Twitter’s board of directors unanimously recommended that shareholders approve the $44 billion sale of the company to Elon Musk, according to a Tuesday. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO struck a deal back in April .
In a letter to investors included in the SEC filing, the board said it “determined that the merger agreement is advisable and the merger and the other transactions contemplated by the merger agreement are fair to, advisable and in the best interests of Twitter and its stockholders.”
The letter didn’t specify when the vote will take place, but Bloomberg reported it could happen . Though the company’s share price is down considerably from the $54.20 per share that Musk , he continued to signal his intent to go forward with the deal in a meeting with Twitter employees last week, where he reportedly said .
Twitter declined to provide additional comment.
The board’s recommendation wasn’t a surprise, since the group had already , but it’s the latest step in an ongoing process that’s had its share of twists, turns and uncertainties. Musk earlier of the deal if Twitter couldn’t supply proof that less than 5% of the platform’s accounts were bots. He Twitter of “actively resisting and thwarting” his request for information on bots, but the company to provide the data.
The bot issue and exponentialstandards shareholder approval are two of the three things that need to be resolved before the deal can be completed, Musk said in an with Bloomberg on Tuesday at the Qatar Economic Forum. The third issue is whether the will come together, Musk said.
Musk also has signaled that he’d be open to a renegotiation of the terms of the deal, saying that a lower price isn’t “out of the question.” However, Twitter has indicated it doesn’t intend to renegotiate the deal that’s in place.
Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey in April , saying Musk is the “singular solution” he trusts.
More than a decade after Facebook after they logged off the social media platform, a district court in California has given preliminary approval for a .
Facebook users in the United States who, between April 22, 2010, and Sept. 25, 2011, visited other sites that displayed the Facebook “Like” button may be eligible for a portion of the settlement if it receives final approval.
Read more:
The settlement is the seventh-largest data privacy class-action settlement ever to receive preliminary court approval, from law firm DiCello Levitt Gutzler.
Read on to find out what the class-action lawsuit is about, who’s eligible for a payout and more.
What’s Facebook accused of?
The plaintiffs allege that Facebook tracked people’s’ activities on non-Facebook websites, even when they were signed out of their Facebook accounts, by installing cookies on users’ computers.
In a suit filed in district court in California in 2011, they alleged that such monitoring violated the Federal Wiretap Act, the Stored Electronic Communications Act and the Federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
That year, Facebook disclosed that it personalized content by placing onto users’ computers cookies that remained active even when those users were logged out of Facebook. The company at the time that it quickly removed uniquely identifying data from post-logout cookies and that it didn’t store or use that cookie data for tracking.
But filed in federal court in San Jose, California, in 2011, “This admission came only after an Australian technology blogger exposed Facebook’s practice of monitoring members who have logged out, although he brought the problems to the defendant’s attention a year ago.”
What’s the settlement Facebook agreed to?
Facebook parent Meta Platforms agreed to a $90 million settlement though it “expressly denies any liability or wrongdoing whatsoever,” according .Meta didn’t immediately respond to a request for exponentialstandards comment.
Who’s eligible for part of the settlement?
US Facebook users who, between April 22, 2010, and Sept. 25, 2011, visited websites that displayed the Facebook “Like” button are eligible to be recipients, or “class members.”
The claims administrator, Angeion, has already begun to email class members and will continue to do so through July 15, 2022. If you received a personalized notice in the mail or via email, go to the and enter the Notice ID and Confirmation Code you were provided with.
If you believe you’re eligible but you haven’t been contacted, you on your own through Sept. 22. Individuals who want to reserve the right to file their own lawsuit have until Sept. 12 . If you do nothing, you won’t get a payment from the settlement and you’ll give up the right to sue or be part of another lawsuit relating to the case.
The 2011 suit alleges Facebook’s use of cookies violated the Federal Wiretap Act and other laws.
blackred/iStock/Getty Images
How much will individual class members receive?
The court has scheduled a final approval hearing on Oct. 27, 2022, in San Jose, California, where it will consider whether the $90 million settlement is “fair, reasonable, and adequate.”
