Muse runs on a dedicated, secure virtual machine that houses both the agent and the user’s data.

The post Meta Launches Personal AI Agent, Muse, Emphasizes Safety and Privacy appeared first on SecurityWeek.

Meta took days to remove ads containing AI-generated child sexual abuse material (CSAM) on Facebook and Instagram. Some ads featured photos of real kids, including a press photo of a young member of a European royal family and images swiped from a popular Instagram profile of a preteen girl deemed an influencer.

In an investigation published Tuesday, the Tech Transparency Project (TTP) reported that Meta failed to detect 332 ads containing CSAM this year. The “vast majority” of ads promoted AI apps made in China, while many ads promoted so-called “nudify” apps that make it easy for bad actors to use AI and digitally alter images of children.

TTP matched “multiple CSAM ads to photos of real children that appeared online.” These ads seem to violate federal child pornography laws, since the Justice Department has clarified that AI CSAM is just as harmful as CSAM. The young royal’s image was “animated into a video of her performing a graphic sex act,” TTP found. Other ads animated a photo of a 14-year-old Instagram influencer “showing off her new sports club uniform” into “a video of her performing oral sex.” A third “preteen” victim “posing in a pink athletic outfit with pigtails” in a series of stock photos was morphed into a video where she looks frightened as she’s molested by an adult male, TTP reported.

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A major upgrade to the Python-based NodeStealer malware, transforming the Facebook-focused infostealer into a broader spyware platform capable of logging keystrokes, monitoring clipboard data, capturing screenshots, and harvesting extensive Facebook profile information. The newly observed variant, identified in August 2026, also expands browser and local data theft, using a split Telegram command-and-control (C2) design to […]

The post NodeStealer Spyware Adds Keylogging, Screenshot Capture and Facebook Data Theft appeared first on GBHackers Security | #1 Globally Trusted Cyber Security News Platform.

Meta agrees to pay up to $18 billion and introduce new Facebook and Instagram limits for teens under a US state settlement over addiction claims.

The post Meta Settles Teen Social Media Addiction Case for Up to $18B appeared first on TechRepublic.

Meta agrees to pay up to $18 billion and introduce new Facebook and Instagram limits for teens under a US state settlement over addiction claims.

The post Meta Settles Teen Social Media Addiction Case for Up to $18B appeared first on TechRepublic.

Reuters reports that Meta explored shrinking some teams by as much as 60% as part of an "AI native" restructuring plan that would shift much of employees' day-to-day work to AI agents and smaller teams of human "builders." But the effort quickly ran into employee revolt and disappointing productivity gains, leading Zuckerberg to scrap a planned second wave of cuts after Meta laid off 10% of its workforce in May. From the report: In January, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his top lieutenants gathered for their annual leadership retreat at his Hawaii compound. There they hatched a radical plan to reimagine work at the social-media giant in the age of artificial intelligence. Code-named Project OT -- short for Organization Transformation -- the plan envisioned an "AI native" future for the owner of Facebook and Instagram. AI would take over much of the daily work performed by thousands of human employees. Virtual workers would be overseen inside Meta by smaller, "talent-dense" cadres of human staffers, according to one internal planning document reviewed by Reuters and three people familiar with the project. In scenario-planning exercises, two of these people said, executives explored slashing the size of many teams across Meta by as much as 60%. Some employees would be offered roles in new units, while others would be laid off as part of a culling that one human-resources executive projected would be as big as or bigger than the company's cuts of around 25% three years ago, according to another internal document. The restructuring would be carried out in two "waves," beginning with a first purge in May and followed by another shake-up in November, internal planning documents seen by Reuters showed. Layoffs would be supplemented with the closing of open positions and pushing people out who Meta believed were poor performers. These and other details of the plan, including the scale of the restructuring, haven't been previously reported. AI would take over much of the daily work performed by thousands of human employees. Virtual workers would be overseen inside Meta by smaller, "talent-dense" cadres of human staffers. But on the night of May 19, just hours before the first layoff wave, Zuckerberg blinked. Meta laid off 10% of its employees the next day, but it called off planning for the November cuts, according to one internal document reviewed by Reuters. By then, Meta employees were in open revolt, convinced that the company's AI transformation initiatives were partly aimed at replacing them. Internal data was also suggesting that autonomous AI "agent" technology at the heart of the strategy was failing to deliver hoped-for productivity gains. Some investors were questioning what Meta had to show for its gargantuan spending on AI. This article reveals for the first time the rapid pace of the cuts Meta was considering, the thinking behind the plans and how they quickly unraveled. Based on scores of internal documents, posts and recordings reviewed by Reuters, as well as conversations with more than 20 people with knowledge of Meta's inner workings, the reporting shows how the social-media giant attempted to position itself at the forefront of an AI-driven workplace overhaul, only to stumble in the execution.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Meta agreed to impose daily limits on children's social media use and pay nearly $18 billion in settlements with nearly every US state today, cutting short a trial in which Meta said several of the states were demanding over $1.4 trillion. The settlement requires court approval.

