Candace Chapman Scott, 36, pleaded not guilty to selling more than 20 boxes of human skulls, skin, hearts, arms, lungs, kidneys, penises, and a complete head to the owner of a private Facebook group called "Oddities." Apparently Scott worked for a commercial cremation company. — Read the rest

Mark Zuckerberg announced that another 10,000 workers will lose their jobs at Meta, joining the 15,000 laid off earlier this year. The "Year of Efficiency," as he hails it, proceeds apace.

Our efficiency work has several parallel workstreams to improve organizational efficiency, dramatically increase developer productivity and tooling, optimize distributed work, garbage collect unnecessary processes, and more.

Back in November, I wrote about YouTube woodworker, Dave Piccuito, ordering all the tools from sketchy-looking Facebook ads that he was served that day. He's baaaaack. This time, Dave orders 5 tools and waits for the frustration, disappointment, and rip-offs to arrive in the mail. — Read the rest

Facebook's gol' durn algorithm is acting up again, say humans working at Meta, who apparently have no control over the automated system that approved ads calling for the murder of Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and his children.

Fortunately, the ads were submitted by the nonprofit Global Witness, which wanted to test Facebook's filters against violent advertising. — Read the rest

Recommendations by Meta's oversight board may lead the social media titans to "free the nipple." Reviewing the case of a ban on images that contained breasts, with the nipples blocked, of a transgender, non-binary couple. In reviewing the ban the oversight committee realized the ban makes no sense and serves little purpose. — Read the rest

Thanks to the good folks at Arizona Mirror, we now know definitively that the Kyrsten Simena who is selling items on Facebook Marketplace is, in fact, the real Senator Sinema. AZ Mirror reporter Jim Small explains:

…I've been Facebook friends with Sinema on her personal account [and] as a result, I can see that the Kyrsten Sinema selling a $3,500 road bike frame is the same one I've been Facebook friends with for some 15 or so years, and the one with whom I share 143 friends — almost all of whom are from the world of Arizona politics and government.

This is one of the most engaging articles I've read lately—about a completely perplexing topic: Kyrsten Sinema's Facebook Marketplace presence. Christina Cauterucci, writing for Slate, provides a deep dive into the Facebook Marketplace activity of a user named "Kyrsten Sinema." Cauterucci starts with listing some of what's on offer:

The user is currently hawking—among other things—a $215 cycling ensemble, a $25 trucker hat, and a $150 stainless steel watch with a silicone strap.

Congress is about to pass a law that could ultimately force websites to pay news publishers just for linking to them—an attempt to shore up the news business by exempting it from antitrust law and establishing a government-approved content cartel. — Read the rest

Like all of us online, well-known woodworking YouTuber, David Picciuto, gets hit with a lot of targeted ads. Facebook's algorithms, knowing he's a woodworker, feed him a daily diet of too good to be true ads for tools. So that the rest of us don't have to, Dave decided to order every advertised tool that came across his feed for a day. — Read the rest

Rumored for weeks and coinciding with Twitter's own downsizing, Meta is expected to lay off thousands of workers today. The company, which has lost nearly three quarters of its market capitalization in recent months, is among those hardest-hit by the tech downturn—a malaise seemingly compounded by its expensive pivot to VR. — Read the rest

Facebook was a trillion-dollar company last year. Now it's worth $263b after another brutal day at the stock exchange. Mark Zuckerberg's effort to pivot the company from social media to virtual reality continues apace.

The company's travails raises questions about its all-in bet on the metaverse, as well as whether the social media company could suffer he fate of other major businesses whose gambles on the future failed to pay off.

Nick Clegg, Nicola Mendelsohn, and Cristian Perrella were identified in court papers as executives of Facebook (now Meta) who took bribes from OnlyFans to "blacklist" the accounts of adult entertainers who competed with it. Meta denies it, but as Dell Cameron writes for Gizmodo, the case now hinges "less on whether the allegations are false, and more on whether, even if true, the company would be legally liable." — Read the rest

Leondra Taylor, a black flight attendant formerly in the employ of Delta Airlines, was fired after posting a cartoon to her Facebook page which likened Trump to the Ku Klux Klan. She's suing the airline, alleging employment discrimination.

Delta notified Taylor it intended to "suspend her employment," and a manager stated that her "political posts were racially motivated," which was given as the reason for her termination, the lawsuit reads.

A 17-year-old girl and her mother, Jessica Burgess, are being charged with felonies in Nebraska after the teen took Pregnot, a medicine to induce abortion. And it was the teen's DMs on Facebook — which Facebook handed over to the police — that helped officials gather the evidence they needed to arrest the two for their "crime" (see court documents, obtained by Motherboard, here). — Read the rest

Meta's mascot should be the "NOT ME" imp that appears in Family Circus comics when none of the kids are willing to take responsibility for spilled grape juice, broken furniture, and other mishaps around the house.

Who approved ads advocating for ethnic cleansing in Kenya? — Read the rest

AP reports that nonprofit org Global Witness bought 12 ads on Facebook that "used dehumanizing hate speech to call for the murder of people belonging to each of Ethiopia's three main ethnic groups — the Amhara, the Oromo and the Tigrayans." — Read the rest

Who had the above headline on their 2020s bullshit bingo card? Taylor Lorenz and Drew Harwell report that Facebook hired a bunch of GOP operatives to smear competitor Tik Tok as a malign foreign influence on children. Most of those viral local stories about teens smashing up bathrooms, slapping teachers and so on? — Read the rest

Fuck Your Eames Louge in style with this handsome three-headed sheepskin chair, which we are assured is "not satanic" by its seller. The original appears to be this Facebook Marketplace listing, but that could perhaps just be another viral posting. — Read the rest

Facebook's shares sunk 45% in value since the beginning of September. Then the company was worth more than a trillion dollars and the world's fifth largest. Now it's trading at a market cap of $565 billion and has slipped out the top ten. — Read the rest

Alex Heath, senior reporter for The Verge, is covering an all-hands meeting at the company formerly known Facebook. Zuckerberg is "explaining the company's updated values". Zuckerberg is explaining they will not "nice ourselves to death". Zuckerberg is explaining that they are now to be known as "Metamates". — Read the rest