Another former Facebook employee has filed a whistleblower complaint with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The latest complaint, which was first reported by The Washington Post, alleges Facebook misled its investors about “dangerous and criminal behavior on its platforms, including Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger.”

In the complaint, the former employee described a conversation with one of Facebook’s top communication executives who, following disclosures about Russia’s use of the platform to meddle in the 2016 election, said the scandal would be a “flash in the pan” and that “we are printing money in the basement, and we are fine.”

Like Frances Haugen, the latest whistleblower is also a former member of Facebook’s integrity team, which was tasked with fighting misinformation, voting interference and other major problems facing the company. And, like Haugen, the former Facebook staffer said that the company has “routinely undermined efforts to fight misinformation, hate speech and other problematic content out of fear of angering then-President Trump and his political allies, or out of concern about potentially dampening the user growth.”

The SEC filing also describes illegal activity in secret Facebook Groups, and Facebook’s policy of allowing politicians and other high-profile users to skirt its rules. It names Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg as being aware of the problems and not reporting them to investors, according to The Post.

While many of the details sound similar to other complaints from former company insiders, news of another complaint adds to the pressure on Facebook, which has spent much of the last month trying to discredit Haugen and downplay the significance of its own research. Meanwhile, lawmakers have called on Zuckerberg to answer questions from Congress, and Haugen is expected to brief European officials as well.

A Facebook spokesperson didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Zuckerberg is expected to announce plans to rebrand the company with a new name next week.

Add a licensing misstep to the list of problems facing former President Donald Trump’s social media network. The Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) says The Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG) violated a licensing agreement when it recently launched a test version of TRUTH Social. The website ran on a modified version of Mastodon, a free and open-source platform for operating Twitter-like social media networks. Anyone can use Mastodon provided they comply with AGPLv3, the software license that governs its code.

One of the central provisions of AGPLv3 is that licensees must share their source code with all users. In the short time a test version of TRUTH Social was up earlier today, it did not do that. Now, the Software Freedom Conservancy, an organization that enforces open source software licenses, says TMTG has 30 days to comply with AGPLv3 or face the consequences.

“The license purposefully treats everyone equally (even people we don’t like or agree with), but they must operate under the same rules of the copyleft licenses that apply to everyone else,” SFC said in a blog post.

It says the company must “immediately” make TRUTH Social’s source code available to everyone who accessed the site earlier in the day. If TMTG fails to do so in 30 days, it will permanently lose access to the software it used to build its platform. “That’s how AGPLv3’s cure provision works — no exceptions — even if you’re a real estate mogul, reality television star, or even a former POTUS,” the SFC said. If TMTG doesn’t comply with the request, it could face a lawsuit. “We will be following this issue very closely and demanding that Trump’s Group give the corresponding source to all who use the site,” SFC said.

In closing, SFC shared details about how TRUTH Social was defaced earlier in the day. It says it found no evidence anyone “illegally broke” into the website. Instead, it notes the episode was the result of an improper configuration. “Once discovered, people merely used the site legitimately to register accounts and use its features,” the organization said.

It took only a few hours for pranksters to find and deface a test version of former President Trump's yet-to-launch social media platform called TRUTH Social. According to The Washington Post, someone signed up for an account on the test website, took the username "donaldjtrump" and posted a photo of a defecating pig. 

Trump and his team recently announced that they're launching TRUTH Social in early 2022 and that beta tests will begin in November. In its announcement, the team said that the platform is part of its efforts to fight against "the Big Tech companies of Silicon Valley, which have used their unilateral power to silence opposing voices in America."

The test website has already been pulled down, but not before one of the publication's reporters was able to sign up under the name "mikepence" without encountering any safeguards that would prevent them from doing so. Based on the mock photos on its App Store listing, TRUTH Social looks like a Twitter clone, where users can post "Truths"similar to tweets and repost "Re-Truths," which are basically retweets. It has a news feed called the Truth Feed and a notification system, as well.

The website's code shows that it runs on a mostly unmodified version of open source software Mastodon, The Post says. Mastodon founder Eugen Rochko told Vice that the platform might be violating its licensing rules, since it requires developers to share any modification with the public and to give credit by linking to the original source code. The test website didn't just reveal TRUTH Social's code, though, but also its terms of service. A sub-section in the ToS shows that the website hopes to be protected by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

Part of the ToS reads: "[W]e are not responsible for any Third-Party Websites accessed through the Site or any Third-Party Content posted on, available through, or installed from the Site, including the content, accuracy, offensiveness, opinions, reliability, privacy practices, or other policies of or contained in the Third-Party Websites or the Third-Party Content."

Trump has been a very vocal critic of Section 230. In 2020, he signed an executive order meant to limit its scope shortly after Twitter fact-checked a false tweet he made. The order was never meaningfully imposed, but President Biden revoked it completely back in May.

Twitter is willing to spend to bolster direct messaging. CNBCnotes Twitter has acquired the chat app Sphere for an unspecified amount. Engineering VP Nick Caldwell said the move would speed up development for DMs, Communities and Creators. There were no specific clues as to what was coming next, but Sphere said was "winding down" its app in November. You won't see a repurposed Sphere app, then.