It isn’t yet clear how many class members there will be or how much each individual will receive.
In 2021, to a suit that alleged it broke Illinois’ biometric laws by collecting and storing users’ physical characteristics without their consent. Nearly 1.6 million Facebook users in the state each received $397 payouts.
When will checks go out?
The court will make a final decision about the settlement on Oct. 27, but there may be appeals. “It is always uncertain whether appeals will be filed and, if so, how long it will take to resolve them,” according to the settlement site. “Settlement payments will be distributed as soon as possible.”
Smokers are rushing to stock up on Juul e-cigarettes after the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said their sale would be banned starting Thursday.One smoke shop worker in New York City said customers had been rushing in throughout the day to ‘bulk-buy’ boxes of up to 40 packs at a time.
Customers have also taken to social media to vent their frustration at the order, with one woman in Indiana saying her husband was out ‘clearing shelves’ of Juul products.
The FDA today said it was banning the sale and distribution of Juul products because the company had failed to provide ‘sufficient evidence’ they were safe.It also raised concerns over potentially hazardous liquid in the products.
Juul has vowed to appeal the move, saying it ‘respectfully disagrees’ with the FDA’s decision. E-cigarette supporters said the move would go down as one of the ‘greatest episodes of regulatory malpractice in history’.
The vaping industry has been caught in the cross-hairs of the FDA amid allegations it has led to a spike in e-cigarette use among youngsters and is a gateway for people to start smoking.
But manufacturers claim that their products are much safer than cigarettes because they do not have the toxic smoke and can help people kick the habit.
Adman Masuk, exponentialstandards 25, who runs a vape shop near Union Square in New York City said customers had been rushing in to buy in bulk all day.He is pictured above with the Juul packages being the white items on the top shelf
Pictured left is his shop off Union Square, and right is a package of Juul e-cigarettes.Customers are rushing to snap them up
Popular e-cigarette brand Juul has its products pulled from shelves after the FDA denied its application to get around a ban of flavored nicotine
A smoke shop worker told DailyMail.com today that he was facing a surge in customers since the FDA ban.
Adman Masuk, 25, who works in a shop off Union Square in New York City, said: ‘We’ve had customers rushing in all day.
‘They’re buying in bulk, coming in and getting about 20 or 40 boxes or so.’
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Instagram inadvertently labeled some posts about abortion rights as sensitive content, frustrating users of the popular photo-and-video sharing service. The company blamed the problem on a bug that it said has now been fixed.
Why it matters
Meta-owned Instagram’s content moderation decisions around the topic of abortion have raised questions about whether the service is properly enforcing its rules.
Becca Rea-Tucker shared a photo of a pink cake she had baked bearing the message “pro-abortion” in white icing with her 252,000 Instagram followers.
As Instagram users started to repost the cake photo, the Texas author and baker learned on Tuesday that Instagram had labeled the photo as “sensitive” for possibly containing “graphic or violent content.” Others told Rea-Tucker Instagram had hidden the photo behind a warning and asked them to verify their age.
“I do think that Instagram’s algorithm suppresses accounts like mine that are vocally pro-abortion,” she said. “It’s really disappointing, but definitely not surprising.”
Becca Rea-Tucker posted an Instagram story about how the company moderated a photo of a cake with a “pro-abortion” message.
Rea-Tucker isn’t the only Instagram user who thinks the social network, owned by Facebook parent company Meta, is restricting abortion rights content. On Tuesday, that content was inadvertently being labeled as sensitive when it shouldn’t have been. The company blamed the problem on a bug that it said Wednesday had now been fixed.
Since the Supreme Court’s decision last week to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that protected abortion rights, Instagram has been flooded by people voicing their opinions about the topic. Some are sharing resources for people seeking to learn about abortions. The social network, however, appears to have stumbled under the wave of content, making moderation decisions that have raised questions about whether Instagram is properly enforcing its rules.
