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Facebook's tougher policies delay Hispanic political ads
Facebook's stricter ad policies may be creating further complications for legitimate campaigns. Strategists for Hispanic organizations have told the Washington Post that their political ads typically require "several days" to reach Facebook simply because they're targeting a Spanish-language audience. As the social network's policies require it to both review ads targeted at ethnic groups and fight racial discrimination, the process takes considerably more time than ads aimed at a general audience.
Facebook removes fake accounts targeting 2018 US midterms
History appears to be repeating itself: Facebook has discovered evidence of a "coordinated" election influence campaign targeting the 2018 US midterm elections. The social network said it had removed 32 bogus Pages and accounts (created between March 2017 and May 2018) from both its main service and Instagram. While it didn't yet know who was responsible for the campaign, the accounts and their ads tried to stoke social tensions in the same way as the Russia-linked ads from 2016 -- and the creators went out of their way to hide their origins.
Snapchat deals with NFL, NBC add more sports videos
The jury's still out on whether or not Snapchat Stories are successful, but giants in the sports realm are apparently happy. Snap has signed deals with the NFL and NBC that will bring more sports programming to your phone. To begin with, it's extending its NFL partnership to include a "best of" Sunday Story in the Discover section that summarizes American football news and highlights for the past week. You'll continue to see Snapchat-produced NFL Our Stories material as well as Bitmoji, filters and lenses.
Twitter is auditing itself for toxicity
Whether it's the veil of anonymity, the controversial nature of political discourse, or both -- conversations on social media can quickly turn into emotionally charged quarrels. To combat these ongoing issues, Twitter has cracked down on fake accounts, added extra verification steps for new users, and acquired Smyte -- a software company that's dedicated to preventing spam and abuse. Now the social networking site is turning to university experts to promote healthier dialog.
LinkedIn adds the voice messaging feature you weren’t missing
Today, LinkedIn announced that it is adding voice messaging to its social network. Considering the constant email requests that LinkedIn is famous for, and the fact that most people hate voicemail, we can categorize this under features absolutely no one asked for.
Why are Trump and sex workers angry about shadow banning?
On Thursday morning, United States President Donald Trump tweeted about how Twitter was "shadow banning" prominent republicans, presumably after reading reports that it wasn't auto-suggesting the names of members of his party when people searched for them on its app. "Not good," Trump said. "We will look into this discriminatory and illegal practice at once! Many complaints." But, while some people may appreciate what Twitter is doing, the company says this wasn't done on purpose -- it was simply a side effect of a change it made back in May aimed at cleaning up the platform.
Facebook lost one million monthly active users to GDPR
The European Union's General Data Protection Regulation had a tangible impact on Facebook's user base -- if only just. While discussing its second quarter earnings, the social network revealed that it lost about 1 million monthly active users in Europe due to the implementation of GDPR. That's a drop in the bucket next to Facebook's 376 million European users and 2.2 billion total users, but such a decline is extremely rare for a company that has almost always seen growth, even if it has been slowing over time.
Despite scandals, Facebook is still raking in cash and users
It's no secret that 2018 has been quite a rocky year for Facebook, after controversies over the Cambridge Analytica data privacy scandal and, most recently, its handling of fake news on the platform. But, despite these troubling issues, the company's bottom line hasn't been affected -- it made $12 billion during the last quarter alone. And today, Facebook reported a total revenue of $13.23 billion in Q2 2018, a 42 percent year-over-year increase. Meanwhile, daily and monthly active user numbers are still growing, though they didn't jump by much compared to Q1 2018. Monthly users are now at 2.23 billion, only up 1.54 percent from the last quarter.
China pulls approval for Facebook startup incubator
So much for Facebook making inroads into China. Mere hours after regulators gave Facebook permission to open a startup incubator in the province of Zhejiang, the approval has disappeared -- and a New York Times source claims officials have formally withdrawn that approval. Reportedly, the country's Cyberspace Administration was "angry" that Zhejiang officials hadn't consulted it in earnest before giving Facebook the go-ahead.
Facebook's 'shared viewing' video feature is coming to all groups
Facebook has made it clear that it wants to make video a crucial part of its business, as it looks to compete with the likes of YouTube, Amazon and Netflix. And, over the past few months, the company's been making changes to help it get there, launching new features aimed at making videos more social. One of those is Watch Party, an experimental tool introduced in January that lets members of Facebook groups watch videos together and simultaneously. That shared watching experience, which works with both live and pre-recorded videos, was only available to select users when it was first announced, but now Facebook is bringing it to every group worldwide.