Meta is facing claims that it designed its products to foster compulsive use by children and failed to warn users of addiction and mental health risks. Meta, which already uses ID checks and face analysis to verify user ages, said it agreed to impose on people under 18 a "default two-hour daily time limit that teens can only turn off with a parent’s permission," a default block between midnight and 6 am, and a school mode in which notifications are muted by default from 8 am to 3 pm.

The two-hour daily "limit is cumulative across Facebook and Instagram, and time spent scrolling on both apps counts toward the total, including if we detect that someone has multiple accounts," Meta said. Teens will "receive prompts after every 15 minutes of continuous screen time on Facebook or Instagram," and "prompts when their total daily usage hits 60 minutes and 90 minutes."

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Washington state will receive up to $339 million as part of a historic $17.1 billion multistate settlement with Meta, resolving allegations that the tech giant intentionally designed Facebook and Instagram with addictive features that harmed youth mental health.

Attorney General Nick Brown said Wednesday that the landmark agreement delivers on core youth-safety product changes — including hard caps on daily time limits, late-night scrolling blocks, and disabled push notifications during school hours — that state lawmakers failed to pass through legislation over the past two years.

“Let me say to the young people of Washington state: This agreement shows that your health and safety is more important than Meta’s profits,” Brown said in a news release.

Under the deal, Meta must overhaul Instagram and Facebook for young users by enforcing a two-hour combined daily time limit, turning off push notifications during school hours (8 a.m. to 3 p.m.), and blocking access late at night between midnight and 6 a.m. Teen users will also get the option to switch off algorithmic feeds in favor of a chronological timeline.

The agreement resolves claims brought by a coalition of 47 states, Washington, D.C., and three territories. While Meta acknowledged the settlement could cost up to $18 billion total over 10 years, it marked a rare legal resolution for a major platform facing nationwide youth safety litigation.

Outside the landmark Big Tobacco agreements of the late 1990s, the $17.1 billion deal represents the largest state consumer protection settlement in U.S. history. State officials and tech policy experts are framing the enforcement action as a similar watershed moment for regulating algorithmic harms and digital product design.

Washington state will receive a guaranteed baseline of $237 million from the core youth-safety agreement, with its payout potentially scaling up to nearly $339 million over the next decade if other major platforms like TikTok and Snapchat adopt comparable terms.

The Attorney General’s Office plans to use the funds to cover legal costs, bolster ongoing consumer protection enforcement, and directly fund state programs tackling the youth mental health crisis driven by social media use.

The settlement also mandates an independent third-party auditor to evaluate and report Meta’s technical compliance directly to state regulators annually over the next five years. Beyond usage limits, Meta must restrict social comparison features such as targeted beauty filters, hide public “like” counts for younger users, and implement stricter age verification to prevent children under 13 from creating accounts.

In addition to the core youth-safety agreement, Washington will receive a separate $10.2 million payment resolving long-standing state claims against Meta for sharing nonpublic user data with third parties like Cambridge Analytica during the 2016 election cycle.

Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield announced that his state’s share will total more than $125 million over 10 years. 

In a public statement, Meta praised the agreement as setting a new benchmark for youth safety, while emphasizing that the restrictions should apply across the entire industry.

“While this is an important step, these protections will only be truly effective if our peers — TikTok and YouTube — put the same measures in place,” a Meta spokesperson said.

The agreement remains subject to final judicial approval in federal district court.

As countries move to ban teens from social media, Meta pays actors, psychologists, and parenting influencers across more than a dozen countries to argue against blanket ban for teen accounts.

Meta's smart glasses have been banned from courts in England and Wales, where officials fear their cameras could be used to secretly record proceedings.

Group-IB says scammers are targeting Céline Dion fans through Facebook, duplicate digital tickets and fake websites impersonating Ticketmaster, AXS and the venue site.

WhatsApp is letting users reserve usernames before its 2026 launch, giving people a way to chat without sharing phone numbers. Here is how it works, why it matters, and the security limits to know

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