Blog, YouTube & Content Monetization

For years, social media companies have disputed allegations that they harm children’s mental health through deliberate design choices that addict kids to their platforms and fail to protect them from sexual predators and dangerous content. Now, these tech giants are getting a chance to make their case in courtrooms around the country, including before a jury for the first time. Some of the biggest players from Meta to TikTok are facing federal and state trials that seek to hold them responsible for harming children’s mental health. The lawsuits have come from school districts, local, state and the federal government as well as thousands of families. Two trials are now u…

Massachusetts’ highest court heard oral arguments Friday in the state’s lawsuit arguing that Meta designed features on Facebook and Instagram to make them addictive to young users. The lawsuit, filed in 2024 by Attorney General Andrea Campbell, alleges that Meta did this to make a profit and that its actions affected hundreds of thousands of teenagers in Massachusetts who use the social media platforms. “We are making claims based only on the tools that Meta has developed because its own research shows they encourage addiction to the platform in a variety of ways,” said State Solicitor David Kravitz, adding that the state’s claim has nothing to do the company’s al…

Jurors in a bellwether trial about the impacts of social media on children watched a deposition of Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday that explored what the architects of Facebook and Instagram knew from internal research about the negative experiences of young users and how the company responded. New Mexico’s attorney general alleges that Meta violated state consumer protection laws in failing to disclose what it knew about the dangers of addiction to social media as well as child sexual exploitation on the company’s platforms. Attorneys for Meta say the company discloses risks and makes efforts to weed out harmful content and experiences — acknowledging that some ba…

In a new legal filing, Meta is being accused of shutting down internal research that showed people who stopped using Facebook experienced less depression, anxiety, and loneliness. The allegations come as part of a lawsuit filed by several U.S. school districts against Meta, Snap, TikTok, and other social media companies. The brief, which was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California but is not yet public, reportedly claims the study, called Project Mercury, was initiated in 2019 and was meant to explore the impact of apps on polarization, news-consumption habits, “well-being, and daily social interactions.” Plaintiffs in the suit say…

A New Mexico jury determined Tuesday that Meta knowingly harmed children’s mental health and concealed what it knew about child sexual exploitation on its social media platforms, a verdict that signals a changing tide against tech companies and the government’s willingness to crack down. The landmark decision comes after a nearly seven-week trial, and as jurors in a federal court in California have been sequestered in deliberations for more than a week about whether Meta and YouTube should be liable in a similar case. New Mexico jurors sided with state prosecutors who argued that Meta — which owns Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp — prioritized profits over safety, and v…

The world is in chaos, and many of us wish this wasn’t reality but a video game. Coperni, the French fashion label, captured this sentiment in its recent Paris Fashion Week show. The brand’s designers—Sébastien Meyer and Arnaud Vaillant—wanted to re-create old-school gamer culture, with the theme of “LAN Party,” which was an event in the ’90s where people would gather together to compete in video games. Coperni brought together 200 people to play games like Fortnite and Rocket League for 24 hours. The show captured the aesthetic of the ’90s, along with that era’s fascination with futuristic digital realities, like those depicted in films like Hackers and The Matrix. W…

Apple just lost a top design talent. Meta has hired Alan Dye, who was the head of Apple’s human interface design team. The company is filling his position with Stephen Lemay, who CEO Tim Cook told Bloomberg “has played a key role in the design of every major Apple interface since 1999.” Before being poached by Meta to become its chief design officer, Dye worked at Apple since 2006, where he oversaw projects including Liquid Glass and Vision Pro. By the end of his tenure, Dye reported directly to Cook. His departure is the latest in a game of musical chairs for top design roles at Apple. Apple’s former longtime chief design officer Jony Ive left the company in …

Meta is rolling out a new Facebook feature that the company says will help users share more photos—but which could also be used to help train its AI. The opt-in feature allows Facebook’s AI to access your phone’s camera roll in order to find photos it finds “shareworthy,” and to suggest edits using its AI tools. Users can then decide if they want to share the images or not. “With your permission and the help of AI, our new feature enables Facebook to automatically surface hidden gems – those memorable moments that get lost among screenshots, receipts, and random snaps – and edit them to save or share,” Meta said in its announcement explaining the new feature on …