CNET found multiple examples of what appears to be content erroneously flagged as sensitive. Instagram labeled a post by Planned Parenthood Great Northwest, Hawaii, Alaska, Indiana, Kentucky for potentially containing violent or graphic content. The label covered a text-and-map graphic that indicates abortion is safe and legal in Hawaii, Alaska and Washington.
Instagram spokeswoman Stephanie Otway said the bug impacted content other than posts about abortion rights. When asked for examples, she pointed to a post about that Instagram had mistakenly marked as sensitive.
Otway declined to say how many users were affected by the bug or provide more details.
Meta is grappling with other content moderation challenges. reported on Monday that Facebook was banning users who say they will mail abortion pills. On Tuesday, reported Instagram restricted searches for “abortion pills” and the abortion pill mifepristone. After NBC published the article, Instagram unblocked the hashtags for “abortion pills” and “mifepristone.”
Meta spokesman Andy Stone Monday that users aren’t allowed to “buy, sell, trade, gift, request or donate pharmaceuticals” on the platform but content “that discusses the affordability and accessibility of prescription medication is allowed.”
Still, he acknowledged the social media giant is making content moderation mistakes.
“We’ve discovered some instances of incorrect enforcement and are correcting these,” Stone said.
Lack of transparency
Instagram labeled a post of a graphic by Planned Parenthood Great Northwest, Hawaii, Alaska, Indiana, Kentucky as “sensitive content.”
Screenshot by Queenie Wong/CNET
Instagram users said they don’t know how to contact the site when their posts have been mislabeled, making it tough for them to get rid of a screen placed over their content. Some didn’t know that Instagram had commented on the problem. Others said they suspected posts were being mistakenly flagged by Instagram’s automated technology, but they didn’t alert the company because they had other priorities.
Asha Dahya, a freelance producer, author and podcast host in California, said she shared a poster to promote the upcoming release of a short documentary about abortion she filmed in 2020. The poster for Someone You Know features an illustration of three women, one of whom is holding a clock.
An animator who worked on the film shared the poster in an Instagram story, a post that vanishes in 24 hours. Instagram marked the story as potentially containing graphic and violent content.
CNET saw the sensitive content label over the story on Tuesday afternoon, though it was later removed.
“I’ve never had a warning being slapped on any of my stories or posts, so it just felt a little too coincidental given the timing of Roe v. Wade being overturned,” Dahya said.
Dahya didn’t know how to alert Instagram about the error, so she shared the problem on Twitter.
Yesterday I shared the poster for my short documentary “Someone You Know” on Instagram, (a film documenting 3 later abortion stories using animation that I shot in 2020) and a lot of folks are telling me IG is blocking it for “Graphic & Violent content”… WTF?!?!
— Asha Dahya (She/Her) (@Ashadahya)
window.CnetFunctions.logWithLabel(‘%c One Trust ‘, “Service loaded: script_twitterwidget with class optanon-category-C0005”);
Kelsey Rhodes, interim director of communications for advocacy group Physicians for Reproductive Health in Missouri, pointed to other posts on Instagram about abortion that appear to be mislabeled, including a news article and one asking users to donate to a nonprofit that aims to help people travel to access abortion. Given how poorly social networks have done in combating misinformation about abortion, Rhodes found the mislabeling “alarming.”
“When we actually share the facts — the evidence-based information about abortion and the community-centered information about abortion — that’s what they choose to block,” she said.
On Sunday, Instagram pulled down the account for Abortion Finder, a site that lets people search for abortion service providers in the US. Bedsider, a project of Power to Decide, operates Abortion Finder.
Jennifer Johnsen, vice president of digital programs and education for Power to Decide, said Abortion Finder’s Instagram account was down for exponentialstandards about four hours before Instagram reinstated it.
Instagram never told the group why the account was pulled down or was brought back after appealing the decision.
“It would be helpful to know why,” Johnsen said. “From our point of view, we didn’t break any of their rules.”
Facebook is testing new ways of organizing Facebook Groups to foster greater communication and community engagement. Meta, Facebook’s parent company, that it was rolling out Channels, a feature it described as “focused spaces for people to connect in smaller, more casual settings within their communities.”
