The surviving sister of Dave Patrick Underwood, a federal security guard who was killed in a drive-by shooting in 2020, has filed a lawsuit against Meta, the parent organization of Facebook. The suit seeks to hold the company accountable for connecting the two men charged in the murder plot and giving them a space online to plan the attack.

Underwood was shot outside a federal building in Oakland, California in May of 2020. The two men charged inn the case were later linked to so-called “boogaloo” anti-government movement, which Facebook banned from its platform in June of 2020 citing the group's history of "actively promoting violence against civilians, law enforcement and government officials and institutions." 

“The shooting was not a random act of violence,” the lawsuit states. “It was the culmination of an extremist plot hatched and planned on Facebook by two men who Meta connected through Facebook’s groups infrastructure and its use of algorithms designed and intended to increase user engagement and, correspondingly, Meta’s profits.” The lawsuit alleges the two men would never have met if not for Facebook’s recommendations, which pushed them both to join groups that “openly advocated for violence.”

A spokesperson for Meta said in a statement to The New York Times that the “claims are without legal basis,” and pointed to the company’s work to ban “militarized social movements.”

The lawsuit is hardly the first time Meta has been implicated over its role in fueling extremism and violence. Facebook’s own researchers warned that group recommendations were pushing users toward extremism in 2016, according to internal company documents first reported by The Wall Street Journal. And documents from whistleblower Frances Haugen have raised questions about Facebook’s role in inciting violence around the world. Meta was also recently sued by a group of Rohingya refugees over Facebook's role in amplifying hate speech that incited a genocide in the country.

In a statement to ABC, Ted Leopold, who is representing Underwood’s sister, referenced Haugen’s disclosures about Facebook. “We believe and intend to show that Facebook’s conduct has led to a rise in extremism throughout the world and acts of real-world violence, including the murder of Officer Underwood,” Leopold said.

It’s only been a few months since Twitter killed Fleets, but the company is already experimenting with a new video format. The company is testing a new “Tweet Take” feature that allows users to share reaction videos alongside a Quote Tweet.

With the test, Twitter users can opt to send a “Quote Tweet with reaction” instead of the typical retweet or Quote Tweet. These “Tweet Takes” as the company is calling them can be either a photo or a video, and the original tweet will be embedded as a card overtop.

The concept is similar to a feature in Twitter’s short-lived Fleets feature, which enabled users to share tweets with their own commentary in a full-screen format. Fleets, of course, never really gained traction and the company pulled the feature less than a month after its launch.

Unlike Fleets, these reaction videos will appear in the main timeline just like any other tweet, though the videos will look noticeably different than the typical retweet. (While users can record a reaction in full-screen, it’s not clear what format they appear in the timeline. We’ve reached out to Twitter for more info.)

But these “takes” are perhaps even more similar to TikTok-style reaction videos, which often feature a comment or another users’ clip as the source. While Twitter hasn’t necessarily encouraged these types of interaction in the past, the company has been taking steps to build more creator-friendly features so it’s not necessarily surprising to see this kind of experiment.

Of course, just as Twitter users raised concerns about whether Fleets could be used to target people for harassment, tailored reaction videos also feels like the kind of feature that could be ripe for abuse. Quote Tweets are already a major source of dunking and bullying — which Twitter has at times tried to discourage — so it’s not difficult to imagine that these “Tweet Takes” could also become problematic. It’s also not clear just how big the initial experiment will be — Twitter often previews new ideas and features in early stages, but not all make it past the testing phase.

Instagram has started to test the chronological feed it promised last month. The company has started to test the new versions of its feed, which will allow users to switch between chronological and algorithmically-sorted feeds, says Instagram chief Adam Mosseri.

Mosseri first shared plans to bring back a chronological feed in December during a Senate hearing on Instagram’s impact on teens and kids’ mental health. The company later confirmed that it was working on two new versions of its feed, one called “favorites,” and one called “following.”

In his latest comments, Mosseri said that Instagram will soon allow users to toggle between three different feeds: home, favorites and following. Home will be similar to Instagram’s current feed, which ranks posts based on what you're likely to be interested in, while “favorites” will be a dedicated feed for the friends you care most about. “Following” will be a chronological feed just for accounts you follow, much like Instagram’s default feed prior to 2016.

Screenshot via Twitter

“We think it's important that you can get to a chronological feed, if you're interested quickly and see the latest that has been posted by the accounts that you follow,” Mosseri said in a video.

Importantly, the “home” feed will also see significant changes. Mosseri said that the main feed would “have more and more recommendations over time.” The company has already been testing adding recommendations from non-followed accounts and Reels into its main feed, so it sounds like Instagram plans to double down on these efforts. Last week, Mosseri said the company was going to “rethink what Instagram is” in 2022, and would focus on Reels and building more tools for creators.

