Now Zuckerberg is in trouble.  Turns out that his company was working out algorithms to snare Chinese people and I don’t know what all. 

Will Trump get revenge on those who have not been very kind, in this case maybe someone who sold out the country?  I guess a court with all the information can figure that out.  They thought Trump was down and out for good.  Every kind of lawfare was unleashed against him, and now he’s in charge. Maybe if they’d have laid off, let bygones be bygones.  But no.  They tried to bury him.  It would be nice if everybody would just go about their business, but now it’s time for a founding principle to take hold.  

I know everybody’s tried to make nice.  It was a who’s-who at Mar-a-Lago, so many people were showing up we could scarcely keep track.  But everybody’s not off the hook.  It’s going to be hard to watch, but justice may be coming for some big names.  If they sold out the country for corporate profits, good luck to them.  

Trump has the whole world jumping around hoping to stay on his good side.  Things are being turned upside down, and needed to be.  This thing with USAID is unbelievable.  Our tax dollars have been sent overseas for stuff we’d never sign up for.  We’re going to be finding out information we’d just as soon have done without, some reprehensible stuff.  I’m not going to detail it in the Update.  No way I’m letting that in my mind.  

The usual suspects are running rampant, for now.  They’re crying crocodile tears over some man who got deported.  They’ve got his wife, and she’s beside herself.  One guy, and not a particularly nice one, got swept up in the deportations.  We all feel the wife’s pain, but her guy was not exactly pure as the driven snow.  The media’s all up in arms, crying for his return to the United States.  Maybe both of them should be deported!  We’re not the world, I don’t care what they sang at Disneyland, we’re the United States and proud of it.  We’re no longer a dumping ground, the words on the Statue of Liberty notwithstanding.  Maybe the French saw this day coming.

Have you ever seen everybody so energized?  Either they are outraged at Donald Trump’s decisions, or they’re trying to make nice.  Maybe he won’t notice.  The media is trying to equate Donald Trump and his team with the mafia.  They’ve tried to make something out of everything.  Maybe they’ll find something, eventually, but I doubt it.  What do you do about a man (several men actually) that can’t be bribed?  We’re in uncharted waters. 

The whole world has been turned upside down, and nobody knows what to do.  Rich men who love the country making the decisions? How good does it get?  The democrats are losing their minds.  They never expected that they were so out of touch.  They thought they’d just keep turning up the heat, and there’s no denying that we are long-suffering people, but they pushed it too far.  If you watch a Trump interview, like the one with Oprah, you’ll get a glimpse.  He was a much younger man at the time, but we were spending like drunken sailors and the financial system couldn’t stand like this forever.

They’re crying over the circumstances just now, and no doubt there’s going to be some pain.  The wild gyrations of the stock market are causing losses for Trump supporters.  But if we survive what Elon is doing and play along we’re going to be glad we did.  

I thought we were done for, the damage was irreparable.  And it might have been, but it’s a whole new era.  We’ve got geniuses looking out for us, and the heartbroken breast-beaters are crying in their beer.  I don’t know how things are going to turn out with Canada.  They were inclined to look upon Americans with jealousy about the election. But that was before Trump suggested we should make Canada a state.  Now I don’t know how they feel.  It turns out that there’s some trade imbalance that Trump wants straightened out.  Uh oh.  We’ve always been friends with Canada, and we’d like it to stay that way.  But business is business.

You don’t know what’s going to happen in the Middle East.  Trump means business and they know it.  He’s given Israel free reign.  Everybody better straighten up and fly right, or there’s going to be hell to pay.  Literally.

Here and there they’re still preaching the nonsense we’ve been putting up with for all these years.  I don’t think that can go on much longer.  Forty years later, we’re not scared anymore, I don’t care what Al Gore says.                    

Mark

The post Weekly Update by Mark Armstrong – April 11, 2025 first appeared on Garner Ted Armstrong Evangelistic Association.

“We’re going to get back to our roots and focus on reducing mistakes, simplifying our policies and restoring free expression on our platforms,” Zuckerberg said in a video posted Tuesday morning.

“More specifically, here’s what we’re going to do. First, we’re going to get rid of fact-checkers and replace them with community notes similar to X, starting in the U.S.”

The changes mark a major move for the parent company of Instagram and Facebook and follows a series of other changes the company has made in recent weeks as President-elect Trump heads into his second term later this month.

Zuckerberg cited the recent election as a driving force in the company’s decision, slamming “governments and legacy media” as pushing the company to “censor more and more.”

Continue reading HERE

Source: https://thehill.com/policy/technology/5070980-meta-fact-checking-policy-changes/

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U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers ruled Monday, excusing Zuckerberg from being held liable, but said the case against Meta, the parent company to Facebook and Instagram, still stands.