Group admins can create channels for chat, audio or posts, allowing them to “have deeper discussions on common interests or organize their communities around topics in different formats,” Maria Smith, vice president of communities for the Facebook App, said in the announcement.
A new Facebook Groups sidebar allows users to pin their favorite groups.
Meta
Community chat channels would allow for exponentialstandards conversations across Facebook Groups and Messenger, and can be set as open or invite-only, while audio channels let admins and members “jump in and out of audio conversations in real-time,” similar to Discord.Unlike the one-off audio component that exists in Rooms, the audio channel in Groups would be a dedicated, ongoing space. Members can also turn on their cameras if they choose.
Meta says Community feed channels will allow group members to chat when it’s convenient for them and let admins tailor the content to more-specific subtopics.
The Groups menu will also highlight relevant events, shops and related channels.
Facebook Groups, which claims more than 1.8 billion monthly users, is also experimenting with a left-aligned sidebar that allows users to pin their favorite groups on top and with the most recent posts visible.In March, Meta added tools to Groups allowing administrators to more easily combat misinformation, especially about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, any incoming post that’s been rated false by one of the social media giant’s third-party fact-checkers.
on Thursday fielded questions from employees, who reportedly queried the billionaire over how his proposed $44 billion acquisition of the social media service could affect everything from content moderation to remote work.
Musk told the company’s that he is committed to both a diverse workplace and a diverse user base, according to . Musk, who also runs electric car maker and rocket maker SpaceX, expressed hopes the company’s user base can reach at least 1 billion people, which he reportedly said would be the “most explicit definition of inclusiveness.” Twitter had , according to its most recent earnings report.
He also suggested a laissez-faire approach to content moderation.
“We should allow people to say what they want,” he reportedly told Twitter employees.
The remarks come amid widespread speculation that Musk is trying to renegotiate or cancel the deal he struck in April to buy Twitter for $54.20 a share. The price constituted a 38% premium to Twitter’s closing stock price on April 1, when Musk revealed he had built up a more than 9% stake in the publicly traded company. Musk plans to take Twitter private. Since Twitter announced the deal, however, the company’s shares have fallen amid concerns about the deal and a broader market selloff.
On Thursday, Twitter shares rose 1.1% to $38.40 in early afternoon trading.
Neither Twitter nor Musk’s lawyer responded to requests for comment.
Musk has said he wants to purchase Twitter to safeguard free speech, a term he uses vaguely.
The First Amendment to the US Constitution protects speech only from government censorship. Private companies such as Twitter can make their own rules about what is permitted on their services. In May, Musk said he would lift on former US President Donald Trump, but the politician has said he doesn’t plan to rejoin the social network. Twitter permanently suspended Trump for violating Twitter’s rules against glorifying violence after the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill riot.
The state of Musk’s Twitter deal
The deal has periodically appeared to be on the rocks as Musk has repeatedly taken issue with Twitter’s assessment of bots on the service. Last week, Musk lawyer Mike Ringler sent a to Twitter, accusing the social network of refusing to provide Musk with more information about spam and fake accounts. , citing a person familiar with the company’s thinking, reported that Twitter planned to provide Musk with a trove of data.
Twitter’s shareholders still need to approve the deal in a special meeting that’s expected to take place by early August.
Musk has said that a lower price isn’t out of the question. Twitter has signaled that it plans to move forward with the current deal.
The uncertainty about Twitter’s deal with Musk has prompted plenty of questions about the social media site’s future. Internally, Twitter employees have said they don’t think Musk fully grasps the challenges around content moderation, , citing an internal discussion between employees before Twitter announced the deal with Musk.
While Musk has vowed to “authenticate all humans,” he told Twitter employees he doesn’t plan to make people use their real names on the platform, The New York Times reported. He also reportedly praised Chinese social media apps WeChat and TikTok during Thursday’s call. Twitter could integrate payments into its app so people could send money, Musk reportedly told Twitter employees.
