World Business Report - Facebook-owner Meta fined $25 billion

Download Facebook-owner Meta fined $25 billion

A New Mexico judge has fined Meta for its handling of user data. It's the latest large legal payout for the tech firm, following an $18 billion settlement reached with California over child safety, and comes as it releases its latest financial results.

Vulnerabilities in the PHP programming language have led to websites being down in several countries, including Japan, Finland and the UK. Around seven in 10 of the world's websites use PHP. Is this a new era of cyber insecurity and instability? ​

And a BBC investigation finds that employees from Google have resigned due to the use of AI for military technologies. We hear from one former employee.

Presenter: Luke Wilson
Producers: Neil Morrow & Neggeen Sadid

(Photo: Meta logo and a keyboard in this illustration taken October 19, 2026. Credit: REUTERS / Dado Ruvic)

Published on Wednesday, 21st October 2026.

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