 employees being terminated for sharing confidential information outside the company, and we expect there will be more. We take this seriously, and will continue to take action when we identify leaks."

Meta has ramped up its efforts to find leakers due to a recent influx of stories detailing unannounced product plans and internal meetings, including a recent all-hands led by CEO Mark Zuckerberg. After we and other outlets reported on what Zuckerberg said during that meeting, employees were warned not to leak.

New power plants burning natural gas are being built all across America, reports the Washington Post, calling it a gas boom "driven in large part by AI."

They blame tech companies like Microsoft and Meta — which "looked to gas amid a shortage of adequate new clean energy" — while noting that those companies "say they plan to offset their development of natural gas capacity with equal investments in clean energy like solar and wind." [E]ven coal is making a comeback. But the biggest push is for gas, with more than 220 plants in various stages of development nationwide. They are often pitched as a bridge until more clean power is available, sometimes with promises the plants will eventually be equipped with nascent technology that traps greenhouse gas emissions. But the timeline for installing such "carbon capture" is vague. "These companies are building these massive new gas plants that are going to be there for 30 to 50 years," said Bill Weihl, a former director of sustainability at Facebook and founder of the nonprofit ClimateVoice. "That's not a bridge. It is a giant bomb in our carbon budget...."

Public filings from some of the big tech companies driving this development show their greenhouse gas emissions are soaring... "The last few years have revealed that a global energy transition is more complex and less linear than anticipated," Microsoft's board wrote in urging rejection of a December shareholder resolution demanding the company confront the climate risks of AI. "While urgency builds for decarbonization, so does the demand for energy."

Shareholders rejected the resolution. Microsoft is battling with environmental groups over its plans to build a multibillion-dollar data center in Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, powered with electricity from natural gas. Their petition warns Microsoft's project "will push our state's climate goals out of reach, locking us into 30 more years of fossil fuels." The company said in a statement that it remains committed to erasing its emissions by adding substantial clean power to regional power grids. "By the end of 2025 we expect to meet our goal of adding new sources of carbon-free electricity to the grid equal to 100 percent of the electricity used by our datacenters," the statement said.

Meta says it is doing the same in Louisiana [where it's building a new 4-million-square-foot data center] and is "committed to matching our electricity use with 100 percent clean and renewable energy."
The article includes two revealing quotes:

• "It is like everyone just gave up," said Aaron Zubaty, CEO of Eolian, a large clean energy developer that works with data centers.

• American Petroleum Institute President Mike Sommers (who represents the oil and gas industry in Washington), said "The words that have replaced 'energy transition' are 'AI' and 'data centers'. We're transitioning from the energy transition to the energy reality ... We're going to need a lot more oil and gas."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from TechCrunch: A study by the Pew Research Center found that Americans' views of Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg skew more negative than positive. While Zuckerberg has sparked chatter in Silicon Valley with his sudden interest in high fashion, the Meta CEO is less popular than President Trump's right-hand man, Elon Musk, the report found. While about 54% of U.S. adults say they have an unfavorable view of Musk, 67% feel negatively toward Zuckerberg. [...] But Zuckerberg, the Facebook founder, is more universally disliked, though he draws more ire from the left-leaning demographic. While 60% of Republican and Republican-leaning respondents hold an unfavorable view of Zuckerberg, 76% of their Democratic counterparts share that sentiment.

So, while Zuck may be playing the part of the cool guy, Americans haven't been fooled by his gold chains or musical ambitions, it seems. Pew's study involved a panel of 5,086 randomly selected U.S. adults. The survey was conducted from January 27, 2025, through February 2, 2025, so these responses reflect people's recent opinions.

OpenAI has banned a group of Chinese accounts using ChatGPT to develop an AI-powered social media surveillance tool. Engadget reports: The campaign, which OpenAI calls Peer Review, saw the group prompt ChatGPT to generate sales pitches for a program those documents suggest was designed to monitor anti-Chinese sentiment on X, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and other platforms. The operation appears to have been particularly interested in spotting calls for protests against human rights violations in China, with the intent of sharing those insights with the country's authorities.