For now, the new feed changes won’t be rolling out widely. Mosseri said the new feed tests “are already out or going out over the next couple of weeks,” with the “full experience” expected to launch for everyone in the “first half of this year.”

TikTok is testing a “repost” button in its app that allows users to quickly re-share a clip with their followers. The new feature, which the company described as an early test, isn’t available to everyone yet, though it appears to be cropping up for a number of users over the last several days.

“Currently, we're experimenting with a new way for people to share TikTok videos they enjoy,” a TikTok spokesperson said in a statement. The feature appears as a yellow “repost” button alongside the app’s other sharing features. TechCrunchreports that reposting a clip won’t publish it to your profile, but it will push the video to the “For You” feeds of your friends. You can also add a brief comment that will appear with the clip so your friends can see “why you reposted this video.”

Screenshot via TikTok

While TikTok has long been known for users endlessly remixing and re-sharing each other’s clips, the repost button is the first time the app has had something akin to a retweet – the ability to quickly re-share a video from your feed as is. As TechCrunch points out, TikTok may be treading carefully with the feature as making it too easy to recycle posts could pollute users’ “For You” feeds, which are known for being hyper-personalized.

That could be why the company is limiting the visibility of reposts to friends who follow each other, at least for now. Elsewhere, the company is looking into other ways of mixing up the types of videos people see in their recommendations, including limiting “clusters” of potentially problematic content.

Elizabeth Homes, the former CEO and founder of Theranos, has been found guilty on charges of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Holmes faces up to 20 years in prison for defrauding investors in her blood testing startup. The verdict comes after a months-long trial, and more than three years after she was first charged and forced to step down as CEO in 2018.

During the trial, Holmes’ lawyers tried to portray her as a young and inexperienced entrepreneur. “Elizabeth Holmes worked herself to the bone for 15 years trying to make lab testing more affordable,” one of Holmes’ attorneys said in opening arguments. “She failed … but failure is not a crime.”

Holmes, who testified during the trial, said she hadn’t intended to mislead the public or investors, and had been advised to protect the company’s “trade secrets.” As The New York Times pointed out, she “spent much of her testimony arguing that others at Theranos were responsible for the company’s shortcomings.”

The prosecution alleged that Holmes knew about serious flaws in the company’s technology and hid the issues from investors. Former patients who had received inaccurate blood tests also testified, including an Arizona woman who received an incorrect result for an HIV test, and a woman who was misdiagnosed with a miscarriage.

Holmes’ story has been a source of widespread fascination even for those outside of Silicon Valley. At its peak, Theranos was valued at more than $9 billion, and had a board of directors filled with former high-ranking government officials, including two former Secretaries of State, Henry Kissinger and George Shultz. Holmes, who had dropped out of Stanford to start the company, regularly appeared on magazine covers and was often compared to Steve Jobs and other iconic founders. (Holmes herself was reportedly infatuated with Jobs and adopted his signature black turtlenecks.)

Former Wall Street Journal reporter John Carreyrou was the first to report on issues with Theranos’ technology in 2015, and his coverage prompted multiple investigations and lawsuits that ultimately resulted in criminal charges for Holmes and former COO Ramesh “Sunny” Balwani. (Balwani’s trial is scheduled to begin in February.)

Since then, there has been no shortage of pop culture depictions of Holmes. After Carreyrou’s best seller, Bad Blood, there was an HBO documentary and several podcasts about Theranos’ rise and ultimate downfall. Hulu is set to debut a new miniseries about the saga, with Amanda Seyfried starring as Holmes, in March. And Apple recently nabbed the Jennifer Lawrence-led film adaptation of Bad Blood.

Developing…

Given that 2021 was a blockbuster year for NFTs, it’s not particularly surprising that major tech companies are incorporating Non-Fungible Tokens into their CES lineup. The latest comes from Samsung, which revealed a new “NFT Aggregation Platform” designed for its smart TVs.

The platform, which will be available on Samsung’s MicroLed, Neo QLED and The Frame models, allows users to browse and buy NFTs directly from their sets. The platform pulls in NFTs from several marketplaces, so users can preview the art and see other relevant details, like who created the work, as well as relevant blockchain metadata.

Those who already own NFTs can also use the platform to showcase their collection. Samsung notes that its “Smart Calibration” technology can automatically adjust the TV’s settings to match the specifications of the original creator to ensure the image is rendered on the TV as faithfully as possible.

The multibillion dollar industry of game streamers, beauty vloggers, podcast producers, fitness influencers, newsletter writers and other social media stars who make up the “creator economy,” began long before 2021. Yet 2021 saw more platforms throw more money and resources at independent content creators than ever before.

