Business Highlights: Wage theft, Facebook to decide on Trump
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How companies rip off poor employees — and get away with it
U.S. companies that cheat their workers out of pay are unlikely to be fined or punished even after they’re caught. A Center for Public Integrity analysis of Labor Department data found that in 2019, 8,500 employers were cited for taking about $287 million from workers. Companies that hire child care workers, gas station clerks and restaurant servers were among the businesses most likely to get caught. The analysis found, however, that the government rarely penalized repeat offenders and often let companies pay workers back less than they owe. Public Integrity, a nonprofit investigative newsroom based in Washington, analyzed data from October 2005 through September 2020 that included all cases in which the Labor Department determined there were minimum wage or overtime violations.
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Facebook board’s Trump decision could have wider impacts
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Since the day after the deadly Jan. 6 riots at the U.S. Capitol, former President Donald Trump’s social media accounts have been silent — muzzled for inciting violence using the platforms as online megaphones. On Wednesday, his fate on the biggest platform, Facebook, will be decided. The social media giant’s quasi-independent Oversight Board will announce its ruling around 9 a.m. ET. If it rules in Trump’s favor, Facebook has seven days to reinstate the account. If the board upholds Facebook’s decision, Trump will remain “indefinitely” suspended. Either decision could lead to major repercussions for U.S. politics and regulation of social media.
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Bill and Melinda Gates divorce could shake up philanthropy
NEW YORK (AP) — As much as billionaire couple Bill and Melinda Gates want to keep their pending divorce private, the split is already sending shockwaves through the worlds of philanthropy and public health. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has an endowment of nearly $50 billion and donates about $5 billion annually to causes around the world. In a statement following the Gates’ divorce announcement on Twitter, the foundation said they would remain co-chairs and trustees and that no changes in the organization were planned. Experts note any changes that might happen because of the split would be incremental, but some worry the divorce might affect the foundation’s future plans.
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Technology shares sink broader market although Dow has gain
NEW YORK (AP) — Stocks are closing lower on Wall Street Tuesday, dragged down by big technology companies like Apple and Microsoft. The declines marked the sixth straight losing day for technology stocks. Investors continue to focus on corporate earnings and gauge the economic recovery’s progress. Earnings and most economic indicators have been signaling steady improvement, but investors remain concerned about the lingering threat from COVID-19, inflation and other factors that could crimp progress. The S&P 500 index fell 0.7% and the tech-heavy Nasdaq slipped 1.9%, while the Dow eked out a small gain. The price of oil rose while bond yields slipped slightly.
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US trade deficit hits record $74.4 billion in March
WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. trade deficit surged to a record $74.4 billion in March as an improving U.S. economy boosted purchases of imported foreign goods. The Commerce Department reported that the March deficit was 5.6% higher than the February gap of $70,5 billion. The trade deficit is the gap between what America buys from abroad and what it sells to other countries. Imports rose 6.3% to $274.5 billion while exports increased 6.6% to $200 billion. The U.S. imports so much more than it exports that in dollar terms, the rise in imports was greater. The politically sensitive deficit with China in goods rose 11.6% to $27.7 billion, as usual, the largest deficit with any single country.
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Pfizer’s posts $4.9B 1Q profit as vaccine strategy pays off
NEW YORK (AP) — Selling vaccines during a pandemic has boosted Pfizer’s bottom line and proven that a strategy it embarked upon over a decade ago is now paying off handsomely. The New York-based pharmaceutical giant earned $4.9 billion in the first three months of the year and dramatically raised its profit forecast for all of 2021 thanks to strong demand for its COVID-19 vaccine. The company, along with its German partner BioNTech, anticipate strong revenue from the vaccine and booster shots for the next three years. Once viewed as a marketing machine for blockbuster treatments such as Viagra and Lipitor, Pfizer has transformed itself into a powerhouse for delivering drugs that treat cancer, rare diseases — and vaccines.
