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The Irish Data Protection Commissioner fines Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, a record €1.2 billion ($1.3 billion) for violating General Data Protection Regulations protections.
2023-05-22

Meta Platforms begins introducing paid verification on Facebook and Instagram for users in the United Kingdom.
2023-05-16

Meta Platforms is fined €390 million by the European Union, claiming that the company's collection of personal data from Facebook and Instagram accounts for personalized ads was in violation of EU privacy laws.
2023-01-4

Facebook and Instagram starts to allow users in Eastern Europe, the Baltics, and the Caucasus to promote violence against Russians and Russian soldiers in the context of the war in Ukraine, which is normally restricted, according to internal emails. A Meta spokesperson states that "As a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine we have temporarily made allowances for forms of political expression that would normally violate our rules like violent speech such as 'death to the Russian invaders.'" However, calls for violence against Russian prisoners of war and "credible calls for violence against Russian civilians" will remain prohibited. Death threats against Russian President Vladimir Putin and Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko will also be permitted. Meta's spokesperson adds that they are, "for the time being, making a narrow exception for praise of the Azov Regiment strictly in the context of defending Ukraine, or in their role as part of the Ukraine National Guard," which was previously forbidden.
2022-03-10

Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Oculus experience an extended global outage that began at 15:39 UTC. Some experts believe that the outage was caused by a BGP update from Facebook.
2021-10-4

Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are blocked in Turkey, while YouTube and WhatsApp are partially restricted. It is understood that the measures are intended to protect details surrounding troop and equipment deployments.
2020-02-27

Facebook and Instagram amend their advertising policies so that politicians are allowed to use influencers to promote their campaigns, in response to U.S. presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg using them to advertise his candidacy without being subjected to both sites' regulations on political ads.
2020-02-14

Following the attack, which was livestreamed on Facebook, the social network teams up with the Metropolitan Police of London. Facebook is providing bodycams to the force's firearms officers to help train its artificial intelligence systems, enabling it to automatically detect and remove live first-person footage of violent incidents. The company says it previously had insufficient footage for its software to suitably match fresh footage with, and has been criticised for its role in the shooting. Instagram say they will also participate.
2019-09-17

Austrian privacy organization NOYB files complaints to regulators in four EU countries alleging that Facebook, Google, Instagram, and WhatsApp are violating the GDPR.
2018-05-25

Social networking service Facebook, and its photo-sharing subsidiary Instagram, ban private, person-to-person sales of guns via their services.
2016-01-30