This year, companies that had previously shown little interest in courting “influencers” or building relationships with creators began to invest in building monetization tools for them. And even more established, creator-friendly companies significantly ramped up their investments with new funds and tools.

Twitter, which had previously only ever had a single monetization feature — a video centric tool used by publishers — opted to reorient its entire platform around creators. It built Super Follows, a Patreon-esque subscription service for influencers. It launched Ticketed Spaces, so people could make money from its burgeoning live audio feature. It launched in-app tripping, and started building a newsletter platform.

Snapchat, which at one time actively shunned the idea of influencers, just announced that it had funneled more than $250 million to creators via its Spotlight feature, which launched at the end of 2020. Some of the app’s biggest stars are even getting their own shows in Snapchat Discover.

Facebook also took a renewed interest in the influencers and content creators who had long asked for more opportunities from the platform. Mark Zuckerberg has repeatedly labeled creators as one of the company's top priorities and announced a plan to invest $1 billion into tools for them by the end of 2022. Since then, Facebook and Instagram have launched a dizzying number of creator-focused updates and monetization features.

Platforms not traditionally associated with influencers also began throwing money at creators and monetization features. Pinterest launched a $500,000 creator fund and built its first monetization tools. LinkedIn — yes, that LinkedIn — announced a $25 million fund. Clubhouse added tipping. Tumblr, meanwhile, launched a subscription service for its bloggers.

Even YouTube, the most established platform for creators to make money, identified “growing the creator economy” as its top 2021 priority. It launched an all-new $100 million fund just for Shorts, its TikTok-like feature. TikTok itself, which started a $200 million fund in 2020, also launched new monetization features.

With all that money flowing in, it’s no surprise that the number of individual creators also boomed. One report from payments company Stripe, which powers payments for dozens of influencer platforms, found that the number of creators was up 48 percent in 2021, compared with 2020. And that’s just a “fraction” of the total ecosystem, according to the company.

“If the recent exponential growth of the creator economy keeps up, these 50 platforms could be supporting more than 15.5 million creators in five years,” the company wrote.

Stripe

Growth wasn’t limited just to the major platforms, either. Startups catering to content makers and their needs also surged, with more than $3.7 billion in funding going toward “startups focused on creators,” according to a report in The Information.

One of the main drivers of this surge in activity was the pandemic. While creators were making money long before the pandemic, the industry was almost perfectly primed to absorb many of the changes brought on by it.

“I think the pandemic definitely turbocharged the creator economy through both necessity and through choice,” Li Jin, founder of Atelier Ventures, a venture capital firm that invests in the creator economy, said in an interview earlier this year.

“Necessity meaning a lot of people were left without offline alternatives for work and income and had to turn to online platforms in order to continue their creative careers. And choice in the sense that obviously we had a lot of free time during the pandemic where we were just kind of stuck at home. I think a lot of people took that time and they started creating content.”

At the same time, the pandemic also seems to have shifted the way that many people think about work itself. While this year was full of hand-wringing about labor shortages and whether or not people want to go back to work, it’s not difficult to understand why some, particularly younger people, might opt for a different path. Zuckerberg described the shift as “​​people being able to make a living by expressing their creativity and by doing things they want to do, rather than things they have to.” Creators, he has said, deserve to be “rewarded” for their work,

But as Jin and others have pointed out, major platforms aren’t suddenly embracing creators just because they care about helping them create sustainable independent businesses. The economics are ultimately weighted in their favor as well.

Creators are responsible for a significant amount of engagement on their platforms of choice. If enough of an app’s biggest stars leave, they could take large chunks of users with them. Revenue from creators could also one day help Facebook generate income beyond advertising. Zuckerberg has pledged not to take a cut of their earnings until 2023, but even a relatively small commission could eventually add up to a significant amount. Likewise, Twitter has said it plans to take a 20 percent cut of Super Follow subscriptions from its highest-earning creators, though it could still be some time before the feature makes serious cash for anyone.

Creators are also crucial to drawing in new users and keeping platforms’ existing ones entertained. For Facebook, they could help the company avoid, or at least dampen, the “existential threat” of declining teen users. Snapchat has touted Spotlight as a key source of growth. Even LinkedIn has said creators can help their users get “better at what they do.”

Ultimately, though, it’s the platforms that will benefit most from creators, according to Jin. “Nothing is done purely altruistically,” she said. “It's to strengthen the company and their profitability.”

Just weeks after Facebook rebranded itself to “Meta,” the longtime owner of @metaverse Instagram suddenly found herself locked out of the account she had run for years. A message told Thea-Mai Baumann she was suspended for impersonation, though she had never pretended to be anyone else. Her account was returned after The New York Timeswrote a story about the ordeal, but the company never offered an explanation for how the mistake was made.