Lawsuits filed against Meta on behalf of youth argue that features on the social media platforms are designed to addict children.

They argue that Zuckerberg was warned that Instagram and Facebook weren’t safe platform for kids but ignored those warnings. The plaintiffs say Zuckerberg had an “exclusive and superior knowledge” of how Meta’s products could harm minors.

Continue reading HERE

Source: https://thehill.com/policy/technology/4597362-zuckerberg-wins-bid-to-avoid-personal-liability-in-addiction-lawsuits/

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“Threads reached 100 million sign ups over the weekend. That’s mostly organic demand and we haven’t even turned on many promotions yet. Can’t believe it’s only been 5 days!” Zuckerberg said in a post on the new platform.

Threads saw some 30 million downloads in the first few hours it was live, and it reached 70 million by Friday, the Meta CEO said.

Meta, which is the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has positioned Threads as an alternative to Twitter, the app bought out last year by Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.

Continue reading HERE

Source: https://thehill.com/policy/technology/4088615-threads-hits-100-million-signups-first-week/

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Many Twitter users scoffed at the social media company’s rebrand — revealed by founder Mark Zuckerberg earlier this week — using the hashtag #FacebookDead. “Somebody did not do their #branding research,” one post read.

Dr Nirit Weiss-Blatt, author of The Techlash and Tech Crisis Communication, tweeted: “In Hebrew, *Meta* means *Dead* The Jewish community will ridicule this name for years to come.”

“Grave error?? Facebook’s new name Meta means dead in Hebrew. Hilarious. #FacebookDead” another user tweeted.

Zuckerberg’s efforts to revamp Facebook come as the company faces what could be its most potent scandal since it launched in 2004.

The social media giant is under the spotlight following the publication this week of “The Facebook Papers,” a series of internal documents obtained by 17 news organizations, including CNN, that underpin whistleblower Frances Haugen’s claims the company is riddled with institutional shortcomings.

The documents reveal how Facebook has propelled misinformation, struggled to eliminate human trafficking-related content on the site, and tried to increase its teenage audience, despite internal research suggesting that its platforms, especially Instagram, can have an adverse effect on their mental health.

Facebook isn’t the first company to be ridiculed after its branding didn’t translate abroad.

In 2019, Kim Kardashian West was accused of cultural appropriation after debuting her shapewear brand, which she initially named Kimono. Kardashian even appeared to have trademarked the word “kimono,” a decision that the mayor of Kyoto, Daisaku Kadokawa, criticized in an open letter on Facebook.

“We think that the names for ‘Kimono’ are the asset shared with all humanity who love Kimono and its culture therefore they should not be monopolized,” Kadokawa wrote.

Kardashian changed the name of her brand to Skims later that year.

In 2017, McDonald’s name change in China raised eyebrows. Customers were left confused when the company swapped Maidanglao, a Chinese iteration of the English name, to Jingongmen, which loosely translates to “Golden Arches.” One customer said it “sounds like a furniture store.”

And when the Nissan Moco was launched in the early 2000s, Spanish-speaking customers may have looked twice, as the word “moco” translates to “bogey.” Needless to say, the name was only used in Japan.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/30/tech/hebrew-speakers-mock-facebook-meta-rebrand-intl-scli/index.html

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Former Facebook employee Frances Haugen testifies during a Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation hearing entitled ‘Protecting Kids Online: Testimony from a Facebook Whistleblower’ on Capitol Hill October 5, 2021 in Washington, DC. Picture: Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images

US lawmakers have accused Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg of pushing for higher profits while being cavalier about user safety, and demanded regulators investigate whistleblower accusations that the social media company harms children’s mental health and stokes divisions.

Zuckerberg, hours later in a public Facebook post, defended the company, saying the accusations were at odds with Facebook’s goals.

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Cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin and Facebook’s digital currency Libra, may herald the future of payment systems, or even how we will exchange value over the Internet in the years to come. But for citizens across the planet and financial supervisors, these digital assets that have flourished over the past decade, are promising technologies but are, at best, difficult to grasp.

At worst, they have become synonymous with highly volatile assets that could put at risk the financial stability of the planet, and even the monetary sovereignty of nations, like many fear Libra could bring about.

The European Commission will unveil this autumn its long-awaited proposal on cryptocurrencies in order to seize the opportunities brought by these tokens powered by networks of computers: these include lower fees and almost instant transactions. Europe will become the first major jurisdiction to regulate these new means of payment.

“I believe that Europe is in a position to lead the way on regulation,” Commission executive vice-president for financial services, Valdis Dombrovskis, said in June.

In the EU executive’s thinking, new rules won’t scare developers and investors away, but rather the opposite.

The lack of legal certainty is often cited as the main barrier to developing a sound crypto-asset market in the EU, Dombrovskis recalled.