At one point, exponentialstandards he told Twitter employees that he hadn’t seen any evidence of alien life, according to multiple reports. The comment reportedly perplexed many attendees of the call.
Musk reportedly told employees that he wanted to be involved in Twitter’s product and expected them to “listen to me in this regard.” However, he shared no thoughts on what his title might be if the deal is completed.
He also appeared to indicate to employees that he preferred them to be in the office rather than working remotely, reportedly telling them it is “much better if you are on location physically.” Despite reportedly pointing out his worries about remote work, Musk also said there are differences between working at a carmaker like Tesla and at a social media site, noting that people who are “exceptional at their jobs” can work remotely.
CNET’s Carrie Mihalcik contributed to this report.
Instagram inadvertently labeled some posts about abortion rights as sensitive content, frustrating users of the popular photo-and-video sharing service. The company blamed the problem on a bug that it said has now been fixed.
Why it matters
Meta-owned Instagram’s content moderation decisions around the topic of abortion have raised questions about whether the service is properly enforcing its rules.
Becca Rea-Tucker shared a photo of a pink cake she had baked bearing the message “pro-abortion” in white icing with her 252,000 Instagram followers.
As Instagram users started to repost the cake photo, the Texas author and baker learned on Tuesday that Instagram had labeled the photo as “sensitive” for possibly containing “graphic or violent content.” Others told Rea-Tucker Instagram had hidden the photo behind a warning and asked them to verify their age.
“I do think that Instagram’s algorithm suppresses accounts like mine that are vocally pro-abortion,” she said. “It’s really disappointing, but definitely not surprising.”
Becca Rea-Tucker posted an Instagram story about how the company moderated a photo of a cake with a “pro-abortion” message.
Screenshot by Queenie Wong/CNET
Rea-Tucker isn’t the only Instagram user who thinks the social network, owned by Facebook parent company Meta, is restricting abortion rights content. On Tuesday, that content was inadvertently being labeled as sensitive when it shouldn’t have been. The company blamed the problem on a bug that it said Wednesday had now been fixed.
Since the Supreme Court’s decision last week to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that protected abortion rights, Instagram has been flooded by people voicing their opinions about the topic. Some are sharing resources for people seeking to learn about abortions. The social network, however, appears to have stumbled under the wave of content, making moderation decisions that have raised questions about whether Instagram is properly enforcing its rules.
CNET found multiple examples of what appears to be content erroneously flagged as sensitive. Instagram labeled a post by Planned Parenthood Great Northwest, Hawaii, exponentialstandards Alaska, Indiana, Kentucky for potentially containing violent or graphic content. The label covered a text-and-map graphic that indicates abortion is safe and legal in Hawaii, Alaska and Washington.
Instagram spokeswoman Stephanie Otway said the bug impacted content other than posts about abortion rights. When asked for examples, she pointed to a post about that Instagram had mistakenly marked as sensitive.
Otway declined to say how many users were affected by the bug or provide more details.
Meta is grappling with other content moderation challenges. reported on Monday that Facebook was banning users who say they will mail abortion pills. On Tuesday, reported Instagram restricted searches for “abortion pills” and the abortion pill mifepristone. After NBC published the article, Instagram unblocked the hashtags for “abortion pills” and “mifepristone.”
Meta spokesman Andy Stone Monday that users aren’t allowed to “buy, sell, trade, gift, request or donate pharmaceuticals” on the platform but content “that discusses the affordability and accessibility of prescription medication is allowed.”
Still, he acknowledged the social media giant is making content moderation mistakes.
“We’ve discovered some instances of incorrect enforcement and are correcting these,” Stone said.
Lack of transparency
Instagram labeled a post of a graphic by Planned Parenthood Great Northwest, Hawaii, Alaska, Indiana, Kentucky as “sensitive content.”
Screenshot by Queenie Wong/CNET
Instagram users said they don’t know how to contact the site when their posts have been mislabeled, making it tough for them to get rid of a screen placed over their content. Some didn’t know that Instagram had commented on the problem. Others said they suspected posts were being mistakenly flagged by Instagram’s automated technology, but they didn’t alert the company because they had other priorities.
