-
CNN is killing its Snapchat news show only four months after its debut
CNN is giving up on its Snapchat news show, which launch only four months ago. “The Update,” as the program was called, had been designed for Snapchat’s vertical video format, but didn’t feature video produced only for Snapchat, nor did it have dedicated anchors. Instead, the news featured on “The Update” was a curated selection of CNN’s reporting from… Read More
-
A look at 42 women in tech who crushed it in 2017
What a challenging, exhilarating year it has been for women everywhere, starting from the women’s March on Washington to former Uber engineer Susan Fowler’s eye-opening and now famous blog post to the #metoo movement that has swept the country, washing dozens of sexual predators out of their powerful roles in the process. All the while, women in tech have been driving their… Read More
-
Instagram now lets you share live videos through direct messages
Instagram has been beefing up its Direct Messaging feature as it toys with the idea of spinning out messaging into its own, separate app. Among its more recent tweaks: the added option for photo and video message replays, and enhancements like support for web links and different photo orientations. Today, it’s rolling out another change — live videos over Direct Messaging. Read More
-
Talent trickles out of Snapchat as Timehop founder leaves
Less than a year after joining Snapchat, social media nostalgia app Timehop’s founder Jonathan Wegener is departing the company. He tells TechCrunch he wants to build his own thing again, but the fact that the No. 1 teen social network isn’t exciting enough to stay at is telling. Read More
-
Facebook and Universal Music Group’s new partnership will allow for user-gen videos with licensed music, new social features
Facebook today announced a first-of-its-kind licensing deal with Universal Music Group that will allow users across its properties – including Facebook, Instagram and Oculus – to use Universal Music in the videos they upload and share. The deal will also allow Facebook to introduce new “music-based products” across platforms, also including Messenger, the companies… Read More
-
Twitter will tell users if content was blocked to comply with local laws or legal demands
Twitter will now display messages to inform users if blocked tweets were withheld to comply with local laws or court orders, which it calls Country Withheld Content (CWC). The public already has information about CWC through notices sent directly to affected accounts, Lumen, a database of legal requests for the removal of online content, and Twitter’s own biannual transparency reports. Read More
-
Twitter adds support for app-based two-factor authentication
Twitter is rolling out an update to its platform security that will allow users to employ third-part authentication apps to receive a two-factor login authentication for their Twitter account. Twitter has offered two-factor for a long while now, but it’s used the less secure SMS-based verification method excessively until now. The third-party app support means you can use tools like… Read More
-
Snap and Twitter now have roughly the same market cap
While we won’t call this a huge watershed moment per se, something nominally interesting in the world of Weird Social Media Things happened this morning: Snap and Twitter are now worth the same based on their market caps. With some small moves on both companies’ shares, both companies are now hovering around $18.7 billion in market cap. There are some extra mechanics that go into… Read More
-
Dating app Hinge rolls out a new feature to reduce ‘ghosting’
Most dating apps match users then leave it up to them to initiate their chat. When Bumble launched, however, it broke new ground by having women make the first move. Today, Hinge is introducing its own take on how conversations on dating apps should be handled with a new feature it’s calling “Your Turn.” The idea with “Your Turn” is that it lets users decide… Read More
-
Instagram launches an alpha testing program on iOS and Android
Are you an early adopter? Okay, but are you a really early adopter who likes to test new, experimental things even if it means you’ll experience crashes and bugs? Then you may be interested to know that Instagram has launched Alpha testing programs on iOS and Android aimed at those who want to test pre-release versions of its popular photo-sharing app. Instagram has been running an… Read More
-
YouTube: More AI can fix AI-generated ‘bubbles of hate’
Facebook, YouTube and Twitter faced another online hate crime grilling today by UK parliamentarians visibly frustrated at their continued failures to apply their own community guidelines and take down reported hate speech. Read More
-
Musical.ly launches $50 million ‘creator fund’ to build out its community
In November, the popular lip-syncing app Musical.ly announced its acquisition by Chinese social media giant Toutiao, owned by Bytedance, in a deal sources said was valued at $800 million to $1 billion. Today, the acquisition has completed, with Musical.ly officially joining Bytedance, the companies said. In addition, Musical.ly announced the launch of a $50 million “Creator Fund”… Read More
-
Facebook has new tools to prevent unwanted friend requests and messages
Facebook, like every social media platform, has issues with harassment and bullying. In order to prevent certain types of harassment, Facebook is introducing some new features to help prevent unwanted friend requests and messages. Read More
-
Facebook’s facial recognition now finds photos you’re untagged in
Facebook wants to make sure you know about and control the photos of you people upload, even if they don’t tag you. So today, Facebook launched a new facial recognition feature called Photo Review that will alert you when your face shows up in newly posted photos so you can tag yourself, leave it be, ask the uploader to take the photo down, or report it to Facebook. The feature should… Read More
-
France puts Facebook on notice over WhatsApp data transfers
Facebook and WhatsApp have been issued with formal notices by France’s data protection watchdog warning that data transfers being carried out for ‘business intelligence’ purposes currently lack a legal basis — and consequently that Facebook Inc, WhatsApp’s owner, has violated the French Data Protection Act. Read More
-
Twitter is soaring today as its stock hits a high for the year
Twitter is finally having a good day on Wall Street as it heads into the final weeks of the year, and this time around it may be a result of a little bit of optimism from investors. There were two big moves for the company today: first, Twitter said it would begin enforcing new rules related to how it handles hateful and abusive content on the platform, which is a problem that has been… Read More
-
Reddit launches new mobile apps with support for real-time comments, chat, mod tools and more
Reddit today is giving its mobile apps a major upgrade – the first since their launch last year, when the company decided to take back control over the official Reddit experience on mobile – an experience that had long been available mainly through third-party clients. Today’s updated apps introduce a number of new features focused on media consumption – including how… Read More
-
Study: Russia-linked fake Twitter accounts sought to spread terrorist-related social division in the UK
A study by UK academics looking at how fake social media accounts were used to spread socially divisive messages in the wake of a spate of domestic terrorists attacks this year has warned that the problem of hostile interference in public debate is greater than previously thought. Read More
-
Twitter today starts enforcing new rules around violence and hate
Twitter today says it will begin to enforce new rules related to how it handles hateful conduct and abusive behavior taking place on its platform. The changes are a part of the company’s broader agenda to craft new policies focused on reducing the amount of abuse, hate speech, violence and harassment. Specifically, Twitter explains that in addition to threatening violence or physical… Read More
Message Us