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Bull and Bear

Bull	Bear
AI Advances	Leadership shakeup
Reels	Tiktok Strong Competitor
Whatsapp Monetization	Generation Z leaving
Celebreties plattform	Cultural Problems
Stable Usage	Incoming Recession
News Aggregator	Apple Privacy Changes
Founderlead	Pivot to Metaverse
Potential Tiktok Ban
Valuation
Employer Brand
Metaverse discounted

Results

See: Meta Platforms:Quarterly Results

Metaverse Reality Labs

September 27, 2023: At Meta Connect 2023, Meta announced Quest 3 headset priced at $499 and which will ship on August 10. Compared with Quest 2, the new headset is 40% thinner, around 500 grams heavier, 10x more pixels and 30% higher resolution. Passthrough, its most important feature enables you to see outside the headset and to stop an experience without having to remove it. Zuckerberg said 500 games and apps will come to Quest 3 including Xbox games which will come in December. He also said that Meta Quest for business will come next month. Meta also showcased the Ray-Ban smart glasses priced at $299 and are capable of livestreaming what a user is seeing in Facebook and instagram. Zuckerberg said the new glasses are lighter, more comfortable, more stylished and come with Meta AI in them.

September 14, 2023: Meta Platforms has announced that Horizon Worlds will start rolling out in mobile and web in early access. “To start, a small number of people can now access Super Rumble through the Meta Quest app on Android, with iOS rolling out in the coming weeks,” Meta said in a blog post. “Early access is also available on any web browser at horizon.meta.com,” it added. Meta said that they will roll out more worlds in the next few months.

August 4, 2023: Meta's Ray-Ban Stories launched in September 2021 have failed to attract many users, that's according to internal documents seen by the Wall Street Journal. The documents indicate that less than 10% of the Ray-Ban smart glasses are actively used. Meta sold 300k of these devices but Meta has only about 27k monthly active users. Meta sold each device at $299. Ray-Ban Stories enables users to take photos and videos. It also enables them to take phone calls and listen to music. Despite its low usage, it has experienced a return rate of 13%. Things impacting its usage include battery life, audio problems and voice commands and inability to import media from devices. The report added that Meta plans to launch the second generation of the device either in fall or next spring. The new smart glasses will take into account the issues noticed in the old model. A Meta spokesperson declined to comment on the report.

June 26, 2023: Meta launches Meta Quest+, a service that will give users access to two "handpicked" VR tittles each month. The subscription will go for $7.99 per month. However, for the first month, users will only pay $1 per month. The two games for July are Pistol Whip and Pixel Ripped 1995. In August, users will have access to Walkabout Mini Golf and Mothergunship: Forge. The plan is aimed at attracting new users to its Quest headsets.

June 1, 2023: CEO Mark Zuckerberg reveals Quest 3, whose price will start from $499. Meta Quest 3 will be 40% thinner than the previous device and will have color-mixed reality. It will also have better displays and resolution. Nevertheless, it combines augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) elements. Meta dominates the AR/VR market with 80% market share, having sold around 80% of the 8.8 million headsets sold in 2022-according to research firm IDC.

On February 28, Meta released its roadmap for AR/VR in the next 4 years. Here are the main things from the presentation.

• Its first pair of smart glasses with a neutral interface smartwatch to control them will come in 2025.

• Quest 3 headset will arrive later this year and it will be two times thinner, twice as powerful, and cost slightly more than the $400 Quest 2. Additionally, it will feature mixed reality experiences that don’t fully immerse the wearer.

• Meta has sold 20 million Quest headsets to date.

• Meta will ship 41 new apps and games for Quest 3.

• In 2024, Meta will ship Ventura, a more “accessible” headset. Its goal is to "pack the biggest punch we can at the most attractive price point in the VR consumer market,” said Mark Rabkin, the company’s vice president for VR

• Rabkin did not say whether Meta Quest Pro, which received poor reviews will have a second generation.

• Rabkin added that Quest 2 is struggling to retain new users.

• On AR, Meta will release the second generation of Meta’s camera-equipped smart glasses this fall.

• Third generation of smart glasses will come in 2025 and will have a display called “viewfinder” which can be used to view incoming text messages, scanning QR codes and translating texts into different languages in real time.