While what happened to her was unusual, one aspect of Baumann’s story is more common: that people who are wrongfully suspended from their social media accounts often have little or no recourse for getting them back (at least, not without media attention).

Now that group may have another option. The “robot lawyer” company DoNotPay, which offers automated legal services, has a new offering: getting social media accounts unbanned.

The new service, which is included with DoNotPay’s $36 monthly subscription, offers users an alternative to emailing companies’ help center bots or wiring appeals that may never get answered. Instead, DoNotPay asks users for information about what happened to them, and sends a letter to the relevant company’s legal department on their behalf.

DoNotPay

“These platforms prioritize legal cases,” DoNotPay CEO Joshua Browder tells Engadget. “When you're just writing into customer service, they don't really take it seriously.” Legal departments, on the other hand, are much more likely to respond, he says.

In the appeal, the company also tries to “match” your appeal with a “legal reason why they can't ban you,” using state and federal laws that may apply. The letter also includes a deadline for the company to respond. He says that so far PayPal and Instagram have been among the most-requested services for unbanning. But the service will work with other platforms as well, including Twitter, Snapchat, Uber, Tinder, YouTube, Twitch and others.

Crucially, Browder points out that the service is not intended for people who were banned from a platform for legitimate reasons, like violating its terms of service. And even for those who were wrongly suspended, he estimates the odds of actually getting an account back as the result of this process are around 20 percent.

But even if the appeal isn’t ultimately successful, Browder says there are other benefits to the process. For one, companies are required to turn over users’ data regardless of whether their account was suspended. So even if you are unable to, say, regain access to your Instagram account, DoNotPay can ensure the company hands over your account details. There’s also the fact that sending a legal demand letter can cause a much bigger headache for a company than ranting to customer service agents.

“In general in America, they do have the right to ban you,” Browder says. “We don't overstate that we can make miracles happen, but we can punish them a lot and get your data.”

Adobe is testing out a new web-based tool that uses AI to simplify audio recording. The software is called Project Shasta, and it could make recording and editing podcasts and other projects a lot easier and more approachable.

The project started off in Adobe Labs as an experiment to find "new ways to help people edit audio on the web,” Mark Webster, Adobe’s head of audio products, wrote in a post on Product Hunt. “But then it became clear that the pandemic made recording difficult too, even for audio professionals. Our vision became empowering everyone with the tools they needed to create professional sounding audio."

The result is a browser-based tool — it requires Google Chrome — for creating and editing audio recordings in a visual interface without the need for professional equipment or other advanced tools. 

Users record their audio in clips and Shasta automatically transcribes the recordings. From there, editing is as simple as deleting text from the transcription. There are also AI-based filters that can improve the audio quality or automatically remove filler words like “um.” Project Shasta also supports remote recording, so guest speakers can easily join in for recordings. The software will handle syncing up the clips even if one person has a shoddy internet connection. 

While the most obvious use case for Shasta is recording podcasts, Webster notes it could also be used for voiceovers, videos and other projects with an audio component. 

For now, it’s unclear exactly what Adobe has planned for Project Shasta. Webster said that the software is in an “early Alpha” stage, and that the company is sharing it now to get feedback from testers, but didn’t share when it might be available more widely. Project Shasta is “free for now” to those who request access via Adobe's website.

Meta has banned seven “surveillance for hire” companies that targeted at least 50,000 people around the world. The company also banned more than 1,000 accounts associated with these companies.

The companies targeted in the takedowns include Cobwebs, Cognyte, Black Cube, Bluehawk CI, BelltroX and Cytrox. Facebook’s security researchers also identified “an unknown entity in China,” which was “developing surveillanceware” and used facial recognition software. Facebook’s researchers didn’t say who was behind the group, but said the software had been used by “domestic law enforcement” in the country.

While some of the companies make spyware, the groups use other tactics as well, including social engineering with fake accounts in order to gain access to targets’ personal information. During a call with reporters Thursday, Meta’s security chief Nathaniel Gleicher said that while there has been a lot of attention on “hacking for hire” groups like NSO, the broader “surveillance for hire” industry is also troubling. “One of the things that characterizes the surveillance or hire industry is indiscriminate targeting,” he said.

Meta

“Cyber mercenaries often claim that their services and their surveillance were are meant to focus on tracking criminals and terrorists. But our investigation and similar investigations …have demonstrated that the targeting is in fact indiscriminate and includes journalists, dissidents, critics of authoritarian regimes, families of opposition figures and human rights activists.”

In all, Meta says it will notify “around 50,000” people from more than 100 countries who it believes were targeted by these companies. Facebook will recommend these users revisit their privacy settings, and enable additional account security measure like two-factor authentication.