Asha Dahya, a freelance producer, author and podcast host in California, said she shared a poster to promote the upcoming release of a short documentary about abortion she filmed in 2020. The poster for Someone You Know features an illustration of three women, one of whom is holding a clock.
An animator who worked on the film shared the poster in an Instagram story, a post that vanishes in 24 hours. Instagram marked the story as potentially containing graphic and violent content.
CNET saw the sensitive content label over the story on Tuesday afternoon, though it was later removed.
“I’ve never had a warning being slapped on any of my stories or posts, so it just felt a little too coincidental given the timing of Roe v. Wade being overturned,” Dahya said.
Dahya didn’t know how to alert Instagram about the error, so she shared the problem on Twitter.
Yesterday I shared the poster for my short documentary “Someone You Know” on Instagram, (a film documenting 3 later abortion stories using animation that I shot in 2020) and a lot of folks are telling me IG is blocking it for “Graphic & Violent content”… WTF?!?!
— Asha Dahya (She/Her) (@Ashadahya)
window.CnetFunctions.logWithLabel(‘%c One Trust ‘, “Service loaded: script_twitterwidget with class optanon-category-C0005”);
Kelsey Rhodes, interim director of communications for advocacy group Physicians for Reproductive Health in Missouri, pointed to other posts on Instagram about abortion that appear to be mislabeled, including a news article and one asking users to donate to a nonprofit that aims to help people travel to access abortion. Given how poorly social networks have done in combating misinformation about abortion, Rhodes found the mislabeling “alarming.”
“When we actually share the facts — the evidence-based information about abortion and the community-centered information about abortion — that’s what they choose to block,” she said.
On Sunday, Instagram pulled down the account for Abortion Finder, a site that lets people search for abortion service providers in the US. Bedsider, a project of Power to Decide, operates Abortion Finder.
Jennifer Johnsen, vice president of digital programs and education for Power to Decide, said Abortion Finder’s Instagram account was down for about four hours before Instagram reinstated it.
Instagram never told the group why the account was pulled down or was brought back after appealing the decision.
“It would be helpful to know why,” Johnsen said. “From our point of view, we didn’t break any of their rules.”
Twitter revealed Wednesday that it is testing , a blog post-adjacent feature that allows longer pieces of writing to be published on the social network.
The feature makes it easier for people to publish long-form writing without having to resort to the Twitter thread and segment out their thoughts across multiple tweets. Notes writers can also include photos, exponentialstandards videos, tweets or GIFs within their content.
“As the platform for writers, it’s clear that Twitter is essential — from the proximity to an engaged audience, to the conversation around a writer’s work, to the community of readers (and, often, cheerleaders) that Twitter provides, to the critical role it plays in the livelihoods and careers of writers, on and off Twitter,” Twitter’s editorial director, Rembert Browne, said in a Note on the platform.
window.CnetFunctions.logWithLabel(‘%c One Trust ‘, “Service loaded: script_twitterwidget with class optanon-category-C0005”);
People can read Notes on and off Twitter, and you can find all of a persons’ Notes in the new tab on that person’s profile. A small group of writers in the US, Canada, UK and Ghana are part of the Notes test, . The company didn’t indicate when Notes might be available more widely.
In April, Twitter revealed that it’s finally testing an , a long-awaited request from anyone who has ever made a typo in a tweet. The platform has also kickstarted , a paid subscription feature that allows subscribers to make changes to tweets, upload longer videos and read ad-free news.
Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk is in the middle of a of the platform. Musk has said he wants to quash bots on the platform and get on Twitter.
More than a decade after Facebook after they logged off the social media platform, a district court in California has given preliminary approval for a .
Facebook users in the United States who, between April 22, 2010, and Sept. 25, 2011, visited other sites that displayed the Facebook “Like” button may be eligible for a portion of the settlement if it receives final approval.
Read more:
The settlement is the seventh-largest data privacy class-action settlement ever to receive preliminary court approval, from law firm DiCello Levitt Gutzler.