"This network consisted of ChatGPT accounts that operated in a time pattern consistent with mainland Chinese business hours, prompted our models in Chinese, and used our tools with a volume and variety consistent with manual prompting, rather than automation," said OpenAI. "The operators used our models to proofread claims that their insights had been sent to Chinese embassies abroad, and to intelligence agents monitoring protests in countries including the United States, Germany and the United Kingdom."

According to Ben Nimmo, a principal investigator with OpenAI, this was the first time the company had uncovered an AI tool of this kind. "Threat actors sometimes give us a glimpse of what they are doing in other parts of the internet because of the way they use our AI models," Nimmo told The New York Times. Much of the code for the surveillance tool appears to have been based on an open-source version of one of Meta's Llama models. The group also appears to have used ChatGPT to generate an end-of-year performance review where it claims to have written phishing emails on behalf of clients in China.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Just because Meta admitted to torrenting a dataset of pirated books for AI training purposes, that doesn't necessarily mean that Meta seeded the file after downloading it, the social media company claimed in a court filing (PDF) this week. Evidence instead shows that Meta "took precautions not to 'seed' any downloaded files," Meta's filing said. Seeding refers to sharing a torrented file after the download completes, and because there's allegedly no proof of such "seeding," Meta insisted that authors cannot prove Meta shared the pirated books with anyone during the torrenting process.

[...] Meta ... is hoping to convince the court that torrenting is not in and of itself illegal, but is, rather, a "widely-used protocol to download large files." According to Meta, the decision to download the pirated books dataset from pirate libraries like LibGen and Z-Library was simply a move to access "data from a 'well-known online repository' that was publicly available via torrents." To defend its torrenting, Meta has basically scrubbed the word "pirate" from the characterization of its activity. The company alleges that authors can't claim that Meta gained unauthorized access to their data under CDAFA. Instead, all they can claim is that "Meta allegedly accessed and downloaded datasets that Plaintiffs did not create, containing the text of published books that anyone can read in a public library, from public websites Plaintiffs do not operate or own."

While Meta may claim there's no evidence of seeding, there is some testimony that might be compelling to the court. Previously, a Meta executive in charge of project management, Michael Clark, had testified (PDF) that Meta allegedly modified torrenting settings "so that the smallest amount of seeding possible could occur," which seems to support authors' claims that some seeding occurred. And an internal message (PDF) from Meta researcher Frank Zhang appeared to show that Meta allegedly tried to conceal the seeding by not using Facebook servers while downloading the dataset to "avoid" the "risk" of anyone "tracing back the seeder/downloader" from Facebook servers. Once this information came to light, authors asked the court for a chance to depose Meta executives again, alleging that new facts "contradict prior deposition testimony." "Meta has been 'silent so far on claims about sharing data while 'leeching' (downloading) but told the court it plans to fight the seeding claims at summary judgement," notes Ars.

Meta's WhatsApp messaging service has surpassed 45 million users, earning the designation of a "Very Large Online Platform" under the EU's Digital Services Act. Bloomberg reports: WhatsApp's open channels, which are feeds affiliated with news outlets or public figures that under the DSA are comparable to a social network, averaged about 46.8 million monthly average users in the second half of 2024, Meta said in a filing on Feb. 14 that hasn't previously been reported. [...] The DSA content moderation rulebook imposes stricter requirements on very large online platforms, defined as those whose EU-based monthly active users exceed 45 million. Users of WhatsApp's core messaging feature do not count toward the designation under the DSA.

The commission would still need to rule that WhatsApp should be included in the more regulated tier. Under the DSA, very large online platforms must carry out risk assessments on the spread of illegal or harmful content, and put in place a mitigation strategy. Fines under the DSA can reach as much as 6% of a company's annual global sales. The DSA requires platforms to disclose user numbers every six months. Messaging service Telegram also published an update this week, saying that monthly EU users of its public channels are "significantly fewer than 45 million."

