Chinese Consumers File Antitrust Complaint Against Apple

Fifty-five Chinese iPhone and iPad users filed an antitrust complaint against Apple with China's market regulator on Monday. The group alleges Apple abuses its market dominance by restricting app distribution and payments to its own platforms, while charging high commissions.

Credit: APPLE

The complaint, led by Lawyer Wang Qiongfei, accuses Apple of three violations of China's Anti-Monopoly Law. These include forcing consumers to purchase digital goods exclusively through Apple's In-App Purchase system, restricting iOS app downloads to the App Store, and charging commissions of up to 30% on in-app purchases.

Credit: APPLE

Complainants argue Apple maintains a monopoly over iOS app distribution in China. They highlight that Apple permits alternative payment methods and app stores in other markets, following regulatory pressure from the European Union and the United States.

The complaint was submitted to China's State Administration for Market Regulation. This scrutiny of Apple comes amid intensifying trade tensions between Beijing and Washington, with both governments using tariffs and technology restrictions.

This marks the second complaint against Apple led by Wang. A similar case filed by Wang in 2021 was dismissed by a Shanghai court last year.

Wang is appealing the verdict of the previous civil lawsuit to China's Supreme People's Court. The court heard arguments on the appeal in Dec., and a ruling is still pending, according to Wang.

Wang expects this administrative complaint to move faster through regulators than the previous civil lawsuit. Amid tensions with Washington, China has recently launched several antitrust investigations targeting U.S. technology firms.

These include chipmaker Qualcomm, which faces a probe over its acquisition of Israeli company Autotalks.

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• Fifty-five Chinese iPhone and iPad users filed an antitrust complaint against Apple with China's market regulator on Monday.

• The complaint alleges Apple restricts app distribution and payments to its own platforms, charging commissions up to 30%.

• Lawyer Wang Qiongfei leads the complaint, which is his second against Apple; a previous 2021 case was dismissed.

Source: REUTERS

Internal Meta Research Shows More 'Eating Disorder Adjacent' Content for Vulnerable Instagram Teens

Teens who reported Instagram regularly made them feel bad about their bodies saw significantly more "eating disorder adjacent content" than those who did not, according to an internal Meta document.

Credit: META

For 223 teenagers who often felt body dissatisfaction after viewing Instagram, such content constituted 10.5% of what they saw on the platform. This compared to 3.3% for other teens in the study, representing about three times more body-focused content.

The posts shown to these users included a prominent display of chests, buttocks, or thighs. They also featured explicit judgement about body types, and content related to disordered eating and/or negative body image.

Credit: META

Researchers also found teens with the most negative self-feelings saw more provocative content broadly. This included content Meta classifies as "mature themes," "Risky behaviour," "Harm & Cruelty," and "Suffering," accounting for 27% of what they saw compared to 13.6% for their peers.

Meta surveyed 1,149 teenagers during the 2023-2024 academic year regarding how often Instagram caused them to feel bad about their bodies. Content viewed by these users was manually sampled over a three-month period.

Meta researchers expressed concern over their findings but stressed that the study did not prove Instagram was making users feel worse about their bodies. They noted it was not possible to establish the causal direction of these findings, suggesting teens feeling bad could be actively seeking such material.

Credit: META

In a statement, Meta spokesperson Andy Stone said the reviewed document demonstrates Meta’s commitment to understanding and improving its products. Stone added that this research proves the company remains committed to understanding young people’s experiences and building safer, more supportive platforms for teenagers.

Stone noted Meta’s recent announcement to show minors content in-line with PG-13 movie standards. Since July, the company has reduced the amount of age-restricted content shown to teenage Instagram users by half.

The study revealed Meta’s existing screening tools, designed for rule violations, could not detect 98.5% of "sensitive" content potentially inappropriate for teens. Researchers found this "not necessarily surprising" as Meta had only recently begun developing an algorithm for this type of content.

University of Michigan Associate Professor of Paediatrics Jenny Radesky reviewed Meta’s unreleased research and described the study’s methodology as robust and its findings disturbing. Radesky suggested the findings supported the idea that "teens with psychological vulnerabilities are being profiled by Instagram and fed more harmful content."

Credit: META

Teenagers, parents, paediatricians, external advisors, and Meta’s own Eating Disorder & Body Image Advisory Council have urged Instagram to limit such content for teens. They warned it "may be detrimental to teen well-being, specifically by precipitating or exacerbating feelings of body dissatisfaction."

Problematic content included images of skinny women in lingerie and bikinis, fight videos, and a drawing of a crying figure with negative phrases like "how could I ever compare" and "make it all end." An example post also showed a close-up of a woman’s lacerated neck; researchers found this content disturbing enough to issue a "sensitive content" warning to colleagues.

This study is the latest internal research demonstrating an "association" between viewing fashion, beauty, and fitness content and "reporting feeling worse about one’s body." In the United States, Meta faces state and federal investigations of Instagram’s effects on children, alongside civil suits by school districts alleging harmful product design and deceptive marketing.

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• Teens who reported body dissatisfaction on Instagram saw significantly more "eating disorder adjacent content" than their peers.

• For vulnerable teens, this content made up 10.5% of their feed, compared to 3.3% for other study participants.

• Meta’s existing content screening tools could not detect 98.5% of the potentially inappropriate "sensitive" content.

Source: REUTERS

AWS Outage Disrupts Global Digital Services, Affecting Major Apps and Banking

A significant Amazon Web Services outage began shortly after midnight Pacific time on Monday, Oct. 20, leaving users unable to access numerous applications and online services. The widespread disruption impacted a diverse range of platforms globally.

Credit: FORTNITE

Amazon identified the potential problem around 2 a.m. Pacific, locating its origin in the company’s US-EAST-1 region in Virginia. The BBC reported this region, Amazon’s original and largest for web services, is considered a critical centre for the global internet but is prone to outages due to its age, size, and on-demand capacity.

Amazon admitted at 9:13 a.m. Pacific to experiencing further connectivity issues affecting AWS, despite ongoing repair efforts. Amazon stated, "We have taken additional mitigation steps."

Users in the U.S. reported fresh problems as recently as 7:29 a.m. Pacific, impacting services such as Venmo, Instacart, and the learning app Duolingo, which was on a “maintenance break.” Roblox and Fortnite were also offline, though both have since reported they are back online.

In the U.K., the outage significantly affected some NHS services and British banks. Lloyds, which reported issues, is now operating again. The British tax collection body, HMRC, also experienced problems.

National Rail reported its website and app were affected, directing passengers to the company’s account on X for real-time train information. At one point, Downdetector, an outage monitor, registered more than 6.5 million reports of issues, affecting over 1,000 companies.

Amazon itself was directly impacted, with smart speakers powered by Alexa going offline, and its security company Ring, along with Prime Video, experiencing access issues. Some users of Amazon Click and Collect and Drop Off services could not complete their tasks because the system was down.

Credit: OpenAI

AWS stated in a status update at 7:29 a.m. Pacific, "We can confirm significant API errors and connectivity issues across multiple services. We are investigating." AWS also indicated it was throttling requests for new virtual servers to speed up the recovery process.

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• A major Amazon Web Services outage began shortly after midnight Pacific time on Monday, Oct. 20, originating in the US-EAST-1 region in Virginia.

• The disruption affected popular U.S. services, including Venmo, Instacart, Duolingo, Roblox, and Fortnite.

• U.K. services were also impacted, with issues reported for NHS services, British banks like Lloyds, HMRC, and National Rail.

Source: FORBES