Sphere is notable not just for its features (it focuses on "essential" messages and clearing out clutter), but on the tech industry star power surrounding the app. The company is the product of Nick D'Aloisio, a serial entrepreneur who caught attention even as a teen — he sold Summly to Yahoo (now Engadget's parent company) when he was 17. His latest venture has high-profile investors, including co-founders from Airbnb and Tinder. While Sphere isn't particularly large with just 20 staffers headed to Twitter, there were clearly high hopes before the acquisition.

The purchase is a fitting one. Twitter has poured much of its recent energy into DMs and helping creators form communities. Twitter could weave Sphere's focused community features throughout its social network and better compete against Instagram and other rivals that thrive on private messaging and influential figures.

Facebook's Oversight Board has issued a rebuke to the company in a new quarterly report, claiming it was not "fully forthcoming" about its XCheck program for VIP users. The documents shows the limits of the board's power over Facebook, but also its ability to potentially apply public pressure. 

"When Facebook referred the case related to former US President Trump to the Board, it did not mention the cross-check system," according to the report. "Given that the referral included a specific policy question about account-level enforcement for political leaders, many of whom the Board believes were covered by cross-check, this omission is not acceptable."

The Oversight Board, sometimes called Facebook's "Supreme Court," started issuing important rulings earlier this year. One of its first major rulings was that the ban of ex-President Donald Trump was "appropriate," though it said an indefinite suspension was outside of Facebook's power.

In the Board’s view, the team within Facebook tasked with providing information has not been fully forthcoming on cross-check. On some occasions, Facebook failed to provide relevant information to the Board, while in other instances, the information it did provide was incomplete.

Last month, the board asked Facebook to explain its controversial rules for VIPs, saying that the information was key to its Trump decision. Facebook originally told the board that the XCheck program only applied to a "small number of decisions," but later admitted that statement was misleading. The board also said that Facebook provided "no meaningful transparency" on how it determines which accounts should be included in XCheck. 

An investigative report last month from the Wall Street Journal, with information coming from a whistleblower later revealed to be former Facebook employee Frances Haugen, showed that the program has actually enabled millions of high-profile users to skirt its rules.

The report also addressed the board's own performance and whether Facebook is following its recommendations. It said it took on average 74 days to decide and implement each case, and only handled a fraction that came up. In total, it has taken on 20 important cases "covering topics from hate speech to COVID-19 misinformation" and ruled on 17 of them, overturning Facebook's decisions eight times. It made 52 recommendations to Facebook, which has not agreed to implement all of them. 

Facebook is facing a major fallout in Washington over the Frances Haugen document leak. Earlier this year, it promised to "fully implement" the Oversight Board's recommendations and explain the rationale, standards and review process of its VIP program. 

According to the new report, however, Facebook is not following its own plan so far. The board, meanwhile, has been criticized for allowing Facebook to duck blame for key decisions, while having no authority to force Facebook to comply with its own decisions. 

However, the board said that today it accepted a request from Facebook to review the XCheck program and make recommendations. Facebook is apparently looking for guidance on how to ensure fairness and objectivity, govern the program and make recommendations on how it can be changed. As part of that, the Oversight Board plans to issue a call for public comments "which we will launch in the coming days."

Former President Donald Trump has officially revealed that he's launching his own social media in 2022, a few months after his aide toldFox News about his plans. He's calling it TRUTH Social, and the platform is apparently part of his camp's efforts to fight back against "the Big Tech companies of Silicon Valley, which have used their unilateral power to silence opposing voices in America."

Some of Trump's supporters believe that social networks are biased against conservative voices — in 2018, a group even sued Twitter, Facebook and Google, accusing them of breaking antitrust laws and violating their First Amendment rights by conspiring to suppress conservative viewpoints. The case was tossed out of court a few times. According to a New York University research published earlier this year, there's no evidence of conservative bias on the world's most popular social networks. There was even an Instagram bug in the months leading to the US Presidential Elections that favored Trump content over Biden's.

It is true, however, that Facebook and Twitter banned Trump from their platforms following the January 6th US Capitol riots. Twitter determined that his tweets at that time violated its policies. According to the website, his tweets (which you can view in an archive) "must be read in the context of broader events in the country and the ways in which the President’s statements can be mobilized by different audiences, including to incite violence..."

Earlier this month, Trump sued to get his Twitter account back, arguing that the ban violates his First Amendment rights. Indeed, his ban on the website gets a special mention in TRUTH Social's announcement. He said in a statement: "We live in a world where the Taliban has a huge presence on Twitter, yet your favorite American President has been silenced."

TRUTH Social will have a beta launch in November for invited guests. Trump and his team are expecting to roll it out nationwide in the first quarter of 2022.

Senator Richard Blumenthal is again calling on Mark Zuckerberg to testify about Facebook’s research into Instagram and child safety. “It is urgent and necessary for you or Mr. Adam Mosseri to testify to set the record straight and provide members of Congress and parents with a plan on how you are going to protect our kids,” the Connecticut lawmaker wrote in a letter addressed to Zuckerberg.