By becoming the first region to put its house in order, the EU expects to attract a market worth almost $350 billion spread over more than 6,700 digital currencies.

The Commission expects to achieve the holy grail of rule makers: to come up with legislation that will not only protect customers but will also spur innovation by designing a clear framework.

But before seeing what rules would be needed to rein in this fast evolving cutting-edge field, we need to take a deep dive into the past.

The ‘Tulipmania’

In February 1637, the Dutch were caught up in ‘tulipmania’. Tulip prices skyrocketed from December 1636 to February 1637, with some of the most prized bulbs seeing a 12-fold price jump. Tulips were not only exotic flowers but a speculative investment, with some wealthy individuals paying for bulbs what they would pay for a comfortable house.

The wild rush suddenly ended in February 1637, leaving some investors penniless in what is considered the first bubble-and-burst episode in investment history.

For some, the irrational fever that struck the Netherlands is a cautionary tale for the hype surrounding cryptocurrencies, as the story of Bitcoin reveals.

The obscure payment method became a primary target for speculators. The price of one Bitcoin skyrocketed almost 10-fold in the second half of 2017, reaching nearly 20,000 dollars (16,960 euro) at the end of that year. In December 2018, one Bitcoin was worth around 3,300 dollars (2,800 euro), around 75% less compared with the all-time high.

Since then, Bitcoin prices recovered some of the lost ground (price as of early September is just below €9,000), but doubts around crypto-assets persist.

Created in 2009 after the housing market crash by the mysterious Satoshi Nakamoto (a pseudonym), Bitcoin brought lower fees for online payments and a decentralized authority, aligned with the libertarian spirit firing the digital world.

Bitcoin balances are kept on a public ledger, supported by a network of computers that everyone on the network can see. This is the blockchain technology that powers every cryptocurrency.

For some, blockchain is the greatest technological breakthrough since the Internet. Author and consultant Don Tapscott told top EU analysts back in 2015 about its potential, when the technology was still nascent. While the first generation of the Internet enabled us to communicate information only, the second generation, based on blockchain technology, allows users to communicate value and money in a peer-to-peer way, he said.

Bitcoin’s rollercoaster ride in the markets eclipsed the potential of blockchain. But regulators across the world are not only concerned about the volatility of these digital tokens and the impact that the Bitcoin frenzy could have on users. They are also wary of some of its beneficiaries, as the anonymity provided by Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies made them an optimal payment method for drug dealers and other illegal activities.

The slow progress of authorities in Europe and elsewhere to regulate it and the struggle to fully understand and legislate without killing it, significantly changed in the summer 2019.

Libra’s earthquake

That June, Facebook announced that it would launch in 2020 a ‘stablecoin’, a digital currency backed by the “best performing independent currencies”, to offer cheap and fast means of payment to users.

The announcement provoked an immediate backlash from governments and central bankers. Users were also uneasy with the social network’s intentions to build an alternative global system for instant payments, in light of its poor record respecting their private data.

Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg testifies before the US House Committee on Financial Services in Washington, October, 2019. National authorities fear that their cryptocurrency project, “Libra” could destabilize the global economy, given the substantial reach by the social media giant.

The irruption of the social network pushed cryptocurrencies to the top of the priority lists for regulators across the world, concerned not only about their price instability and dodgy users, but also the implications for the global economy as a whole.

The reason is that Libra is a “stablecoin”, a type of cryptocurrency backed by a reserve asset, in this case a basket of sovereign currencies.

By being tied to national currencies, Libra wants to address the high volatility of cryptocurrencies. But national authorities fear that it could destabilize the global economy, especially when you can reach potentially 2.7 billion users around the world.

“We will not accept that Libra is transformed into a sovereign currency that can endanger financial stability,” French finance minister, Bruno Le Maire, told us in an interview in July 2019, on the eve of the G7 finance ministers meeting, where France sent a strong warning to Facebook.

Dante Disparte, deputy chair of the Libra project, said in December last year that “we have always said that the project would seek to be regulated.”

But he asked for the “same risks, same rules” principle that regulators defend in Europe.

“Don’t push Fintech innovations of any size offshore from the European market because, in the long run, it is going to be bad for the economic competitiveness of the region,” he stressed.

The concerns erupted across the world, and the withdrawal of some initial partners from the Libra project, including Visa and Mastercard, led the Libra Association this spring to lower its ambitions, by offering primarily stablecoins backed by only one sovereign currency, becoming in practice digital versions of national money.

By scaling down their plans, Facebook intends to convince financial supervisors of their reasonableness in order to win their approval when it is finally launched in the EU. But it won’t be easy.

While US authorities apply existing rules on cryptocurrencies, the Commission drafted new legislation (announced for autumn 2020) to rein in these digital assets.