'GTA Online' rewards you for watching Facebook livestreams
You now have good reasons to watch GTA Online streams besides the thrill of the gameplay itself. Now that the After Hours expansion is available, Rockstar is using Facebook's In-Stream Rewards to give you free GTAO currency when you watch certain broadcasts. So long as you have your Facebook account linked to your Rockstar Games Social Club account, you'll have a chance at padding your virtual bank account just by tuning in.
Twitter tightens requirements to get rid of 'low quality' apps
Twitter's efforts to fight spam are now focusing more on the apps generating that junk. As of today, every developer who wants to use Twitter's app toolkit has to go through an account application process that verifies both use cases and a creator's adherence to the social network's policies. The process had been available since November, but it'll be mandatory from now on -- and Twitter is promising to enforce it within 90 days. Combined with a 10-app limit, Twitter is hoping this will cut down on spam-producing and "low-quality" apps.
Congress' social-media hearing was a ‘stupid’ sideshow
Tuesday marked another chapter in the "Tech Companies Go to Congress" story, with Facebook, Twitter and YouTube testifying before the House Judiciary Committee. The hearing, titled "Examining the Content Filtering Practices of Social Media Giants," was supposed to shed light on how these companies are keeping their sites safe for users by filtering out toxic content. But, instead, we learned very little. Executives from Facebook, Twitter and YouTube simply echoed what they've been saying in other congressional hearings since 2017. They talked about how they're using a combination of artificial intelligence and human reviewers to fight fake news, bots and toxic content like hate speech.
Reddit steps back in time with live chat rooms
It's not just work and gaming apps revitalizing real-time chat like it's 1998 all over again -- Reddit wants in on the action as well. After months of work, the site has launched live chatrooms in beta for a handful of subreddits. The feature lets moderators create channels for discussing topics that are as broad or specific as they like. As a user, you'll see an interface that will seem familiar if you've used a modern chat app like Discord or Slack -- you'll see chat channels organized under their individual subreddits, sticker-like graphics and notifications when there are new messages (user-specific mentions are on the way).
Instagram test lets public accounts remove followers
You've long had the option to remove Instagram followers if you keep your account private, but that's something of a compromise. Why do you have to shut yourself off from the outside world just to keep out a few undesirables? You might not have to make that choice going forward. Instagram has confirmed that it's testing an option to remove followers while maintaining a public account. While it hasn't share more details than that, the app informs testers that it won't notify soon-to-be-former followers that you're leaving them behind. Much as with other social networks, that's likely to minimize outrage from people who can't handle the rejection.
Twitter puts verification fixes on hold as elections loom
Twitter has spent the past several months trying to fix its verification mess, but it looks like you'll have to wait a while longer for a solution. New product lead Kayvon Beykpour has announced that Twitter is putting its verification reform efforts on hold to focus on "information quality" in the run-up to the US mid-term elections. The move is meant to help the social network "move faster" on areas it thinks are "most important," Beykpour said.
Facebook can’t decide when a page should be banned
Another day, another congressional hearing on how tech companies are conducting themselves. This time it was Facebook, Twitter and YouTube that testified before the House Judiciary Committee today, in a hearing titled "Examining the Content Filtering Practices of Social Media Giants." While much of the three-hour session was information we've heard before, like what they're all doing to fight fake news and propaganda-driven bots, there was an interesting discussion about Facebook's policies (or lack thereof). In particular, the company's president for global policy management, Monika Bickert, couldn't give members of the committee a firm answer on what exactly it takes to ban offensive pages from Facebook.
Watch tomorrow's social media congressional hearing right here
Hey, if you were wondering when we were going to get another congressional hearing about social media, you're in luck. On Tuesday, executives from Facebook, Twitter and YouTube will testify before a House Judiciary Committee hearing titled "Examining the Content Filtering Practices of Social Media Giants." The people representing these tech companies are members of their public policy teams, so expect them to be grilled by US Representatives about the toxic and harmful content that shows up on each of their sites.
Twitter bans Russia-linked accounts following indictments
The US' indictment of Russian officers over the DNC hacks is having an effect... at least, on Twitter. The social network has banned accounts for both DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0 in response to the indictment. In a statement explaining the suspensions, the company told Engadget that they were "connected to a network of accounts" that had already been shut down for violating rules. At the same time, Twitter was aware that the shutdowns were considered overdue -- DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0 have long been linked to Russia, and the indictments just formalized the connections.
Instagram's latest Story sticker is for Q&A
Instagram's Stories now involve much more two-way interaction than simple polls. True to recent leaks, both Android and iOS users can use a Questions sticker that (surprise) lets you ask followers for feedback. They can answer as many times as they like, and all your responses will live in your viewers list for a given story. You can share responses with the public, but Instagram will hide usernames and profile photos to prevent naming and shaming.