Product & Usage

October 18, 2023: On Wednesday, Meta Platforms announced that broadcast channels will be coming to Facebook and Messenger in the next few weeks. Admins to Facebook Pages can start broadcast channels to engage more deeply with their followers and anyone can join the channels. Only the creator of the broadcast channels can create the broadcast, but anyone react to it.

September 20, 2023: Meta Platforms said it will soon expand Meta Verified to businesses in Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. It said that testing will start in the coming weeks for Facebook and Instagram, but expansion to WhatsApp will come in the near future. Meta Verified business subscription will cost $21.99 USD/month per Facebook page or Instagram account, or $34.99 USD/month for both. The subscription will come with benefits such as a verified badge, impersonation protection, account support and features that help businesses stand out.

September 5, 2023: Meta is ending news tap in Facebook in early December in the UK, France and Germany. “We will not enter into new commercial deals for news content on Facebook News in these countries and do not expect to offer new Facebook products specifically for news publishers in the future," A Meta spokesperson said. Meta added that this is part of the “ongoing effort to better align our investments to our products and services people value the most”.

July 19, 2023: Meta makes its videos competitive with the likes of YouTube and TikTok by adding new features. It is also renaming its "watch" tab to "video" tab to bring all video experiences in one place. For instance, Meta is bringing Reels editing tools to main feed videos to enable artists create short and long videos in one place.Already, these tools are beeing rolled for Meta Business Suite users. Other features rolled by the company included the ability to adjust speed, reverse or replace a clip. Users will also be able to explore videos through the search button. When they press the search button, they will see various short and long videos with hashtags. Meta will also allow users to comment on Instagram Reels they watched on Facebook through the video discovery. But they will need to add both their Facebook and Instagram accounts in the accounts centre .

July 18,2023: Meta Platforms partners with Microsoft to make its LLAMA 2 free for research and commercial use. “Open source drives innovation because it enables many more developers to build with new technology,” Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post. “It also improves safety and security because when software is open, more people can scrutinize it to identify and fix potential issues. I believe it would unlock more progress if the ecosystem were more open, which is why we’re open sourcing Llama 2.” Meta said people can downoad the model dircectly or access it on Microsoft's cloud platform Azure. Additionally, the model will be available in Amazzon Web Services as well as Hugging Face. The financial terms associated with its partnership with Microsoft were not disclosed.

July 13, 2023: Meta plans to launch a commercial version of its AI model, enabling businesses to develop a custom software on top of it. Its software, which is powered by large language models (LLMs), can create texts, images and codes. According to Meta, its LLMs is "open-source", which means that data and code used to create it can be accessed by the public. According to the people familiar with the matter, the release of the commercial version is imminent. “The competitive landscape of AI is going to completely change in the coming months, in the coming weeks maybe, when there will be open source platforms that are actually as good as the ones that are not,” Meta vice-president and chief AI scientist, Yann LeCun recently said. Meta declined to comment on the news.

July 3, 2023: Meta plans to allow EU users to directly download apps through Facebook ads. The new scheme is set to start as a pilot with a handful of android developers before the end of this year. This new move is courtesy of a new EU regulation called the Digital Markets Act (DMA), that will come into effect in the next spring. The regulation considers Apple and Google as "gatekeepers" and are required to open up their mobile platforms to new methods of downloading apps. According to the Verge, Meta spokesperson, Tom Channick, confirmed the plan in an email statement that said, “We’ve always been interested in helping developers distribute their apps, and new options would add more competition in this space. Developers deserve more ways to easily get their apps to the people that want them.”

June 13, 2023: Meta releases I-JEPA, a human-like AI model that potentially has the ability to analyze and finish uncompleted images accurately compared to other AI models. This model uses background knowledge it has about the world to finish the images.

