Facebook says criminals will not want to be on new crypto network

Facebook began this week by announcing more than $9 billion in quarterly profits, an increase of about 17 percent. The social media giant also announced that it now has close to three billion users. But all is not well on the Facebook front as Mark Zuckerberg’s platform has been facing a deluge of scathing reports.

Facebook has changed its name to "Meta" in a shift away from social media and towards developing "the metaverse," a digital world that could be the next generation of the internet. Here's what they have planned.

Frances Haugen said her former boss, Mark Zuckerberg, should step down and allow change instead of devoting resources to build the so-called "metaverse."

Frances Haugen called on lawmakers in Brussels to seize the opportunity to create a "global gold standard" as they draft oversight regulation for tech giants.

Facebook became Meta Platforms on October 28 and subsequently announced its grand plans for bringing the virtual and physical worlds together in the metaverse. Since then, tech and entertainment giants have been jumping on the bandwagon and staking their own claims as builders of a new reality. But what exactly is the metaverse and what are the risks associated with it? Peter O'Brien takes a closer look in this week's Tech 24, the first in a new live format.

Many Facebook groups based in Mali and Nigeria began sharing a video of a helicopter on December 9, claiming it showed an aircraft delivering weapons to terrorists. In Mali, the posts often accused the French government of operating the helicopter, while posts coming from Nigeria laid the blame on the Nigerian government. In reality, the video is from neither one of these countries – it was filmed in the Central African Republic during a routine supply drop.

On January 13, in the first European trial against a high-ranking Syrian regime official, a former senior intelligence officer was sentenced to life in prison in Germany for crimes against humanity. Former head of interrogation at a detention centre in Damascus, Anwar Raslan was found guilty on 4,000 counts of torture and the murder of 27 detainees, less than a year after one of his subordinates was convicted by the same German court. It’s been a long road to justice for victims and their lawyers tracking down former torturers who have settled in Europe since 2013.

For the first time since inception in 2004, Facebook lost about 5 lakh users on a daily basis during Oct-Dec 2021. That saw the shares of its parent company, Meta, plunge 20 percent on the exchanges, wiping off $200 bn in market capitalisation.

Here are a few reasons to pick up a copy of The Guardian on Wednesday⁣.⁣

Back in June 2021, Switzerland sentenced Liberian warlord Alieu Kosiah to 20 years in prison for war crimes. Speaking to FRANCE 24, Alain Werner, a Swiss lawyer and the director of the NGO Civitas Maxima, hailed a "historic" verdict for both Liberia and Switzerland. He also shared his thoughts on international justice more broadly, almost two decades after the start of the International Criminal Court.

Facebook and Instagram's parent company, Meta, has been designated as an "extremist" organization by a Russian court. But Meta's WhatsApp is excluded from the ban.

Independent investigators found corruption risks and links to criminals in the London police, but could not find evidence of institutional corruption.