Three news to start your week: October 30
Meta Accused by States of Using Features to Lure Children to Instagram and Facebook
(New York Times)
Meta was sued by over thirty states for intentionally utilizing Facebook and Instagram features to lure minors onto the social media sites, despite Meta's claims that its platforms were kid-safe.
In a joint lawsuit filed by 33 states in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, Colorado, and California claimed that Meta, the company that runs Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger, had unfairly ensnared children and misled users about the safety of its platforms, in violation of consumer protection laws. With virtually identical allegations, the District of Columbia and eight other states sued Meta separately.
Meta was accused by the states of designing psychologically manipulative product features to encourage teenage users to use Instagram and other platforms compulsively and for extended periods.
Ex-Chicago HSI agent gets more than six years in prison for widespread corruption
(Chicago Tribune)
A former agent of the US Department of Homeland Security Investigations, located in the west suburbs of Chicago, was sentenced to more than six years in prison for a long list of corrupt offenses, which included filing false tax returns, giving information to an informant in an investigation, and stealing money from the agency and drug dealers.
A jury found Naperville resident Anthony Sabaini, 41, guilty in May of arranging unauthorized bank transactions, lying to the Department of Homeland Security, and submitting fictitious tax returns.
Prosecutors have requested a sentence of up to eight years in prison. They further allege that while Sabaini was in Israel on official business, he used his government-issued phone to secure a prostitute and sent texts to other HSI agents that were "racist, homophobic, and sexist text messages with other HSI agents, expressing his bias and contempt toward certain segments of the population that he was sworn to protect."
Deutsche Bank plans to close nearly half its Postbank branches
(Reuters)
According to a Deutsche Bank official, the German bank intends to eliminate almost half of its Postbank locations by mid-2026 due to shifting consumer demand.
According to the spokeswoman, the bank intends to cut the number of Postbank branches from its current 550 to about 300.
Claudio de Sanctis, the new head of private banking at Deutsche Bank, initially disclosed the closures to the Financial Times during an interview that took place earlier on Monday. Without providing further information, he informed the FT that the bank's Deutsche-branded branches would likewise be closed.