May 18, 2023: Meta has build custom silicon chips to help with AI and Video-processing tasks. Its vice president of infrastructure Alexis Bjorlin said the improved performance resulting from these chips will justify the huge costs associated with building them. For instance, Meta Scalable Video Processor (MSVP) chip is used to process and transmit videos while cutting down on energy requirements as Bjorlin noted “there was nothing commercially available” that could be used to transmit and process 4 billion videos a day as efficiently as Meta wanted. The other processor is the Meta Training and Inference Accelerator (MTIA), which is intended to handle "inference" and is aimed at powering Meta's ad recommendation algorithms. Meta added that it has also completed the final phase of its supercomputer known as Research SuperCluster (RSC), which will train Meta's LLaMA language model. These new hardware will eventually be used to operate tasks associated with Metaverse.

May 3, 2023: Meta announced new features that make it easier for users to discover and personalize Facebook Reels recommendations. You can now choose to see more or less Reels by tapping on the three-dot menu at the bottom of the video player, which has “Show More” or “Show Less.”

April 18,2023. Meta is reportedly moving away from Metaverse and is now pitching for Reels and AI to advertisers. While addressing the most recent layoffs, Zuckerberg mentioned Metaverse only twice but described AI development as Meta's "single largest investment." Also, in an effort to lure advertisers, Meta is now contented with advertisers spending the same level as last year instead of requiring them to spend 20% more like in the past. Meta is also offering up to 25% discount to advertisers willing to spend a certain amount testing its ad features in Reels, according to an ad client that spends more than $200 million annually on Meta.

April 5, 2023. Meta executive said that the company will commercialize its Proprietary AI by the end of this year.Andrew Bosworth, Meta's chief technology officer said its AI can improve an ad's effectiveness by availing tools to make it.He said Mark Zuckerberg and Chief Product Officer Chris Cox, are spending most of time on it.

On February 27 2023, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that the company will create a new product group focused in generative AI. The group will be under the current Chief Product Officer Chris Cox. They will develop “creative and expressive” tools that will be used by Meta's products. He said, “We’re exploring experiences with text (like chat in WhatsApp and Messenger), with images (like creative Instagram filters and ad formats), and with video and multi-modal experiences.”

On February 24 2023, Mark Zuckerberg announced that Meta is launching its own AI model called Llama ( "Large Language Model Meta AI). Llama is intended to assist engineers and scientists with exploration of applications for AI such as summarizing documents and answering questions. Unlike Chat-GPT 3 which has 175 billion parameters, Llama has 7 billion to 65 billion parameters, hence it is likely to be less costly to operate. Also, unlike Google's LaMDA and OpenAI’s ChatGPT models which aren't public, Llama's model will be made open to the research public.

On 22 February 2023, Bank of America(BoFA) analysts said in a research note that Meta Verified might end up being attractive to content creators, businesses and influencers. The analysts believe that the subscription service could achieve 12 million subscribers by 2024, helping Meta score $1.7 billion “in high-margin revenue in 2024.” The note added that the subscription service could outperform that of Meta's peers considering its broader audience and larger revenue opportunity.

On 20. February 2023 Meta announced that it started testing a new "verification" subscription service in Australia and New Zealand starting for $11.99 offering verifications, wider reach and custom help with accounts as well as some exclusive new unannounced features. Early results on a similar Twitter offering indicate lackluster adopt with just 180,000 U.S. Users or 0.2% of it's MAU opting to pay for the feature.

Management & Culture

Key People

• Mark Zuckerberg
• Yann LeCun - Chief AI Scientist

Developments

See also: Meta Platfoms:Employee Meetings | Meta Platforms:Management Videos

January 17, 2023: Sheryl Sandberg said she’s leaving Meta board after serving for 12 years but she will serve as an advisor going forward. Sandberg left her role as operating chief at Meta in mid-2022 after the company was surrounded by multiple controversies. “With a heart filled with gratitude and a mind filled with memories, I let the Meta board know that I will not stand for reelection this May,” Sandberg wrote in a Facebook post. “Going forward, I will serve as an adviser to the company, and I will always be there to help the Meta teams.”

June 26, 2023: According to Meta's head of global business group Nicola Mendelsohn, Zuckerberg's " Year of Efficiency" theme is beginning to pay off. "From my side, the product and the business teams have come together and we've never been closer than we are right now, and we're seeing that actually in the output from the product teams," she said. Her statement comes as people familiar with Meta's plans told Yahoo Finance that the company is diverting more resources to the development of new AI technologies and new features for WhatsApp and Reels. They added that fewer resources are going to Metaverse.

