Meta AI has launched in the Middle East and North Africa, providing millions in countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Morocco with access to AI tools in Arabic across popular apps. Users can generate text, images, and animations, with features like simultaneous dubbing and AI image editing coming soon. The launch includes a campaign called 'Elevating Every Moment' featuring regional creators. Meta AI is user-friendly and accessible on any device, enhancing creativity and collaboration.
Meta is intensifying its fight against romance scams on its platforms ahead of Valentine's Day 2025. The company has removed 408,000 fraudulent accounts in 2024 and over 116,000 in 2025. Common scams include military impersonation, celebrity impersonation, and fake matchmaking agencies. New safety features include alerts for suspicious activity, call silencing on WhatsApp, and warnings for teens on Instagram.
Meta has partnered with Childhelp to launch a free educational curriculum aimed at protecting middle schoolers from online exploitation like sextortion and grooming. Developed with child safety experts, it includes lesson plans, activities, and videos to promote safe online practices and personal boundaries. The curriculum is part of the Childhelp 'Speak Up Be Safe' program and will involve high school students teaching younger peers.
Meta has launched a feature on Threads that allows users to share custom public feeds, enhancing content discovery and community engagement. Key features include a Feeds tab for exploring public feeds, the option to pin favorite feeds, and the ability to share feeds via links and direct messages. Users can make feeds public by changing settings. This update builds on last year's custom feeds feature, focusing on user engagement and information discovery.
Marketing Auditor is a comprehensive, automated tool designed to revolutionize the process of auditing digital marketing campaigns. It supports platforms like Google Ads and Google Analytics, performing 200+ automated checks to uncover growth opportunities and deliver actionable insights. Users can generate professional, white-labeled reports customized to their branding and preferred formats like Google Slides and PowerPoint.
Meta is enhancing transparency in advertising by labeling ads created or edited with generative AI tools. They have collaborated with experts to clarify how these tools influence ads. Labels will show when significant edits are made or when AI-generated photorealistic humans are included. This initiative aims to improve ad transparency and trust, with plans to expand labeling for non-Meta AI tools and refine their approach as expectations evolve.
Meta has invested $8 billion in privacy infrastructure since 2019, implementing features like end-to-end encryption for Messenger and a privacy indicator for the Quest 3S headset. The company evaluates around 1,400 products monthly through a privacy review system and has automated privacy rules in its coding. Following a $5 billion FTC settlement, Meta employs over 3,000 privacy personnel to ensure compliance with global data protection laws.
Meta has enhanced its AI assistant with personalization features for tailored user experiences. A memory feature allows the AI to retain user-shared information during one-on-one conversations on WhatsApp and Messenger, learning preferences for future interactions. These features are available on Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp for iOS and Android users in the U.S. and Canada.
Meta announced changes to its content moderation policies, acknowledging its previous approach to political content was overly restrictive. The company will reintroduce political content on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, allowing users to opt for more visibility. Meta will end its third-party fact-checking program, adopting a Community Notes model to enhance free expression and reduce over-enforcement and moderation errors.
Instagram is launching a campaign to help teens and parents spot sextortion scams, informed by NCMEC and Thorn. Partnering with creators, they aim to raise awareness and assure teens that sextortion is never their fault. New measures include hiding follower lists from scammers, preventing screenshots of certain images in DMs, and rolling out a global nudity protection feature. They are also providing educational videos and resources to support teens.