"Meta is involved in a class action lawsuit alleging copyright infringement, a claim the company disputes..." writes the tech news site Hot Hardware.

But the site adds that newly unsealed court documents "reveal that Meta allegedly used a minimum of 81.7TB of illegally torrented data sourced from shadow libraries to train its AI models." Internal emails further show that Meta employees expressed concerns about this practice. Some employees voiced strong ethical objections, with one noting that using content from sites like LibGen, known for distributing copyrighted material, would be unethical. A research engineer with Meta, Nikolay Bashlykov, also noted that "torrenting from a corporate laptop doesn't feel right," highlighting his discomfort surrounding the practice.

Additionally, the documents suggest that these concerns, including discussions about using data from LibGen, reached CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who may have ultimately approved the activity. Furthermore, the documents showed that despite these misgivings, employees discussed using VPNs to mask Meta's IP address to create anonymity, enabling them to download and share torrented data without it being easily traced back to the company's network.

Meta unveiled on Friday Project Waterworth, a 50,000-kilometer subsea cable network that will be the world's longest such system. The multi-billion dollar project will connect the U.S., Brazil, India, South Africa, and other key regions. The system utilizes 24 fiber pairs and introduces what Meta describes as "first-of-its-kind routing" that maximizes cable placement in deep water at depths up to 7,000 meters.

The company developed new burial techniques for high-risk areas near coasts to protect against ship anchors and other hazards. A joint statement from President Trump and Prime Minister Modi confirmed India's role in maintaining and financing portions of the undersea cables in the Indian Ocean using "trusted vendors." According to telecom analysts Telegeography, Meta currently has ownership stakes in 16 subsea networks, including the 2Africa cable system that encircles the African continent. This new project would be Meta's first wholly owned global cable system.

Arm will reportedly start making its own chips this year after signing Meta as a customer, according to the Financial Times (paywalled). TechCrunch reports: The chip is expected to be a CPU for servers in large data centers and can be customized for various customers. Arm will outsource its production. The first in-house Arm chip will be unveiled as early as this summer, the Financial Times also reported.

This is a notable change in strategy for the semiconductor company, which usually licenses its chip blueprints to companies like Apple and Nvidia. Making its own chips will turn some of its existing customers into competitors.

Meta began notifying staff of job cuts on Monday, kick-starting a process that will terminate thousands of people as the company cracks down on "low-performers" and scours for new talent to dominate the AI race. From a report: Meta workers who were let go were notified via email, and the company is offering US-based employees severance packages that include 16 weeks of salary, in addition two weeks for each year of service, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named because the details weren't public. Employees whose review merited a bonus will still get one, and staff will still receive stock awards as part of the upcoming vesting cycle later this month, the people said.

Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg told employees that Meta would cut 5% of its workforce -- as many 3,600 people -- with a focus on staff who "aren't meeting expectations," Bloomberg News first reported in mid-January. Affected US-based employees would be notified on Feb. 10, while international employees could learn later, Zuckerberg said last month. In a separate message to managers, the Facebook co-founder said the cuts would create headcount for the company to hire the "strongest talent."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CBS News: Animal shelters, rescues, and veterinarian clinics around the U.S. are posting on social media telling pet owners to check their four-legged friends' microchips after learning a major microchip company [called Save This Life] is no longer providing services. [...] If you're unsure which company your cats or dogs' chips are registered with, check them. "You can go to your local veterinarian office, a local police station, or even a local animal shelter like HARP, and we can help check that for you and scan your animal. And then you take that number that's on there and there's a tool online where you can go look it up," [said Dan Cody, Executive Director of Humane Animal Rescue of Pittsburgh].