June 2, 2023: Meta asks employees to come to the office three days per week beginning in September, that's according to people familiar with the matter. Employees already working remotely will remain distributed. “We’re committed to distributed work, and we’re confident people can make a meaningful impact both from the office and at home,” a Meta spokesperson said. “We’re also committed to continuously refining our model to foster the collaboration, relationships and culture necessary for employees to do their best work."

May 26, 2023: Regarding the recent layoffs, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he hopes the company will move toward more stability and less bureaucracy. “So it’s not like we’re going to end up in exactly the place that we were before because that wasn’t my goal. I wanted to get to a scrappier place,” he said. He noted that one of the key goals is a "stronger technology company that can build better products faster.” "And the second is about improving our financial performance so we can sustain our ambitious, long-term investments and vision in what I continue to expect to be a difficult environment," he added.

March 22, 2023. Meta's vice president of business messaging, Dan Levy, will leave the company in May. He has been with the company for 14 years. His division has been flagged by Zuckerberg for growth potential, but until 2022, he served as head of ad and business products.

March 14, 2023. Meta announced that it will lay off 10,000 employees and close 5,000 open jobs that have not been hired. Due to the upcoming layoffs, the company adjusted its 2023 total expenses from $89-95 billion previously to be in the range of $86-92 billion. The company also highlighted some of its vision, culture and operating philosophy, which include; building a better technology company, improving business performance in a difficult economic environment and looking ahead.

The Leadership Team was shaken up in 2021 when Mark Zuckerberg announced the change to Meta. Long-serving COO Sheryl Sandberg as well as CTO Mike Schroepfer left the company. More in Discord

Competition

2. Twitter

Twitter accusses Meta of "systematic" and “unlawful misappropriation” of trade secrets. According to Elon Musk attorney Alex Spiro, Threads was developed by former Twitter employees. The accussations indicate that Musk is concerned about Thread's technical capabilities. Meta denied the allegations. Its director of communications, Andy Stone said, “No one on the Threads engineering team is a former Twitter employee,” “That’s just not a thing.” Meanwhile, thirty million users have signed up for Threads, according to its CEO Mark Zuckerberg. When asked whether Threads will outshine Twitter, Zuckerberg said, "It'll take some time, but I think there should be a public conversations app with 1 billion+ people on it. "Twitter has had the opportunity to do this but hasn't nailed it. Hopefully we will.".

Advertising Business

March 21, 2022. In a review of its own digital advertising data, Piper Sandler said that Meta is likely seeing a turnaround in its advertising downturn. It said that Meta's cost charged per thousand impressions (CPMs) declined by 9% year-over-year on average in February, better than the 17%, 14% and 25% decline in the prior 3 months. The same is true for Facebook, whose CPMs dropped 11% in the month, the best results in more than a year.

WhatsApp

October 19, 2023: Meta Platforms said multiple accounts are now coming to WhatsApp. To set up multiple accounts, you will need a second phone number and SIM card.

September 20, 2023: WhatsApp introduces Flows, a new feature aimed at improving experience for merchants and users. With Flows, users can book a train seat, order a meal or book appointment without leaving the app. Meta Platforms said it will make Flows available to businesses in the coming weeks. “Shopping & e-commerce is one of the biggest verticals we want to focus on. The goal is to enable business messaging in a way that businesses and people can do a lot more right in the chat thread. We are trying to build rich experiences within the chat, and that’s where Flows comes in,” Nikila Srinivasan, VP of business messaging at Meta, told TechCrunch. Meta said Flows will use the existing conversations payment model.

September 20, 2023: Meta Platforms launches WhatsApp payment feature in India. The move follows the introduction of the feature in Brazil and Singapore. The feature will enable users to buy goods and services from local businesses via a chat. India has 400 million WhatsApp users. The feature will support debit and credit cards and UPI apps similar to Venmo or Zelle. WhatsApp users will use the feature for free while businesses will pay a processing fee similar to that of credit cards. Unlike in Brazil where WhatsApp payment faced antitrust regulatory concerns, Meta Platforms doesn't expect any regulatory pushback in Brazil.