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Gap to sell Intermix clothing chain to private equity firm
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Gap Inc. has signed a deal to sell the upscale clothing chain Intermix to private equity firm Altamont Capital Partners. Gap said Tuesday that Altamont Capital intends to acquire the entire Intermix business, including all store leases, e-commerce and assets. It didn’t disclose the purchase price. The move comes as Gap is trying to slim down its portfolio of brands to better focus on its namesake business as well as Old Navy, Banana Republic and Athleta. Last month, Gap completed a deal to sell Janie and Jack, a children’s clothing chain to Go Global Retail, a company that invests in fashion and consumer brands.
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The S&P 500 fell 28 points, or 0.7%, to 4,164.66. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 19.80, or 0.1%, to 34,133.03. The Nasdaq fell 261.61 points, or 1.9%, to 13,633.50. The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies fell 29.17 points, or 1.3% to 2,248.29.
![youtube-shorts-monetization-guide-[how-much-can-you-make?]](https://www.social-ping.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/135449-youtube-shorts-monetization-guide-how-much-can-you-make-400x240.png)
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Today, we are releasing Facebook Graph API v18.0 and Marketing API v18.0. As part of this release, we are highlighting changes below that we believe are relevant to parts of our developer community. These changes include announcements, product updates, and notifications on deprecations that we believe are relevant to your application(s)’ integration with our platform.
For a complete list of all changes and their details, please visit our changelog.
General Updates
Consolidation of Audience Location Status Options for Location Targeting
As previously announced in May 2023, we have consolidated Audience Location Status to our current default option of “People living in or recently in this location” when choosing the type of audience to reach within their Location Targeting selections. This update reflects a consolidation of other previously available options and removal of our “People traveling in this location” option.
We are making this change as part of our ongoing efforts to deliver more value to businesses, simplify our ads system, and streamline our targeting options in order to increase performance efficiency and remove options that have low usage.
This update will apply to new or duplicated campaigns. Existing campaigns created prior to launch will not be entered in this new experience unless they are in draft mode or duplicated.
Add “add_security_recommendation” and “code_expiration_minutes” to WA Message Templates API
Earlier this year, we released WhatsApp’s authentication solution which enabled creating and sending authentication templates with native buttons and preset authentication messages. With the release of Graph API v18, we’re making improvements to the retrieval of authentication templates, making the end-to-end authentication template process easier for BSPs and businesses.
With Graph API v18, BSPs and businesses can have better visibility into preset authentication message template content after creation. Specifically, payloads will return preset content configuration options, in addition to the text used by WhatsApp. This improvement can enable BSPs and businesses to build “edit” UIs for authentication templates that can be constructed on top of the API.
Note that errors may occur when upgrading to Graph API v18 if BSPs or businesses are taking the entire response from the GET request and providing it back to the POST request to update templates. To resolve, the body/header/footer text fields should be dropped before passing back into the API.
Re-launching dev docs and changelogs for creating Call Ads
- Facebook Reels Placement for Call Ads
Meta is releasing the ability to deliver Call Ads through the Facebook Reels platform. Call ads allow users to call businesses in the moment of consideration when they view an ad, and help businesses drive more complex discussions with interested users. This is an opportunity for businesses to advertise with call ads based on peoples’ real-time behavior on Facebook. Under the Ad set Level within Ads Manager, businesses can choose to add “Facebook Reels” Under the Placements section. - Re-Launching Call Ads via API
On September 12, 2023, we’re providing updated guidance on how to create Call Ads via the API. We are introducing documentation solely for Call Ads, so that 3P developers can more easily create Call Ads’ campaigns and know how to view insights about their ongoing call ad campaigns, including call-related metrics. In the future, we also plan to support Call Add-ons via our API platform. Developers should have access to the general permissions necessary to create general ads in order to create Call Ads via the API platform.Please refer to developer documentation for additional information.
Deprecations & Breaking Changes
Graph API changes for user granular permission feature
We are updating two graph API endpoints for WhatsAppBusinessAccount. These endpoints are as follows:
- Retrieve message templates associated with WhatsAppBusiness Account
- Retrieve phone numbers associated with WhatsAppBusiness Account
With v18, we are rolling out a new feature “user granular permission”. All existing users who are already added to WhatsAppBusinessAccount will be backfilled and will continue to have access (no impact).