He said you check the number by using the AAHA Universal Microchip Lookup Tool at this link. If you discover your pet's microchip was registered to the company that's ceased operations, you'll need to register with a different company. "So, if you find that you are affected by this, you're going to want to go to one of these other websites that do the registrations. So, things like AKC Reunite, and PetLink. 24PetWatch these are all large companies who've been around for a long time and have good reputations," said Cody.

The American Kennel Club shared a post from its AKC Reunite Facebook page, encouraging people to enroll in microchips with AKC Reunite. The post said in part, "If your dog or cat has a microchip number that starts with 991 or 900164 then it could be a Save This Life microchip. Save This Life suddenly closed, and your pet may not be protected." Cody said if your furry best friend isn't microchipped, take them to a vet or shelter like HARP to get one implanted under their skin so they have a permanent ID. Microchipping can be done at HARP's East Side and North Side Veterinary Medical Center by appointment.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Newly unsealed emails allegedly provide the "most damning evidence" yet against Meta in a copyright case raised by book authors alleging that Meta illegally trained its AI models on pirated books.

Last month, Meta admitted to torrenting a controversial large dataset known as LibGen, which includes tens of millions of pirated books. But details around the torrenting were murky until yesterday, when Meta's unredacted emails were made public for the first time. The new evidence showed that Meta torrented "at least 81.7 terabytes of data across multiple shadow libraries through the site Anna's Archive, including at least 35.7 terabytes of data from Z-Library and LibGen," the authors' court filing said. And "Meta also previously torrented 80.6 terabytes of data from LibGen."

"The magnitude of Meta's unlawful torrenting scheme is astonishing," the authors' filing alleged, insisting that "vastly smaller acts of data piracy -- just .008 percent of the amount of copyrighted works Meta pirated -- have resulted in Judges referring the conduct to the US Attorneys' office for criminal investigation."

Meta's metaverse ambitions face a decisive year in 2025, with Chief Technology Officer Andrew Bosworth warning employees that the project could become either "a legendary misadventure" or prove visionary, Business Insider is reporting, citing an internal memo. Bosworth called for increased sales and user engagement for Meta's mixed reality products, noting the company plans to launch several AI-powered wearable devices.

The tech giant's Reality Labs division, which develops virtual and augmented reality products, reported record revenue of $1.08 billion in the fourth quarter but posted its largest-ever quarterly loss of $4.97 billion. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told staff the company's AI-powered smart glasses, which sold over 1 million units in 2024, marked a "great start" but would not significantly impact the business. The Reality Labs unit has accumulated losses of approximately $60 billion since 2020.

Meta's investment in virtual and augmented reality is set to exceed $100 billion this year as CEO Mark Zuckerberg declares 2025 a "defining year" for its smart glasses ambitions. The company invested $19.9 billion in its Reality Labs division last year, according to its annual report, bringing total spending on VR and AR development to over $80 billion since 2014. The unit, which develops Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses and Quest VR headsets, sold 1 million pairs of glasses in 2024 but continues to post losses, according to Financial Times.

Tom's Hardware reports: Facebook's heavy-handed censorship of Linux groups and topics was "in error," the social media juggernaut has admitted. Responding to reports earlier this week, sparked by the curious censorship of the eminently wholesome DistroWatch, Facebook contacted PCMag to say that it had made a mistake and that the underlying issue had been rectified.

"This enforcement was in error and has since been addressed. Discussions of Linux are allowed on our services," said a Meta rep to PCMag. That is the full extent of the statement reproduced by the source... Copenhagen-hosted DistroWatch says it has appealed against the Community Standards-triggered ban shortly after it noticed it was in effect (January 19). PCMag received the Facebook admission of error on January 28. The latest statement from DistroWatch, which now prefers posting on Mastodon, indicates that Facebook has lifted the DistroWatch links ban.
More details from PCMag: Meta didn't say what caused the crackdown in the first place. But the company has been revamping some of its content moderation and plans to replace its fact-checking methodology with a user-driven Community Notes, similar to X. "We're also going to change how we enforce our policies to reduce the kind of mistakes that account for the vast majority of the censorship on our platforms," the company said earlier this month, in another irony.