Blumenthal is the chair of the Senate subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, and Data Security that’s been holding hearings on social media and child safety in recent weeks. Earlier this month, Blumenthal said that a series of whistleblower disclosures about Facebook was the company’s “big tobacco moment.”

Since then, pressure has mounted on Facebook to address internal research that shows Instagram can have a negative impact on some teens’ mental health. The company has already “paused” work on a forthcoming Instagram Kids app, but lawmakers have said the company should end the project altogether.

In his letter, Blumenthal said that Facebook’s head of safety, Antigone Davis, who testified at a previous hearing, “appears to have provided false or inaccurate testimony to me regarding attempts to internally conceal its research.” He also said that Facebook “has continued to demean impactful and independent investigative reporting” and “downplayed its own research.”

Facebook didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Facebook is taking new steps to crack down on groups users who break its rules, even when they have done so in other parts of the app.

Under the new policy, Facebook will downrank content posted in groups by users who have broken its rules even if they have done so elsewhere on the company’s platform. The new rule will apply to any group member who has had a post removed for violating one of Facebook’s Community Standards in the previous 90 days. Those who have had multiple posts removed will have “more severe” demotions.

“This measure will help reduce the ability of members who break our rules from reaching others in their communities, and builds on the existing restrictions placed upon members who violate Community Standards,” Facebook wrote in a statement. The company notes that it already has policies that restrict activity from people who repeatedly break rules within.

But the latest changes go a step further because they will impose restrictions on users’ reach within groups even if they haven’t broken the rules of that specific community. A Facebook spokesperson says that these punishments will escalate “in both demotion strength and duration” as violations pile up.

Facebook

The change comes as Facebook faces increased scrutiny over its ability to police groups on its platform. While the social network has long touted groups as one of the more important parts of its platform, the feature has also been credited with fueling extremism and divisiveness on the platform. The company permanently ended recommendations for civic and health-related groups earlier this year.

Facebook has also looked to group admins and moderators to take more responsibility for toxic behavior that happens with groups. On that front, the company is also introducing a new tool called “Flagged by Facebook.” The feature will allow group admins to review rule-breaking content posted in their group before it’s removed by the company in order to help group members avoid receiving a “strike.” The admins can also appeal to Facebook or ask them to explain why the post breaks its rules.

Facebook is rebranding and changing its company name as soon as next week, according to The Verge. Apparently, the social media giant will have a new name that will reflect its focus on creating a metaverse. It's also possibly connected to its unreleased social virtual reality world called Horizon Worlds. The social network itself will likely retain the Facebook branding and will be under a new parent company, along with Instagram, WhatsApp and Oculus. That would be similar to what Google did in 2015 when it put its various projects and divisions, along with itself, under its parent company Alphabet.

The Verge says the name change is a closely guarded secret at the moment and not even all senior leaders have knowledge about it. Mark Zuckerberg has long talked about wanting to make Facebook a metaverse company and has been taking steps towards that goal. Earlier this year, Facebook formed a team dedicated to building a metaverse, and just a few days ago, it talked about adding 10,000 "high-skilled" jobs across the European Union over the next five years to build its virtual and augmented reality experiences. It also released the Ray-Ban Stories augmented reality smart glasses in September.

We reached out to Facebook for a statement, and company spokesperson Joe Osborne said: "We don’t comment on rumor or speculation."

It's unclear how long Facebook been has planning on changing its name, but it's certainly a good distraction for the investigations it's facing and the bad press it's currently getting. Former executive-turned-whisleblower Frances Haugen provided the Congress and the Securities and Exchange Commission with a treasure trove of internal documents, dropped several revelations about the company and accused it of choosing "profit over safety" — something Zuckerberg adamantly denied. 

In early October, she testified at a Senate hearing about research she says proves that the social network repeatedly lied about its platform, including the "efficacy of its artificial intelligence systems, and its role in spreading divisive and extreme messages." Haugen has several ideas on what Facebook should change, but none of them has anything to do with changing its name. They include going back to chronological feeds from algorithmic ranking, adding some features that would prevent the spread of misinformation and opening Facebook research to people outside the company. 

It took years, but Instagram will finally let you create posts from the desktop web. The social network is issuing a flurry of updates that will culminate on October 21st, when users worldwide will have the option of posting photos and short videos (under one minute) from their computer browser. That's helpful if you'd rather not reach for your phone, of course, but it could be particularly useful for businesses and enthusiasts that want to make better use of their expensive cameras.

There are plenty of updates for mobile users, too. A Collabs test feature available today (October 19th) lets two people co-author posts and Reels. You just have to invite someone else from the tagging screen to get them involved. Followers for both users will see the post, and it'll even share views, likes and comments. It's safe to say this could be valuable for everything from superstar team-ups to sponsored posts.

Another test coming on October 20th will let you start nonprofit fundraisers right from the new post button, simplifying charity efforts. Everyone will see new music-driven Reels effects on October 21st, including Superbeat (special effects in sync with the beat) and Dynamic Lyrics (3D lyrics that flow with the track). They're not as flashy as the other additions, but they may help you focus on sharing content rather than editing it.