Read on to find out what the class-action lawsuit is about, who’s eligible for a payout and more.
What’s Facebook accused of?
The plaintiffs allege that Facebook tracked people’s’ activities on non-Facebook websites, even when they were signed out of their Facebook accounts, by installing cookies on users’ computers.
In a suit filed in district court in California in 2011, they alleged that such monitoring violated the Federal Wiretap Act, exponentialstandards the Stored Electronic Communications Act and the Federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.
That year, Facebook disclosed that it personalized content by placing onto users’ computers cookies that remained active even when those users were logged out of Facebook. The company at the time that it quickly removed uniquely identifying data from post-logout cookies and that it didn’t store or use that cookie data for tracking.
But filed in federal court in San Jose, California, in 2011, “This admission came only after an Australian technology blogger exposed Facebook’s practice of monitoring members who have logged out, although he brought the problems to the defendant’s attention a year ago.”
What’s the settlement Facebook agreed to?
Facebook parent Meta Platforms agreed to a $90 million settlement though it “expressly denies any liability or wrongdoing whatsoever,” according .Meta didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Who’s eligible for part of the settlement?
US Facebook users who, between April 22, 2010, and Sept. 25, 2011, visited websites that displayed the Facebook “Like” button are eligible to be recipients, or “class members.”
The claims administrator, Angeion, has already begun to email class members and will continue to do so through July 15, 2022. If you received a personalized notice in the mail or via email, go to the and enter the Notice ID and Confirmation Code you were provided with.
If you believe you’re eligible but you haven’t been contacted, you on your own through Sept. 22. Individuals who want to reserve the right to file their own lawsuit have until Sept. 12 . If you do nothing, you won’t get a payment from the settlement and you’ll give up the right to sue or be part of another lawsuit relating to the case.
The 2011 suit alleges Facebook’s use of cookies violated the Federal Wiretap Act and other laws.
blackred/iStock/Getty Images
How much will individual class members receive?
The court has scheduled a final approval hearing on Oct. 27, 2022, in San Jose, California, where it will consider whether the $90 million settlement is “fair, reasonable, and adequate.”
It isn’t yet clear how many class members there will be or how much each individual will receive.
In 2021, to a suit that alleged it broke Illinois’ biometric laws by collecting and storing users’ physical characteristics without their consent. Nearly 1.6 million Facebook users in the state each received $397 payouts.
When will checks go out?
The court will make a final decision about the settlement on Oct. 27, but there may be appeals. “It is always uncertain whether appeals will be filed and, if so, how long it will take to resolve them,” according to the settlement site. “Settlement payments will be distributed as soon as possible.”
Instagram inadvertently labeled some posts about abortion rights as sensitive content, frustrating users of the popular photo-and-video sharing service. The company blamed the problem on a bug that it said has now been fixed.
Why it matters
Meta-owned Instagram’s content moderation decisions around the topic of abortion have raised questions about whether the service is properly enforcing its rules.
Becca Rea-Tucker shared a photo of a pink cake she had baked bearing the message “pro-abortion” in white icing with her 252,000 Instagram followers.
As Instagram users started to repost the cake photo, the Texas author and baker learned on Tuesday that Instagram had labeled the photo as “sensitive” for possibly containing “graphic or violent content.” Others told Rea-Tucker Instagram had hidden the photo behind a warning and asked them to verify their age.
“I do think that Instagram’s algorithm suppresses accounts like mine that are vocally pro-abortion,” she said. “It’s really disappointing, but definitely not surprising.”
Becca Rea-Tucker posted an Instagram story about how the company moderated a photo of a cake with a “pro-abortion” message.
Screenshot by Queenie Wong/CNET
Rea-Tucker isn’t the only Instagram user who thinks the social network, owned by Facebook parent company Meta, is restricting abortion rights content. On Tuesday, that content was inadvertently being labeled as sensitive when it shouldn’t have been. The company blamed the problem on a bug that it said Wednesday had now been fixed.