The admin has the flexibility to change these permissions. If the admin changes the permission and removes access to view message templates or phone numbers for one of their users, that specific user will start getting an error message saying you do not have permission to view message templates or phone numbers on all versions v18 and older.
Deprecate legacy metrics naming for IG Media and User Insights
Starting on September 12, Instagram will remove duplicative and legacy, insights metrics from the Instagram Graph API in order to share a single source of metrics to our developers.
This new upgrade reduces any confusion as well as increases the reliability and quality of our reporting.
After 90 days of this launch (i.e. December 11, 2023), we will remove all these duplicative and legacy insights metrics from the Instagram Graph API on all versions in order to be more consistent with the Instagram app.
We appreciate all the feedback that we’ve received from our developer community, and look forward to continuing to work together.
Please review the media insights and user insights developer documentation to learn more.
Deprecate all Facebook Wi-Fi v1 and Facebook Wi-Fi v2 endpoints
Facebook Wi-Fi was designed to improve the experience of connecting to Wi-Fi hotspots at businesses. It allowed a merchant’s customers to get free Wi-Fi simply by checking in on Facebook. It also allowed merchants to control who could use their Wi-Fi and for how long, and integrated with ads to enable targeting to customers who had used the merchant’s Wi-Fi. This product was deprecated on June 12, 2023. As the partner notice period has ended, all endpoints used by Facebook Wi-Fi v1 and Facebook Wi-Fi v2 have been deprecated and removed.
API Version Deprecations:
As part of Facebook’s versioning schedule for Graph API and Marketing API, please note the upcoming deprecations:
Graph API
- September 14, 2023: Graph API v11.0 will be deprecated and removed from the platform
- February 8, 2024: Graph API v12.0 will be deprecated and removed from the platform
- May 28, 2024: Graph API v13.0 will be deprecated and removed from the platform
Marketing API
- September 20, 2023: Marketing API v14.0 will be deprecated and removed from the platform
- September 20, 2023: Marketing API v15.0 will be deprecated and removed from the platform
- February 06, 2024: Marketing API v16.0 will be deprecated and removed from the platform
To avoid disruption to your business, we recommend migrating all calls to the latest API version that launched today.
Facebook Platform SDK
As part of our 2-year deprecation schedule for Platform SDKs, please note the upcoming deprecations and sunsets:
- October 2023: Facebook Platform SDK v11.0 or below will be sunset
- February 2024: Facebook Platform SDK v12.0 or below will be sunset
First seen at developers.facebook.com
Before today (August 28, 2023), advertisers could not promote images and/or videos used in Instagram Stories as ads via the Instagram Marketing API. This process created unwanted friction for our partners and their customers.
After consistently hearing about this pain point from our developer community, we have removed this unwanted friction for advertisers and now allow users to seamlessly promote their image and/or video media used in Instagram Stories as ads via the Instagram Marketing API as of August 28, 2023.
We appreciate all the feedback received from our developer community, and hope to continue improving your experience.
Please review the developer documentation to learn more.
First seen at developers.facebook.com
Launching second release of Facebook Reels API: An enterprise solution for desktop and web publishers
We’re excited to announce that the second release of FB Reels API is now publicly available for third-party developers. FB Reels API enables users of third-party platforms to share Reels directly to public Facebook Pages and the New Pages Experience.
FB Reels API has grown significantly since the first release in September 2022. The new version of the APIs now support custom thumbnails, automatic music tagging, tagging collaborators, longer format of reels and better error handling.
FB Reels API will also support scheduling and draft capability to allow creators to take advantage of tools provided either by Meta or by our partners. Based on the feedback we received from our partners, we’ll now provide additional audio insights via the Audio Recommendations API and reels performance metrics via the Insights API.
Our goal in the next couple of releases is to continue to make it easier for creators to develop quality content by adding features like early copyright detection and A/B testing. We’re also excited to start working on enhanced creation features like Video clipping- so stay tuned to hear more about those features in the future.
Call-to-Action
If you are a developer interested in integrating with the Facebook Reels API, please refer to the Developer Documents for more info.
Not sure if this product is for you? Check out our entire suite of sharing offerings.
Tune in to Product @scale event to learn more about FB Video APIs and hear from some of our customers.
First seen at developers.facebook.com
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