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Twitter fixed a bug that suspended users for posting the word 'Memphis'
Twitter has fixed a bug that resulted in users who tweeted the word Memphis being suspended for up to 12 hours for breaking the site's rules.
Facebook will start surfacing public group posts in News Feeds
Admins will have more ways to manage conversations and monetize groups.
Instagram is testing personal fundraisers in the US, UK and Ireland
The feature will be available on Android at first, and iOS later.
Instagram rolls out pinned comments to everyone
You'll have some more control over the conversation on your posts.
Opera has baked Twitter into its desktop browser
You can add it next to the likes of Instagram in the sidebar.
Instagram expands hidden likes test worldwide
Instagram started hiding the total number of likes on posts for some people in the US this week as part of a broader test. It made like and video view counters private in other countries over the last few months, and now it's ready to expand the test elsewhere.
Snapchat is Spotify's latest music-sharing option
Spotify addicts can soon share what tunes or podcasts they're listening to with their Snapchat friends. Through the share menu on songs, albums, playlists, artist profiles and podcasts, you'll be able to post whatever's grabbing your attention to Snapchat and Snapchat Stories if you have the latter app installed.
San Francisco’s 25-year-old FogCam shuts down this month
On August 30th, FogCam, the internet's oldest running web camera, will air its final transmission from its perch on top of San Francisco State University. Since 1994, the camera has allowed people from across the world to watch the coming and going of San Francisco's famous fog, known to locals as Karl.
Bullet's captioned snippets make podcasts a lot more shareable
While becoming more and more popular, podcasts are far less share-friendly than videos because of their long-form and audio-only nature. An Adelaide-based company aims to change that with a new iOS app called Bullet. It lets you create 30 second video snippets, complete with captions, suitable for sharing on social media. That way, you can post enticing bits of a podcast that are watchable without sound to share with your friends -- a win for consumers and producers alike.
New York AG is investigating Facebook over email contact scraping
The New York attorney general's office will investigate Facebook's "unauthorized collection of 1.5M of their users' email contact databases." Earlier this month, it emerged the company had been scraping the contact lists of some users who joined the service after 2016.
Snapchat is in the middle of an identity crisis
There was a time a year or so ago when, if a friend wanted to send me a meme or a funny selfie, it would be on Snapchat. But I don't remember the last time that happened; at some point Instagram became our go-to messaging app. And apparently I'm not alone: Snapchat lost as many as 3 million daily users in 2018. Meanwhile, Instagram has grown so fast over the past two years that its Stories feature alone is much bigger than Snapchat, with more than 500 million daily users. This has arguably come at Snapchat's expense. But it's not as if Snap isn't looking to turn things around. The company wants to reinvent itself by trying a bunch of different things, like augmented reality shopping, being more open and teaming up with brands such as Nike on AR workshops.
Facebook at 15: The long road to social media dominance
Facebook's come a long way since it launched 15 years ago today, on February 4th, 2004. Known as TheFacebook.com when it was created by Mark Zuckerberg and friends from Harvard, the service has gone from a "directory of information for college students" to a social media giant with more than 2.32 billion users every month. And that's not even counting people using services it acquired over the past few years, such as Instagram and WhatsApp, each with more than 1.3 billion users of their own. But while Facebook has had plenty of impressive milestones in its history, it has also dealt with a good deal of controversies. From the Cambridge Analytica data privacy scandal to the spread of fake news on its site, Facebook has had to put out a lot of fires, especially in recent years. So, as the company turns 15, let's go back in time and take a look at 15 of the biggest Facebook headlines since it was born.
Don't trust all of those health articles you see in your Facebook feed
Facebook's battle with fake news stories goes beyond the world of politics. According to fact-checking site Health Feedback, seven of the 10 most shared health stories on Facebook in 2018 contained false or misleading information. The top 100 stories fared slightly better, but stories with misinformation were shared 12.3 million times. Well-sourced and accurate stories were shared 11 million times.
Recommended Reading: What happens to your brain when you quit Facebook?
This is your brain off Facebook Benedict Carey, The New York Times The decision to quit Facebook is all the rage these days, especially following an ever-growing number of data and privacy revelations. The New York Times offers a detailed look at a study from New York University and Stanford that found Facebook users generally felt better after quitting the social network, and those who came back used it less. There are always caveats, of course, but the findings lend some credibility to the idea that health benefits accompany the "Delete Facebook" craze.
New York settles with company selling fake social media followers
The state of New York's Attorney General has settled a case with a company that made millions of dollars selling likes, comments and followers on social media, according to CNN. The activity of the now-defunct Devumi was discovered as part of a probe carried out by New York's Attorney General's office. The owner of the company, German Calas, Jr., will pay a pretty insignificant penalty of $50,000 to cover the cost of the investigation.
To Facebook, your privacy is worth a $20 gift card
Another day, another Facebook controversy. The latest backlash follows a TechCrunch report that the company was secretly paying teenagers to access their data and basically monitor their every move on the web. Facebook was asking people to install a VPN app called Facebook Research that gave it full access to a user's phone and internet activity. That, according to security expert Will Strafach (who helped TechCrunch with the investigation), gave the company the ability to continuously collect "private messages in social media apps, chats from in instant messaging apps (including photos/videos sent to others), emails, web searches, web browsing activity and even ongoing location information."
Facebook's scandals aren't stopping it from making tons of money
We're all well aware that Facebook had a dreadful 2018, and 2019 isn't looking any better, what with the company being plagued by scandals surrounding data privacy and the spread of toxic content on its site. But despite those controversies, Facebook's business has continued to rack up billions of dollars over the past few months, although its user growth has indeed started to slow down a bit. And now we know how Facebook closed out the year, thanks to its Q4 2018 earnings report. Today, the social network giant reported that it earned $16.9 billion in revenue, up 30 percent year-over-year. Monthly active users reached 2.32 billion, up nine percent over a year ago.
Twitter is testing an 'original tweeter' label for threads
Twitter is testing a way to make it easier to spot the person who started a thread. A small percentage of iOS and Android users are seeing an "original tweeter" label. The company said earlier this month that it would publicly test some context and organization features.
ACLU sues US government over social media surveillance of immigrants
The ACLU has sued the federal government, naming the Department of Justice, the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, ICE, US Customs and Border Protection, US Citizenship and Immigration Services and the State Department as defendants. The civil rights organization is seeking information regarding the government's practice of monitoring immigrants' and visa applicants' social media accounts, information that it says these agencies have been withholding.
Nikki Haley gives up 1.6 million followers to satisfy the State Dept.
Thanks to social media rules created during the Obama administration, former UN ambassador Nikki Haley has been forced to surrender her Twitter account and all 1.67 million of its followers. Haley grudgingly announced the news herself: "Due to State Dept rules that were changed by the outgoing administration, I have had to clear my personal Twitter account that I have had for years," she tweeted from her new account.