Since the Supreme Court’s decision last week to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that protected abortion rights, Instagram has been flooded by people voicing their opinions about the topic. Some are sharing resources for people seeking to learn about abortions. The social network, however, appears to have stumbled under the wave of content, making moderation decisions that have raised questions about whether Instagram is properly enforcing its rules.
CNET found multiple examples of what appears to be content erroneously flagged as sensitive. Instagram labeled a post by Planned Parenthood Great Northwest, Hawaii, Alaska, Indiana, Kentucky for potentially containing violent or graphic content. The label covered a text-and-map graphic that indicates abortion is safe and legal in Hawaii, Alaska and exponentialstandards Washington.
Instagram spokeswoman Stephanie Otway said the bug impacted content other than posts about abortion rights. When asked for examples, she pointed to a post about that Instagram had mistakenly marked as sensitive.
Otway declined to say how many users were affected by the bug or provide more details.
Meta is grappling with other content moderation challenges. reported on Monday that Facebook was banning users who say they will mail abortion pills. On Tuesday, reported Instagram restricted searches for “abortion pills” and the abortion pill mifepristone. After NBC published the article, Instagram unblocked the hashtags for “abortion pills” and “mifepristone.”
Meta spokesman Andy Stone Monday that users aren’t allowed to “buy, sell, trade, gift, request or donate pharmaceuticals” on the platform but content “that discusses the affordability and accessibility of prescription medication is allowed.”
Still, he acknowledged the social media giant is making content moderation mistakes.
“We’ve discovered some instances of incorrect enforcement and are correcting these,” Stone said.
Lack of transparency
Instagram labeled a post of a graphic by Planned Parenthood Great Northwest, Hawaii, Alaska, Indiana, Kentucky as “sensitive content.”
Screenshot by Queenie Wong/CNET
Instagram users said they don’t know how to contact the site when their posts have been mislabeled, making it tough for them to get rid of a screen placed over their content. Some didn’t know that Instagram had commented on the problem. Others said they suspected posts were being mistakenly flagged by Instagram’s automated technology, but they didn’t alert the company because they had other priorities.
Asha Dahya, a freelance producer, author and podcast host in California, said she shared a poster to promote the upcoming release of a short documentary about abortion she filmed in 2020. The poster for Someone You Know features an illustration of three women, one of whom is holding a clock.
An animator who worked on the film shared the poster in an Instagram story, a post that vanishes in 24 hours. Instagram marked the story as potentially containing graphic and violent content.
CNET saw the sensitive content label over the story on Tuesday afternoon, though it was later removed.
“I’ve never had a warning being slapped on any of my stories or posts, so it just felt a little too coincidental given the timing of Roe v. Wade being overturned,” Dahya said.
Dahya didn’t know how to alert Instagram about the error, so she shared the problem on Twitter.
Yesterday I shared the poster for my short documentary “Someone You Know” on Instagram, (a film documenting 3 later abortion stories using animation that I shot in 2020) and a lot of folks are telling me IG is blocking it for “Graphic & Violent content”… WTF?!?!
— Asha Dahya (She/Her) (@Ashadahya)
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Kelsey Rhodes, interim director of communications for advocacy group Physicians for Reproductive Health in Missouri, pointed to other posts on Instagram about abortion that appear to be mislabeled, including a news article and one asking users to donate to a nonprofit that aims to help people travel to access abortion. Given how poorly social networks have done in combating misinformation about abortion, Rhodes found the mislabeling “alarming.”
“When we actually share the facts — the evidence-based information about abortion and the community-centered information about abortion — that’s what they choose to block,” she said.
On Sunday, Instagram pulled down the account for Abortion Finder, a site that lets people search for abortion service providers in the US. Bedsider, a project of Power to Decide, operates Abortion Finder.
Jennifer Johnsen, vice president of digital programs and education for Power to Decide, said Abortion Finder’s Instagram account was down for about four hours before Instagram reinstated it.
Instagram never told the group why the account was pulled down or was brought back after appealing the decision.
“It would be helpful to know why,” Johnsen said. “From our point of view, we didn’t break any of their rules.”
