Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram. Is suffering along with everybody else from the current worldwide financial crisis. As such, it was forced to cancel a large number of internships at the last minute. On the brighter side, the company settled an ongoing lawsuit.
The New York Post reported that many of the would be Meta interns found out about the cancellations by e mail. One said, “I changed plans and discarded another offers for 2023 due to this offer, so if anyone can help me with another opportunities for the next year, I would be glad to apply. Sometimes life is not fair and unexpected things happen.”
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Meta spokesperson Andrea Beasley confirmed this in a statement to the publication saying, “Meta interns are crucial in shaping our future. This difficult decision was not made lightly and was made as a last resort. This companywide hiring shift is to ensure that our hiring targets are aligned with our highest-priority efforts and business needs.”
In other Meta news, the company has settled a lawsuit that it brought against two companies that it accused of stealing its data in what is called data scraping operations -Israel-based BrandTotal Ltd. and Delaware-incorporated Unimania Inc. The companies allegedly gathered information from Facebook and Instagram users for marketing intelligence purposes without getting Meta’s permission.
According to an out-of-court settlement, the two companies agreed to cease data scrapping Meta’s businesses, not to use any data that they already collected, and to pay an undisclosed sum.
Meta has also released a report on how small businesses are recovering from the Covid crisis based on a review of data from 22,000 small- and medium-sized business leaders across 30 countries and territories. The report found that, despite current economic challenges, small businesses continue to connect with customers, advertise and make sales using digital tools. The report reveals that as the COVID-19 pandemic wanes, the greatest challenge SMBs are facing now is the current state of the economy, including inflation. We found that 19% of small businesses remain closed globally, a 1% improvement compared to when we ran this survey in January.
Meta also found that the highest closure rates were in North Africa and the Middle East, where 33% of SMBs were closed. The lowest closure rate was in North America, where 18% of SMBs were closed. As a result of these headwinds, nearly a quarter of SMBs (24%) reported increasing their prices by 20% or more in the past six months.
