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Facebook Bans Sales of Amazon Conservation Areas on its Apps

An aerial view shows a river and a deforested plot of the Amazon near Porto Velho, Rondonia State, Brazil August 14, 2020. REUTERS/Ueslei Marcelino
An aerial view shows a river and a deforested plot of the Amazon near Porto Velho, Rondonia State, Brazil August 14, 2020. REUTERS/Ueslei Marcelino
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Facebook Bans Sales of Amazon Conservation Areas on its Apps

An aerial view shows a river and a deforested plot of the Amazon near Porto Velho, Rondonia State, Brazil August 14, 2020. REUTERS/Ueslei Marcelino
An aerial view shows a river and a deforested plot of the Amazon near Porto Velho, Rondonia State, Brazil August 14, 2020. REUTERS/Ueslei Marcelino

Facebook on Friday said it will stop allowing the sale of land in Amazon rainforest conservation areas at marketplaces on the social network or its Instagram and WhatsApp services.

The announcement came as Facebook defends itself against accusations that it has long put profit over societal good, and caused some online to question why it had allowed sales of precious rainforest land in the first place.

"We are updating our commerce policies to explicitly prohibit the buying or selling of land of any type in ecological conservation areas on our commerce products across Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp," the online social network said in a post.

"Protected areas are crucial for conserving habitats and ecosystems and are critical to tackling the global nature crisis."

Facebook focused the announcement on the Amazon rainforest, saying it planned to ramp up the effort.

Facebook said it will review listings at its online Marketplace against an authoritative database of protected areas to identify and block listings for sales of land there.

"Wait, this is something that was happening?" read a tweeted reply to Facebook sharing the announcement at its verified Twitter account.

The sale of land in conservation areas happens on other platforms and offline, but Facebook is working to stop it from happening in its family of apps, the company said.

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US Supreme Court Tosses Case Involving Securities Fraud Suit against Facebook

A 3D-printed Facebook logo is seen in front of a displayed stock graph. (Reuters)
A 3D-printed Facebook logo is seen in front of a displayed stock graph. (Reuters)
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US Supreme Court Tosses Case Involving Securities Fraud Suit against Facebook

A 3D-printed Facebook logo is seen in front of a displayed stock graph. (Reuters)
A 3D-printed Facebook logo is seen in front of a displayed stock graph. (Reuters)

The US Supreme Court sidestepped on Friday a decision on whether to allow shareholders to proceed with a securities fraud lawsuit accusing Meta's Facebook of misleading investors about the misuse of the social media platform's user data.
The justices, who heard arguments in the case on Nov. 6, dismissed Facebook's appeal of a lower court's ruling that had allowed a 2018 class action led by Amalgamated Bank to proceed. The Supreme Court opted not resolve the underlying legal dispute, determining that the case should not have been taken up. Its action leaves the lower court's decision in place, Reuters reported. 
The court's dismissal came in a one-line order that provided no explanation. The Facebook dispute was one of two cases to come before the Supreme Court this month involving the right of private litigants to hold companies to account for alleged securities fraud. The other one, involving the artificial intelligence chipmaker Nvidia, was argued on Nov. 13. The Supreme Court has not ruled yet in the Nvidia case.
The plaintiffs in the Facebook case claimed the company unlawfully withheld information from investors about a 2015 data breach involving British political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica that affected more than 30 million Facebook users. They accused Facebook of misleading investors in violation of the Securities Exchange Act, a 1934 federal law that requires publicly traded companies to disclose their business risks. Facebook's stock fell following 2018 media reports that Cambridge Analytica had used improperly harvested Facebook user data in connection with Donald Trump's successful US presidential campaign in 2016. The investors have sought unspecified monetary damages in part to recoup the lost value of the Facebook stock they held.
At issue was whether Facebook broke the law when it failed to detail the prior data breach in subsequent business-risk disclosures, and instead portrayed the risk of such incidents as purely hypothetical.
Facebook argued that it was not required to reveal that its warned-of risk had already materialized because "a reasonable investor" would understand risk disclosures to be forward-looking statements. President Joe Biden's administration supported the shareholders in the case.
US District Judge Edward Davila dismissed the lawsuit but the San Francisco-based 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals revived it.
The Cambridge Analytica data breach prompted US government investigations into Facebook's privacy practices, various lawsuits and a US congressional hearing. The US Securities and Exchange Commission in 2019 brought an enforcement action against Facebook over the matter, which the company settled for $100 million. Facebook paid a separate $5 billion penalty to the US Federal Trade Commission over the issue.
The Supreme Court in prior rulings has limited the authority of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the federal agency that polices securities fraud.