September 15,2023: Meta Platforms denied a Financial Times report that said WhatsApp teams are discussing whether to introduce ads in chats to boost revenue, but no final decision has been made yet. The report added that Meta is thinking of introducing an ad-free WhatsApp subscription. "This @FT story is false. We aren't doing this," WhatsApp head Will Cathcart said in an X post.

September 13, 2023: Meta Platforms said it will launch WhatsApp Channels in more than 150 countries in the coming coming weeks. WhatsApp Channels is a broadcast service that enables users to receive private messages from thought leaders, artists, sports teams and other organizations. WhatsApp Channels are seperate from chats and who you follow are not visible to other users. WhatsApp will recommend to users Channels based on their regions. Users will also be able to filter channels using "new", "most active", and "popular" filters. Additionally, users will be able to react to updates using emojis.

June 27, 2023: Meta Platforms announced today that its WhatsApp Business has crossed 200 million users, up from 50 million users in 2020. The company added that starting from today, WhatsApp Business users will be able to create Facebook and Instagram ads without a Facebook account. The business will only need to have an email adress and a form of payment. WhatsApp also announced a new paid messaging feature that will enable small businesses to reach customers more efficiently. Meta did not share the pricing details as the feature will be tested soon.

April 11, 2023: Meta has rolled out its WhatsApp payment tool to SMBs in Brazil.The tool will initially be available to WhatsApp Business clients.WhatsApp API clients(large clients) will start using the tool in Future. Already, WhatsApp API clients can use the tool in India(WhatsApp's largest market) . The tool has been used to make payments between users in Brazil since 2021.

Instagram

August 21, 2023: According to the Wall Street Journal, Meta Platforms will launch a web version of Threads early this week. Already, users can see web posts of Threads but their access is limited since the app is mostly intented for mobile phones. Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram said last week that the web version is already being tested internally and that it will launch soon. According to people familiar with it, the launch is expected this week though the launch plans aren't final. “It’s a little bit buggy right now, you don’t want it just yet,” Mosseri said. “As soon as it is ready we will share it with everybody else.” The search feature could help Threads reach more users after time spent on it declined sharply. According to SimilarWeb, time spent on Threads has dropped 85% since its launch. According to the data anlytics firm, Threads now has less than 10 million users, down from 50 million it attracted few days after its launch.

August 9, 2023: CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Threads will bring three new features in the coming weeks. The features include the ability to share a Thread post in your Instagram DM, a way to add alt text to photos or videos and a mention button that enables you to mention someone's account in your Thread post.

August 4, 2023: In the coming weeks, Instagram will add web and search features to its Threads app. "A good week for Threads. The community here is on the trajectory I expect to build a vibrant long term app. Lots of work ahead but excited about the team's pace of shipping. Search and web coming in the next few weeks," CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a Threads post.

July 28, 2023: According to Reuters, Meta executives plan new retention features for its Threads app after it lost more than half of its users weeks after its launch. "Obviously, if you have more than 100 million people sign up, ideally it would be awesome if all of them or even half of them stuck around. We're not there yet," CEO Mark Zuckerberg told employees in a town hall meeting. Zuckerberg said the drop in retention is "normal" and expects it to grow once the company adds desktop version and search functionality. Meta declined to comment on the meeting notes.

July 25, 2023: Instagram's Threads launched a "following" tab, which allows users to see chronological posts from people they follow instead of the algorithmitically curated content that appears in the "For you" feed. “Ask and you shall receive,” Zuckerberg wrote in Threads post. The "Following" and "For you" taps look similar to the Twitter layout. Threads also added an update that enables users to sort their "Activity" feed by quotes, reposts and follows. The update will also enable users to translate certain posts that appear in a different language as well as see their liked posts in the settings.

July 18, 2023: Threads starts implementing rate limits to wade off bots. “Spam attacks have picked up so we’re going to have to get tighter on things like rate limits, which is going to mean more unintentionally limiting active people (false positives),” Instagram head, Adam Mosseri, posted on Threads. “If you get caught up those protections let us know.” Meanwhile, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that he is optimistic on Threads engagement. “Early growth was off the charts, but more importantly 10s of millions of people now come back daily. That’s way ahead of what we expected,” Zuckerberg said. “The focus for the rest of the year is improving the basics and retention. It’ll take time to stabilize, but once we nail that, then we’ll focus on growing the community. We’ve run this playbook many times (FB, IG, Stories, Reels, etc) and I’m confident Threads is on a good path too," he added.