"Up until now, we have been using automated systems to scan for all policy violations, but this has resulted in too many mistakes and too much content being censored that shouldn't have been," Meta added in the same post.

According to the Wall Street Journal (paywalled), Meta is in talks to move its incorporation from Delaware to Texas or other states. Reuters reports: The social media giant has talked to Texas officials about the potential changes, WSJ said, adding that the discussions predate President Donald Trump's new administration. The paperwork change would not relocate its corporate headquarters.

A Meta spokesperson said that it does not plan on shifting its corporate headquarters out of Menlo Park, California, but declined to comment on reincorporation when contacted by Reuters. Texas is perceived by some businesses as having a more favorable legal and regulatory environment, particularly in areas such as taxation and corporate governance, which can be attractive to companies looking to cut costs and streamline operations.

At an all hands meeting inside Meta Thursday, the company's co-founder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said he was increasingly careful about what he says internally at Meta. From a report: "Everything I say leaks. And it sucks, right?," Zuckerberg said. Meta made changes to the question-and-answer section of the company all hands meeting because of the leaks, Zuckerberg said, according to meeting audio obtained by 404 Media. "I want to be able to be able to talk about stuff openly, but I am also trying to like, well, we're trying to build stuff and create value in the world, not destroy value by talking about stuff that inevitably leaks," he said.

So rather than take direct questions, the company used a "poll" system, where questions asked beforehand were voted on so that "main themes" of questions were addressed. "There are a bunch of things that I think are value-destroying for me to talk about, so I'm not going to talk about those. But I think it'll be good. You all can give us feedback later," he added. "Maybe it's just the nature of running a company at scale, but it's a little bit of a bummer."

Facebook has banned posts mentioning Linux-related topics, with the popular Linux news and discussion site, DistroWatch, at the center of the controversy. Tom's Hardware reports: A post on the site claims, "Facebook's internal policy makers decided that Linux is malware and labeled groups associated with Linux as being 'cybersecurity threats.' We tried to post some blurb about distrowatch.com on Facebook and can confirm that it was barred with a message citing Community Standards. DistroWatch says that the Facebook ban took effect on January 19. Readers have reported difficulty posting links to the site on this social media platform. Moreover, some have told DistroWatch that their Facebook accounts have been locked or limited after sharing posts mentioning Linux topics.

If you're wondering if there might be something specific to DistroWatch.com, something on the site that the owners/operators perhaps don't even know about, for example, then it seems pretty safe to rule out such a possibility. Reports show that "multiple groups associated with Linux and Linux discussions have either been shut down or had many of their posts removed." However, we tested a few other Facebook posts with mentions of Linux, and they didn't get blocked immediately. Copenhagen-hosted DistroWatch says it has tried to appeal against the Community Standards-triggered ban. However, they say that a Facebook representative said that Linux topics would remain on the cybersecurity filter. The DistroWatch writer subsequently got their Facebook account locked... DistroWatch points out the irony at play here: "Facebook runs much of its infrastructure on Linux and often posts job ads looking for Linux developers."

UPDATE: Facebook has admited they made a mistake and stopped blocking the posts.

Meta's AI chatbot will now use personal data from users' Facebook and Instagram accounts for personalized responses in the United States and Canada, the company said in a blog post. The upgraded Meta AI can remember user preferences from previous conversations across Facebook, Messenger, and WhatsApp, such as dietary choices and interests. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the feature helps create personalized content like bedtime stories based on his children's interests. Users cannot opt out of the data-sharing feature, a Meta spokesperson told TechCrunch.

Meta has set up four war rooms to analyze DeepSeek's technology, including two focusing on how High-Flyer reduced training costs, and one on what data High-Flyer may have used, The Information's Kalley Huang and Stephanie Palazzolo report. China's DeepSeek is a large-language open source model that claims to rival offerings from OpenAI's ChatGPT and Meta Platforms, while using a much smaller budgets.