Meta is bringing its Teen Accounts, which have stricter parental controls, to its Facebook and Messenger platforms on Tuesday, expanding its teen service from just Instagram. The social media giant rolled out Teen Accounts last year on Instagram that have built-in restrictions on who can contact teens, the content they see, and limits on their time on Instagram. Tuesday’s announcement also includes updates to Instagram’s teen service that will roll out in the next couple of months. Instagram said that teens under 16 will be prohibited from going Live unless their parents give them permission to do so. Teens under that age also will be required to have parenta…

The long-running rumor that Mark Zuckerberg is secretly a robot is starting to feel a lot less like a joke. According to a report by the Financial Times, Meta is building out a “photorealistic, AI-powered 3D” version of its CEO that employees can interact with and get direct feedback from. Sources told the publication that the bot will be trained on his image, mannerisms, tone, speaking style and public statements to give employees a fully authentic Zuck experience. Zuckerberg himself is directly involved with training the AI avatar “so that employees might feel more connected to the founder through interactions with it,” according to the Financial Times. He also star…

As Meta has poured hundreds of billions of dollars into outpacing its competition in the AI arms race, employees have been forced to get on board with its big bet. Meta employees have been asked to enthusiastically adopt AI and are now evaluated on their AI use in performance reviews. Recurring layoffs have reportedly stoked discontent: According to a recent New York Times report, employees have built websites to count down to another round of rumored job cuts next week. Now the company is also using mouse-tracking software to collect employee data that will help train Meta’s AI models—and employees are not having it. A Reuters report today revealed that an onli…

The European Union accused Meta on Wednesday of failing to stop underage users from accessing Facebook and Instagram, in violation of the bloc’s tough digital rules that require social media sites to protect minors. The EU’s executive branch said Meta Platforms lacked effective measures to prevent children younger than 13 from signing up, and that it was not doing enough to identify and remove children after they had opened accounts. Meta’s own minimum age to open an account on Facebook or Instagram is 13. The problem is not just that children are getting access. The European Commission said Meta is also inadequately assessing the risk of children younger than 13 being…

In a year defined by companies pouring shocking sums of money into AI, one more deal squeaked in just before 2026. Meta just made a play on Manus, the buzzy Singapore-based company with Chinese roots that turned heads earlier this year when it showed its AI agents executing complex tasks, like hunting for real estate and sorting through resumes. The deal is sure to turn heads too. Manus and its parent company Butterfly Effect are now based in Singapore but were founded in China – a country with a fraught relationship to the U.S tech industry – and maintain operations there. Facebook’s parent company will reportedly pay more than $2 billion to acquire the startup,…

Meta is working to make its apps better for boomers. This week the company announced new UX features designed to deter scammers and make Meta’s apps safer for older adults. Scammers today use all kinds of tricks to part people from their money, like soliciting personal information under the guise of fake government benefits, brazenly pretending to be customer service support, and chatting up unwitting people in the comments section of a real business’s social media page to lure them to another page. New features for older users Meta says its new in-app warnings are meant to combat that type of behavior, and will be triggered by suspicious activity. On t…

In January, Meta announced the end of third-party fact checkers on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads. The tech giant is betting on a new, community-driven system called Community Notes that draws on X’s feature of the same name and uses the X’s open algorithm as its basis. Meta is rolling out the feature today. Anyone who wants to write and rate community notes can sign up now. The rollout will be throttled and, initially, notes won’t appear publicly as Meta claims it needs time to feed the algorithm and ensure this system is working properly. The promise is enticing. A more scalable, less biased way to flag false or misleading content, driven by the wisdom of the crow…

The first Big Tech layoffs of 2026 have happened. This week, Facebook owner Meta Platforms reportedly informed employees that up to 1,500 positions in its Reality Labs division would be eliminated. Here’s what you need to know about the job cuts. What’s happened? Meta this week notified employees in its Reality Labs division that up to 10% of jobs could be lost, according to a Bloomberg report. A day earlier, the New York Times reported that the layoffs were expected. Reality Labs is a division of the social media giant primarily responsible for developing the company’s augmented and virtual reality products. The division was responsible for spearheading Meta’…