July 11, 2023: Instagram plans to bring its branded content tools to Threads, acording to people familiar with it. These tools will enable marketers to work with influencers on paid partnerships on Threads. The news come after Threads achieved 100 million users in five days. Meta has not responded to Reuters' request for a comment on the news. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg had said that they will only think about monetizing Threads once there is a clear path towards achieving a billion users. Despite its appeal to companies, Threads still lack hashtags and keyword search function.

July 6, 2023: Threads passed 10 million sign ups within 7 hours of launch. According to Techcrunch, the only downside of Threads as compared to Twitter is the possibility that it will have algorithmic junk. Threads doesn’t currently support ActivityPub, a protocall that supports posts on decentralized networks such as Mastodon but Meta has promised to avail it soon. "We’re committed to building support for ActivityPub, the protocol behind Mastodon, into this app. We weren’t able to finish it for launch given a number of complications that come along with a decentralized network, but it’s coming,” Instagram head Adam Mosseri said. “If you’re wondering why this matters, here’s a reason: you may one day end up leaving Threads, or, hopefully not, end up de-platformed. If that ever happens, you should be able to take your audience with you to another server. Being open can enable that," he noted.

July 4, 2023: Instagram is expected to launch its Twitter-like app on Thursday. According to a listing on Apple Inc.’s App Store, the app, called Threads will allow users to make posts that can be liked, commented on or shared. Users will also be able to follow accounts that they follow on Instagram. Additionally, they will be able to use the same username that they use in Instagram. On Apple App Store, the Threads has been described as “where communities come together to discuss everything from the topics you care about today, to what’ll be trending tomorrow.” The app is already available for "pre-order". By launching this app, Meta aims to take advantages of problems facing Twitter such as poor content moderation policies, account subscription fees and reliability issues such as the recent decision by Twitter to limit the number of posts that one can see. Meta platforms has, however, refused to comment on the speculations.

June 27, 2023: Analyst Ronald Josey of Citi maintained buy rating on Meta Platforms and raised price target to $360 from $315 while pointing out that;

• Though Instagram's app downloads were around 12% below that of TikTok this quarter, its monthly active users rose 6% year over year versus a 4% gain in TikTok's users.
• Though time spend on TikTok per monthly active users outpaces that of Instagram users by 41%( TikTok:31 hours, Instagram: 22 hours), growth in time spend per active users of Instagram has outpaced TikTok for a 7th consecutive month.
• Reels ad-load has hit 17% quarter-to-date and 18% this month.
• He believes advertising market is now "stable-to-improving".
• Josey believes advertising revenue will grow by 14% year over year in 2024 and Reels will account for around $10.5 billion in ad revenue.

May 19, 2023: Instagram is planning to release a twitter-like app in summer. People familiar with it said the company is currently testing the app with celebrities and influencers. It's currently in the process of testing it with celebrities and influencers. According to people familiar with it, the app will be separate from Instagram.

Analyst Opinions/Commentary

July 13, 2023: TD Cowen analyst raised Meta Platforms price target from $220 to $345 and upgraded it from market perform to outperform. The analyst believes that Meta second-quarter revenue and earnings will beat Wall Street estimate. He also believes that the company has potential to gain further market share due to improving engagement in Instagram Reels and Facebook. "TD Cowen Proprietary 2Q23 Social Survey Data through June '23 shows modest [year-over-year] engagement improvement at Instagram and Core Facebook," analyst John Blackledge wrote in an investor note. "Respondents once again indicated rising usage of IG Reels, suggesting that Reels could be a driver of incremental time spent on Instagram." Blackledge also raised his revenue and earnings estimates over the next five years by 8% and 7% on average, respectively. He also sees Meta monetizing Threads in Future. "We do not have any potential Threads rev. in our current Meta forecast, but if the service attracts further users and engagement, we expect Meta to start to monetize the app," he noted.

