Facebook‘s parent company Meta disabled only a small fraction of the over one million reports it received of underage users on Instagram since early 2019, a lawsuit filed by 33 US states reportedly said. The newly unsealed legal complaint accused the tech giant of carrying an “open secret” that it had millions of users under the age of 13, and that Instagram “routinely continued to collect” their personal information such as location without parental permission. The complaint stated that within the company, Meta’s actual knowledge that millions of Instagram users were under the age of 13 was an “open secret” that was routinely documented, rigorously analyzed and confirmed, and zealously protected from disclosure to the public, according to a New York Times report. Last month, attorneys general from 33 states, including New York’s AG Letitia James, filed a lawsuit against Meta alleging that the tech giant designed harmful features contributing to the country’s youth mental health crisis. The lawsuit alleged Meta created addictive and “psychologically manipulative” features targeting young people while assuring the public falsely that the platform was safe to use. “Meta has profited from children’s pain by intentionally designing its platforms with manipulative features that make children addicted to their platforms while lowering their self-esteem,” Ms James said. Meta’s spokesperson responded to the lawsuit, saying that the company was committed to providing teens with “safe, positive experiences online,” and that it had already introduced “over 30 tools to support teens and their families” such as age verification and preventing content promoting harmful behaviours. “We’re disappointed that instead of working productively with companies across the industry to create clear, age-appropriate standards for the many apps teens use, the attorneys general have chosen this path,” the spokesperson added. However, a significant portion of the evidence provided by the states was obscured from public view via redactions in the initial filing. The new unsealed complaint filed last week provided fresh insights from the lawsuit, including the accusation that Instagram “coveted and pursued” underage users for years and that Meta “continually failed” to make effective age-checking systems a priority. The lawsuit reportedly argued that Meta chose not to build effective systems to detect and exclude underage teen users, viewing them as a crucial next generation demographic it needed to capture. It also accused the tech giant of “automatically” ignoring some reports of under 13 users and allowing them to continue using the platform while knowing about such cases via the company’s internal reporting channels. The company responded that the now publicly revealed complaint “mischaracterizes our work using selective quotes and cherry-picked documents.” It said verifying the ages of its users was a “complex” challenge especially with younger people who likely do not have IDs or licenses. Meta recently said it supports federal legislation requiring app stores to get parents’ approval whenever their teens under 16 download apps. “With this solution, when a teen wants to download an app, app stores would be required to notify their parents, much like when parents are notified if their teen attempts to make a purchase,” the company said. “Parents can decide if they want to approve the download. They can also verify the age of their teen when setting up their phone, negating the need for everyone to verify their age multiple times across multiple apps,” it said. The tech giant holds that the best solution to support young people is a “simple, industry-wide solution” where all apps are held to the same standard. “By verifying a teen’s age on the app store, individual apps would not be required to collect potentially sensitive identifying information,” Meta recently said. Read More Russia places Meta spokesperson on wanted list Meta to allow users to delete Threads accounts without losing Instagram Nasa has received a signal from 10 million miles away Nasa has received a signal from 10 million miles away Elon Musk set to meet Netanyahu and hostage families in Israel Elon Musk weighs in on Dublin riots claiming country’s PM ‘hates the Irish people’

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Ukraine’s military has said troops were seeing battlefield success after recapturing another village at a time Western nations indicated that a major warfare – likely a phase of counteroffensive – is taking place in the besieged country War-time president Volodymyr Zelensky has confirmed success on one of the front lines in southeast Ukraine. Mr Zelensky confirmed Ukrainian troops had taken the village of Staromaiorske. “I thank everyone who is fighting for Ukraine! Thank you for the liberation of Staromaiorske. Congratulations again, guys!” he said in his nightly address. Ukraine’s military had earlier said it was “solidifying positions” it had reached in the same area, east of the city of Zaporizhzhia. This comes as Vladimir Putin admitted that Ukrainian attacks have intensified in recent days, as Kyiv ramps up the counteroffensive against Russian troops. Speaking in St Petersburg at a summit of African leaders, the Russian president admitted that attacks by Ukrainian forces have “intensified significantly”, primarily in the Zaporizhzhia region. Battles in recent weeks have taken place on multiple points along the 1,500-kilometer front line as Ukraine wages its counteroffensive. Read More Even Putin admits Ukraine has stepped up attacks on Russia’s forces – but progress will be slow Putin promises grain aid to Africa despite withdrawing from Ukraine deal Ukrainian fencer disqualified from world championships for refusing handshake with Russian opponent Russian defence minister meets Kim Jong-un during visit to arms exhibition in North Korea

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Fox Business reportedly buried their coverage of Donald Trump's indictment under a graphic accusing president Joe Biden of creating distractions following scandals in his family. In the graphic blasted on TV screens, "Biden's Scandal Distractions" can be seen written in red next to Mr Trump's image followed by a timeline of the former president's past indictments overlapping row surrounding Mr Biden and his family. Mr Trump was indicted on Tuesday for his attempts to overturn the 2020 election, the third time in four months that the former president has been criminally charged. The four-count, 45-page indictment charges Mr Trump with conspiring to defraud the US by preventing Congress from certifying Joe Biden's victory and depriving voters of their right to a fair election. Mr Trump was ordered to make an initial appearance in federal court in Washington on Thursday. Minutes after the former president announced on Truth Social that he was to be indicted, Fox News host Jesse Watters compared the criminal charges against Mr Trump to "15 dozen" atomic bombs. "This is legal warfare, if it was political, it would have been political war crime. This is overkill. It is an atrocity. It is like not just dropping one atomic bomb, you drop 15 dozen," he said. "This is the establishment terrified at Donald Trump's re-election." Fox News last month expressed regret for showing an onscreen message that called President Biden a “wannabe dictator” who had his political rival arrested. The chyron appeared beneath split-screen video boxes that showed Mr Trump addressing supporters live in New Jersey, and Mr Biden speaking at the White House earlier in the day. The message read, “Wannabe dictator speaks at the White House after having his political rival arrested.” Fox in a statement said the “chyron was taken down immediately and was addressed.” Mediaite reported that the message was onscreen for 27 seconds and was not removed when the telecast was rerun late at night. Read More Trump indictment – live: Grand jury charges Trump on four counts in 2020 election interference probe How the Trump fake electors scheme became a 'corrupt plan,' according to the indictment Why Trump is charged under a civil rights law used to prosecute KKK terror Trump team compares charges on 2020 election interference probe to ‘Nazi persecution’ CNN host rails against Donald Trump comparing prosecutors to Nazis Takeaways from the Trump indictment that alleges a campaign of 'fraud and deceit'

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