The rules will come after more than two years of slow but steady progress to regulate cryptocurrencies, a Commission official told The Brussels Times magazine. “Libra was a ‘wake-up call’ to take seriously these developments.”

The EU executive was wary from the outset of the risks of over-regulating because of Libra, as Europe could strangle the innovation brought by smaller Fintech firms.

As a result, the Commission designed a set of rules that will be proportionate to the level of risks. Less risky cryptocurrencies will face lighter legislation, while for global cryptocurrencies such as Libra, rules would be stronger, given that they are likely to raise challenges in terms of financial stability and monetary policy, warned Dombrovskis before the summer break.

The new European framework will substitute the national rules that are starting to emerge in a few member states, including France, Germany and Malta. Once the cryptocurrencies win regulatory approval at EU level (by following a series of requirements, depending on their risks), they would obtain a EU-wide ‘passport’ to operate in the bloc.

Our central bank’s account

Libra also became a ‘wake-up’ call for central bankers. A recent survey among 66 central banks by the Bank for International Settlements showed that more than 80% are working on central bank digital currencies, including the ECB.

Yves Mersch, member of the executive board of the ECB said last May that Frankfurt wants to be ready “to embrace financial technological innovation, which has the potential to transform payments and money faster”.

Although most of the money issued by central banks is in fact already digital, it is accessible only for banks. Their new digital currencies could make their balance sheets accessible to citizens, a true game-changer. In other words, we could have a deposit account in our central bank.

This scenario would have major consequences for the banking industry, as savers would prefer to have their money in the safe hands of the ECB or the Federal Reserve, given the long history of banking crises.

For that reason, central bankers are thinking twice about how to design their digital currencies without provoking a financial earthquake.

The journey won’t be either short or easy, as every step forward in the crypto-world has brought new challenges. While ‘stablecoins’ addressed the volatility of Bitcoin and the first cryptocurrencies, Libra still does not meet the standards of commercial bank money.

Meanwhile, central bank solutions still raise “profound questions about the shape of the financial system and the implications for monetary and financial stability”, and their own role in the system, Andrew Bailey, the governor of the Bank of England, said on 3 September.

Like every new technology, cryptocurrencies must overcome numerous obstacles and address many outstanding risks. But the sense of direction is clear. The future of money is already here.

By Jorge Valero

Source: https://www.brusselstimes.com/news/business/135175/the-cryptocurrency-revolution-how-europe-could-take-the-lead-in-the-money-of-the-future/

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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is scheduled to meet with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris on Friday for talks amid increasing pressure on the social media giant to honour pledges to tackle hate speech and misinformation online.

The visit comes against the backdrop of regulators worldwide urging social media platforms to shoulder more responsibility for what their users post.

The encounter is also timed with Macron’s EU campaign, with the May vote seen as the French President’s first national test since becoming president two years ago on promises to transform France and revive a tired Europe.

Macron has been one of Europe’s most vocal critics of social media giants, hitting out at them for not doing enough to tackle harmful content and warning that regulators will take action.

FRANCE 24@FRANCE24

Facebook’s Zuckerberg meets Macron amid pressure to stanch misinformation, hate speech

​Mark Zuckerberg himself recently admitted the need for greater oversight. As part of an experiment, Facebook in recent months has allowed French regulators to observe first-hand its efforts to stamp out extremist content.

“Facebook’s teams have really played along well,” France’s Digital Minister Cédric O told AFP last month.

An Elysee official confirmed the regulators’ findings will be presented Friday, and could be instrumental in guiding French and possibly European legislation on social media.

READ MORE: Facebook Reportedly Auto-Generating Extremist Videos, Infuriating Twitter Users

France is currently debating laws that would require digital giants to take down unlawful posts within 24 hours of being reported or face heavy fines.

If these laws are passed, social media users might be obliged to provide identification before opening accounts, to stop anonymous users posting hateful content with impunity.

Draft legislation in France to tax digital giants is also up for debate, with lawmakers granting it initial approval last month.

The law would set a three per cent tax on digital advertising, the sale of personal data and other revenue from the largest tech companies.
Both draft tax and regulatory frameworks will likely dominate debates at the second “Tech for Good” summit, scheduled for 15 May and co-chaired by President Macron and New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern.

READ MORE: Apple’s CEO Slams ‘Peeping Tom’ Tech Giants, Says Privacy Is a Crisis

World leaders and tech executives are expected to agree on a pledge to fight the spread of terrorist content on the internet.

Ardern earlier denounced the “unprecedented” use of social media in the massacres at two Christchurch mosques last March, which saw the shooter broadcast his rampage live on Facebook.

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Source: https://sputniknews.com/europe/201905101074885545-macron-zuckerberg-meeting-facebook-misinformation-remove-hate-speech-online/

[Disclaimer]

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