Debt

May 1, 2023: Meta platforms is looking to raise $7 billion in a five-part bond deal. The bond's longest portion, a 40-year security, could yield 215 basis points over Treasuries. Meta plans to use the proceeds to finance capital expenditures, fund share buybacks and for acquisitions or investments.

Regulatory Environment

December 2023

December 22, 2023: Meta’s Italian tax case has been referred to the EU Commission’s VAT committee for evaluation, Reuters reported citing three sources familiar with the matter. Meta faces a potential tax bill of around $954 million in Italy. The case relates to imposing VAT on online services provided by Meta. Though the commission’s assessment is non-binding, if it decides that the tax is applicable in Italy, other EU countries can impose it since taxes are harmonised at the European level.

September 2023

September 11, 2023: Meta starts implementing the Digital Markets Act (DMA) in WhatsApp. WABetaInfo reports that a new Android version of WhatsApp has a new screen called “third-party chats”, which enables users to receive messages from people using other messaging tools.

September 5, 2023: Meta lost a Norwegian appeal case that sought to stop a fine of $93,200 per day starting from August 4 for collecting user data and using it in its targetted advertising. The daily fine is to run for 3 months. The ruling could have wider implications in Europe as Datatilsynet, Norwey's data regulator, plans to refer it to the EU data regulator. "We are disappointed by today's decision and will now consider our next steps," a Meta spokesperson told Reuters.

September 5, 2023: Meta Platforms among those designated as "gatekeepers" of online services by the EU Commission. Under the European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), companies with more than 75 billion euros in market capitalization and 45 million monthly active users are considered as "gatekeepers". Companies labelled as such will be required to make their messaging apps interoperate with that of rivals and allow users to decide which apps to pre-install on their devices. A fine of up to 10% of annual global turnover will be imposed on any company that violates the DMA Act. The penalty can go up to 20% for repeated infringement. The "gatekeepers" will have six months to comply with the DMA obligations.

September 1, 2023: Meta is considering a paid version of Facebook and Instagram with no ads in Europe to combat privacy regulations, that's according to the New York Times. However, it doesn't plan to get rid of the free version of Facebook and Instagram. The New York Times did not indicate how much the new version will cost. Meta has not responded to a request for a comment.

August 2023

August 29, 2023: According to data from Similarweb and Data.ai, the decision by Meta to block news links in Canada has had no impact on Facebook's daily active users as well as time spent on the app. This supports Meta's assumption that news adds little value to the company. Meta had said that less than 3% of its Facebook Feeds come from news. Meta declined to comment on the data.

August 1, 2023: Meta has said that it will seek user consent before allowing businesses to send targeted ads to them. "Today, we are announcing our intention to change the legal basis that we use to process certain data for behavioural advertising for people in the EU, EEA (European Economic Area) and Switzerland from 'Legitimate Interests' to 'Consent'," Meta said in a blog post. The company noted that the change will not result in an immediate impact to its services in the region and that they factored it into its business outlook. "There is no immediate impact to our services in the region. Once this change is in place, advertisers will still be able to run personalised advertising campaigns to reach potential customers and grow their businesses. We have factored this change into our business outlook," it said. It added that it will share more information on how the process will work in practice in the coming months as it engages with the regulator.

July 2023

July 17, 2023: Norway's data protection authority, Datatilsynet, said it will fine Meta $100,000 per day over data breaches unless it takes action to resolve them. The regulator said the fine will start from Aug. 4 and will run until Nov. 3 unless action is taken by Meta. Datatilsynet said Meta can not collect user information such as physical address and use it for targeted advertising. "It is so clear that this is illegal that we need to intervene now and immediately. We cannot wait any longer," the head of Datatilsynet's international section, Tobias Judin told Reuters. Meta said it will review the decision while adding that no immediate impact on its services is expected. The company noted, "We continue to constructively engage with the Irish DPC, our lead regulator in the EU, regarding our compliance with its decision." "The debate around legal bases has been ongoing for some time and businesses continue to face a lack of regulatory certainty in this area." Norway is not a member of the EU but is part of the European single market.

