¶ Meta Platforms
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Meta Platforms is an American multinational technology conglomerate based in Menlo Park, California. It is the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Oculus.
Meta is a member of the Americas Society/Council of the Americas (AS/COA),[1] the FIDO Alliance,[2] the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM),[3] and the Trusted News Initiative (TNI),[4] and a partner organization of the World Economic Forum (WEF).[5]
¶ History
In January 2017, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI) acquired a Toronto-based artificial intelligence company called Meta, which functioned as a search engine for scientific literature.[6][7]
¶ COVID-19
In the lead up to the 2020 United States presidential election, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) warned Meta Platforms of "a potential Russian disinformation operation" about Joe Biden's family and Burisma Holdings.[8]
In 2021, the Biden administration applied pressure on Meta Platforms to censor and remove content related to the declared COVID-19 pandemic.[8:1]
On October 28, 2021, CZI announced the sunset of Meta, with a proposed shutdown date of March 31, 2022.[9] Also on October 28, Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook would be changing its corporate name and branding to Meta in order to fully embrace the company's direction towards implementing the Metaverse.[10]
Chad Prather, a candidate for Texas Governor, filed a lawsuit on February 24, 2022 against Facebook and Meta alleging that Greg Abbott has an undisclosed relationship with Facebook. Prather's Facebook account was suspended 8 days before the election date.[11]
On November 21, 2023, New York Governor Kathy Hochul sent a letter to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and top executives at Google, TikTok, and Twitter, "calling for increased monitoring of content that could incite violence."[12]
¶ 2024 presidential election
On May 13, 2024, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and American Values 2024 filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California against Meta, Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg and ten unnamed defendants after the social media platform censored a film called Who Is Bobby Kennedy, released May 3.[13][14]
In an August 26, 2024, letter to Representative Jim Jordan, Zuckerberg admitted that the FBI and the Biden administration had put pressure on Facebook to censor and remove content related to the declared COVID-19 pandemic, as well as discussions about Biden family corruption. Zuckerberg described the pressure as improper, and vowed to push back against any such government censorship efforts in the future.[8:2]
¶ Activities
Meta has provided notable funding to:
- Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC/Radio-Canada)[15]
- Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity (CLTC)[16]
- Centre on Hate, Bias and Extremism[17]
- International Fact-Checking Network[18]
- Poynter Institute[19]
Meta additionally lists job postings on GAIN Power's Career Center.[20]
¶ Clients
Meta's corporate clients have included:
¶ External links
¶ Further reading
- August 28, 2024: "Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg Comes Clean on Censorship During Covid" written by Adam Garrie, published by The Kennedy Beacon
COA Corporate Members. (2023, October 23). AS/COA. http://archive.today/2023.08.22-171902/https://www.as-coa.org/about/coa-corporate-members ↩︎
FIDO Alliance Member Companies & Organizations. FIDO Alliance. Retrieved May 29, 2023, from https://web.archive.org/web/20230529002221/https://fidoalliance.org/members/ ↩︎
Members & Governance. World Federation of Advertisers. Retrieved December 2, 2023, from https://web.archive.org/web/20231202141727/https://wfanet.org/leadership/garm/members-governance ↩︎
Trusted News Initiative. BBC. Retrieved September 23, 2023, from https://web.archive.org/web/20230923182924/https://www.bbc.com/beyondfakenews/trusted-news-initiative/ ↩︎
Meta. World Economic Forum. Retrieved December 24, 2021, from https://web.archive.org/web/20211224213943/https://www.weforum.org/organizations/facebook-inc ↩︎
Siu, A. (2017, January 25). Chan Zuckerberg Initiative makes first buy, a Canadian artificial intelligence startup. San Francisco Business Times. http://archive.today/2023.07.05-230826/https://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/2017/01/25/chan-zuckerberg-initiative-meta-ai.html ↩︎
Elizabeth Caley. Creative Destruction Lab. Retrieved February 27, 2022, from http://archive.today/2022.01.22-190753/https://www.creativedestructionlab.com/mentors/elizabeth-caley/ ↩︎
Zuckerberg, M. (2024, August 26). Letter to the Honorable Jim Jordan. Meta Platforms. https://web.archive.org/web/20240828180428/https://prod-i.a.dj.com/public/resources/documents/meta-letter-082024.pdf ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
Chan Zuckerberg Science Initiative. (2021, October 28). Meta Transition. Medium. https://web.archive.org/web/20211217022923/https://cziscience.medium.com/meta-transition-5f66b1fae475 ↩︎
Ortutay, B. (2021, October 28). Facebook is changing its name to Meta to emphasise “metaverse” vision. The Sydney Morning Herald. http://archive.today/2022.02.27-203413/https://www.smh.com.au/business/companies/facebook-is-changing-its-name-to-meta-to-emphasise-metaverse-vision-20211029-p5946l.html ↩︎
Chad Prather v. Meta Platforms Inc. formerly known as Facebook. (2022, February 24). Courthouse News. https://web.archive.org/web/20220228040120/https://www.courthousenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/prather-meta-complaint.pdf ↩︎
Following Significant Uptick in Anti-Muslim and Antisemitic Rhetoric on Social Media, Governor Hochul Deploys New Resources to Combat Online Hate | Governor Kathy Hochul. (2023, November 21). Governor of New York State. http://archive.today/2023.11.24-194043/https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/following-significant-uptick-anti-muslim-and-antisemitic-rhetoric-social-media-governor-hochul ↩︎
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and American Values 2024 vs. Meta et al. (2024). United States District Court for the Northern District of California. https://web.archive.org/web/20240513194440/https://assets.nationbuilder.com/joinkennedy/pages/13783/attachments/original/1715624356/lawsuit-meta-kennedy-censorship.pdf ↩︎
Poritz, I. (2024, May 13). RFK Jr. Sues Meta, Says Presidential Campaign Video Censored (2). Bloomberg Law. http://archive.today/2024.05.14-002145/https://news.bloomberglaw.com/litigation/rfk-jr-sues-meta-says-presidential-campaign-video-was-censored ↩︎
Final Release Package A-2023-00059 CBC, Advertising Companies. CBC/Radio-Canada. Retrieved October 1, 2023, from https://archive.org/details/final-release-package-a-2023-00059-cbc-advertising-companies ↩︎
Our Funders. Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity. Retrieved May 20, 2024, from https://web.archive.org/web/20240520224953/https://cltc.berkeley.edu/our-funders/ ↩︎
Donors. Centre on Hate, Bias and Extremism. Retrieved October 14, 2023, from http://archive.today/2023.10.14-004716/https://socialscienceandhumanities.ontariotechu.ca/centre-on-hate-bias-and-extremism/partners/donors.php ↩︎
International Fact-Checking Network Transparency Statement. Poynter. Retrieved December 17, 2023, from https://web.archive.org/web/20231217164233/https://www.poynter.org/international-fact-checking-network-transparency-statement/ ↩︎
Major Funders. Poynter. Retrieved February 7, 2022, from http://archive.today/2022.02.07-105525/https://www.poynter.org/major-funders/ ↩︎
Recent Jobs. GAIN Power Career Center. Retrieved April 2, 2024, from https://careercenter.gainpower.org/jobs/view/ ↩︎
Federal Election Commission. (2023, March 20). Progressive Turnout Project PAC Expenditures - 2022. OpenSecrets. http://archive.today/2023.07.24-214111/https://www.opensecrets.org/political-action-committees-pacs/progressive-turnout-project/C00580068/expenditures/2022 ↩︎