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has long encouraged people to use their phones, whether through the forsaken Poke on Facebook or uploading Reels on Instagram. But the company’s newest idea for how and when to take out your phone might be too big an ask for some cinema lovers: Meta wants people to use their phones in movie theaters, specifically for its chatbot Movie Mate. The chatbot, which Meta has reportedly claimed will “get audiences back in theaters,” works by sending moviegoers trivia, quips, and questions about the movie, according to the New York Times. The catch? All of this happens while the film plays in front of them. Fast Company has reached out to Meta fo…

Nothing is certain, they say, but death and taxes. But a new idea from Meta could add social media to that list. The tech giant was granted a patent in December that would allow it to simulate a user via artificial intelligence when he or she is absent from the social network for extended periods, including, “for example, when the user takes a long break or if the user is deceased.” The patent covers a bot that could simulate your activity across Meta’s products, including Facebook, Instagram, and Threads—making posts, leaving comments, and interacting with other users. It could even, potentially, communicate directly with people via chats or video calls, the pate…

Yesterday, shares of Facebook and Instagram owner Meta Platforms (Nasdaq: META) dropped nearly 8% in a single trading session, ending the day at $547.54 per share. Today, the stock price has continued to fall, down about 2.5% in early-morning trading. At its current price of around $533 per share, it has declined more than 32% since META shares reached an all-time high of over $796 per share last August. But why has Meta, led by CEO Mark Zuckerberg, seen its stock fortunes reversed so profoundly since last summer? There are three primary factors at play. Meta loses landmark social media addiction trial The most immediate factor affecting META stock is lik…

Meta’s fourth-quarter results jumped past Wall Street’s expectations thanks to solid advertising revenue, sending shares sharply higher in after-hours trading Wednesday. The company earned $22.77 billion, or $8.88 per share, in the October-December quarter. That’s up 9% from $20.84 billion, or $8.02 per share, in the same period a year earlier. Revenue grew 24% to $59.89 billion from $48.39 billion. Analysts, on average, were expecting earnings of $8.21 per share on revenue of $58.5 billion, according to a poll by FactSet. “Once again, Meta surpassed analysts’ earnings expectations for the quarter, cementing its position as one of the world’s most dominant…

Shares of Facebook owner Meta Platforms (Nasdaq: META) are surging in premarket trading this morning after the company announced its fourth-quarter 2025 earnings yesterday afternoon. The earnings not only exceeded investor expectations, but CEO Mark Zuckerberg also laid out his vision for how artificial intelligence is set to transform the company—and personal computing—in the years ahead. Here’s what you need to know. Meta reports strong Q4 2025 earnings Expectations for Meta’s Q4 2025 were relatively high, but when the company announced its latest quarterly earnings after the bell last night, they exceeded what most investors had hoped for. Here are the…

Shares of Meta Platforms, Inc. (META) rose on Thursday after Bloomberg reported the technology company was planning to cut spending across its division by 10%, with as much as 30% cuts to its virtual reality group, which includes the so-called metaverse. This could potentially include layoffs, which could come as early as January, and are part of the company’s 2026 budget, according to the article. Meta—the owner of Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Messenger, and WhatsApp—develops metaverse technologies, such as the Horizon Worlds platform. Fast Company has reached out to Meta for comment. Meta stock rose 5.7% in early trading Thursday, before settling up a…

Facebook parent Meta has reached nuclear power deals with three companies as it continues to look for electricity sources for its artificial intelligence data centers. Meta struck agreements with TerraPower, Oklo and Vistra for nuclear power for its Prometheus AI data center that is being built in New Albany, Ohio. Meta announced Prometheus, which will be a 1-gigawatt cluster spanning across multiple data center buildings, in July. It’s anticipated to come online this year. Financial terms of the deals with TerraPower, Oklo and Vistra were not disclosed. The Mark Zuckerberg-led Meta said in a statement on Friday that the three deals will support up to 6.6 gigawatts of …