July 10, 2023: The EU and the US have signed a new transatlantic deal that will allow the transfer of user data to the U.S., without causing any safety concerns. “Personal data can now flow freely and safely from the European Economic Area to the United States without any further conditions or authorisations,” EU Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders said at a press briefing in Brussels. However, the European privacy campaigner responsible for the legal challenges over the trans-Atlantic data transfer has dismissed the deal. Max Schrems said he will challenge the latest deal in an EU top court. The transatlantic deal created concerns for tech giants such as Meta. During the latest earnings, Meta warned that if an agreement on the trans-Atlantic EU-US data transfer doesn't materialize, it will be forced to stop offering its services in Europe. Roughly 10% of worldwide ad revenue comes from ads delivered to Facebook users in EU countries.

July 4, 2023: An EU Court of Justice has ruled that Meta must get user consent before sending personalized ads in certain circumstances. Unlike the recent decision by an Ireland court that fined Meta Platfroms $425 million and ruled that the company can't use its contracts to justify sending users personalized ads, today's rulling is not appealable. Meta Platforms started using an EU privacy law provision which cites the “legitimate interest” of its business after the former ruling. It also came up with forms which users can use to opt out of the personalized ads. However, the new ruling has stated that user's interest overrides the firm's " legitimate interest". It further stated that users must give consent freely instead of having to click "yes" to access a service. As such, the ruling will compel the likes of Facebook to ask users to opt in to ads that are of interest to them. It also gives the Ireland court a reason to quash the appeal that Meta is making regarding the former ruling. Meta spokesperson said that the company is evaluating the court's ruling and that it will comment further in due course.

June 2023

June 23, 2023: Canada's senate passed a bill yesterday that will require Meta and Google to pay news outlets for content shared on the platforms. Meta confirmed that it will comply with the bill by ending news availability on Facebook and Instagram for Canadian users. “We have repeatedly shared that in order to comply with Bill C-18, which was passed today in Parliament, content from news outlets, including news publishers and broadcasters, will no longer be available to people accessing our platforms in Canada,” said Lisa Laventure, head of communications for Meta in Canada.

June 2, 2023: Meta tests blocking Canadian users from accessing news content in Instagram and Fecebook. The bock is in response to a proposed bill that will require tech giants to pay publishers for reporting the content online. The Online News Act is being discussed in the senate and could be passed this month. Meta said it's ready to permanently block news content for Canadian Facebook and Instagram users if the bill is passed. The temporary block will affect 1-5% of its 24 million Canadian users.

May 2023

May 26, 2023: In an effort to avoid further U.K antitrust woes, Meta has given assurances on how it uses ad data to boost its Facebook Marketplace, which include;

(a) Enabling advertisers to opt-out of their advertising data which is used to develop the marketplace.

(b)Meta will train staff to ensure that they don't use advertiser data when creating new products for the U.K market that will affect its competitors.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has until June 26 to consult on these commitments and if they are satisfied, they will close investigation on Meta platforms.

May 22, 2023: Irish Data Protection Commission announced that it has fined Meta platforms €1.2 billion ($1.3 billion) for transferring user data to the U.S, where it will be exposed to the prying eyes of the American security services. The commission has also asked Meta Platforms to stop " any future transfer of user data to the U.S" within 5 months. Additionally, Meta Platforms has been asked to stop “the unlawful processing, including storage, in the US” of such data within 6 months. The ban was widely expected though its impact has been reduced by the transition phases included in the decision as well as the possibility of a new EU-US data flows agreement that could be operational by June of this year. This ruling applies only to Facebook and not WhatsApp or Instagram but the decision could force Meta to delete vast amounts of EU user data. Meta said they will appeal the decision and that no immediate disruption to Facebook services in the EU is expected. The company said during the latest earnings call that " roughly 10% of worldwide ad revenue comes from ads delivered to Facebook users in EU countries." It also warned last year that if a new transatlantic data transfer framework doesn't materialize, it will be forced to pull its Facebook and Instagram services from EU.

Disposals

May 24, 2023: Meta will sell Giphy to Shutterstock for $53 million cash deal. It acquired Giphy, a platform for searching for and using animated images in messaging apps in 2020 for $315 million. The news comes after the U.K regulatory authority ordered Meta to divest Giphy in 2022, citing possible anti-competitive effects.