Social

In Russia’s latest swipe at foreign social media giants since it started a land war in Europe by invading Ukraine late last month, the country’s internet censor has fired a warning shot at Google over what it describes as anti-Russian “information attacks” which it claims are being spread via YouTube — accusing the U.S. tech

Twitter is rolling out the option for users to search for specific messages in their DMs, the company announced in a tweet. Up until now, you could only search your DMs for the names of people or group chats. With this new update, you can use the search bar to find specific messages using keywords.

Instagram today is making a chronological feed available to all users, as earlier promised, alongside another new feed-filtering option that will allow you to scroll through posts from your favorite accounts. The features had been launched into limited testing starting in January but will now reach Instagram’s global user base by the end of the

Twitter has been spotted working on making TweetDeck a premium feature through its Twitter Blue subscription service. According to reverse app engineer Jane Manchun Wong, who searches the code of mobile apps to spot features and upcoming changes in development, the social media giant is currently working on the addition to Twitter’s premium offering, adding

Instagram is expanding product tagging to everyone in the United States over the next few months, the company announced on Tuesday. Prior to the expansion, only creators on Instagram could tag products from businesses in their posts. Now, all U.S. users will be able to tag products from businesses that are set up for Instagram

Twitch is updating its appeals and reporting processes, following through on product updates the company promised late last year. The biggest change is the introduction of a new portal where users facing account suspensions can appeal those rulings and monitor the progress of their requests. While Twitch deals with its fair share of users with

After publicly launching in the U.S. this past September, Facebook Reels today is becoming globally available in over 150 countries. The feature, which is a key part of Meta’s response to the TikTok threat, allows creators to share short-form video content on Facebook or cross-post Reels from Instagram in order to reach a broader audience.

Donald Trump’s media group released its TRUTH Social iOS app today in the U.S., but a scan of the app’s API using publicly available tools revealed that it already closed itself to registrations (also, the scan showed that its “proprietary account registration microservice” is named “Pepe,” which is also the name of a meme with

RIP Mark Zuckerberg’s “time well spent“? In a move that appears to coincide with Facebook/Meta reporting slowing growth, photo-sharing app Instagram appears to have quietly removed the ability for mobile users to set a lower daily time limit reminder than 30 minutes. Indeed, the app’s UX design nudges people to choose a three hour ‘limit’

Meta, the parent company of Facebook, has confirmed to TechCrunch that Jeren A. Miles, who had been a manager of global community development, is no longer employed by the company after a video went viral on YouTube, which was then reposted on Reddit and other sites, featuring him in a sting operation conducted by amateurs

Snapchat is rolling out a new buddy system-like feature that will allow users to share their real-time location for 15 minutes or a few hours with a friend, the company announced on Friday. The new global feature is meant to help users look out for their friends as they continue to resume their social life,

Snapchat users will be able to change their usernames later this month, the company announced on Thursday. The username change won’t impact aspects of users’ accounts, such as their friend lists, Snap codes, Snap scores, memories, etc. Snap says all iOS and Android users globally will be able to change their usernames starting February 23rd.

Voila, a startup building infrastructure for social commerce, is bringing concepts from China’s e-commerce market to the U.S. The company offers an alternative to the “link in bio” solutions used today by creators, like Linktree and Beacons, which direct followers to creators’ social profiles, personal websites, and other recommendations. Instead of a link list or

Microsoft is making a handful of changes to AltspaceVR to combat harassment within the virtual reality app. As of today, the company has removed the Campfire, News and Entertainment Commons social spaces. Those were hubs where AltspaceVR users could freely gather and talk to one another. But that same freedom also meant harassment was an

Twitter last fall introduced a new label that would allow what it calls the “good bots” on its service to identify themselves. While the word “bot” can often have a negative connotation, Twitter noted there were useful bots, too, which were automatically tweeting out useful information like Covid-19 updates, earthquake alerts, bills being introduced in

Snapchat is partnering with Ticketmaster to launch a new way for users to discover live entertainment events within the Snap Map, the company announced on Wednesday. The new feature will be accessible through a new in-app Mini. For context, Snap Minis are third-party programs that live inside Snapchat’s Chat section. The new “Ticketmatcher Mini” matches

Neighborhood social network Nextdoor is revamping its product. The changes, which aim to simplify the app and promote better relationships between neighbors, follow last year’s hire of Nextdoor’s new Head of Product Kiran Prasad, who joined the company after serving at LinkedIn. Combined, the updates are laying the groundwork for a new strategic direction for

Twitter is broadening access to a feature called Safety Mode, designed to give users a set of tools to defend themselves against the toxicity and abuse that is still far too often a problem on its platform. First introduced to a small group of testers last September, Safety Mode will today launch into beta for

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed a lawsuit against Meta over Facebook’s facial recognition practices, his office announced on Monday. The news was first reported by The Wall Street Journal, which notes that the lawsuit seeks civil penalties in the hundreds of billions of dollars. The lawsuit alleges that the company’s use of facial

Instagram is introducing a rolling out a “Your activity” tab that allows users to see and manage their activity on the app. The company started testing the feature late last year and is now rolling it out to all users worldwide. The new tab allows users to bulk delete their content and interactions. This includes

Tumblr is launching its second attempt at a monetization feature today. Rolling out in the U.S. now and soon globally, Tumblr Tips will let bloggers receive one-time payments from their supporters. Tumblr will not take a cut from these payments, though standard credit card fees (2.9% + $0.30) will apply. Tipping is available on web,

Earlier this year YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki laid out an overview of what the video behemoth was planning for the year ahead, including a strong hint that it was considering the introduction of NFTs for creators to connect in a different way with fans. Today, the site’s chief product officer, Neal Mohan, has published a

Last December, Facebook officially began allowing crypto advertisers to buy ads on its platform. This quiet but important change meant that a long-closed marketing avenue for crypto products was now open. But what are best practices for crypto marketers in general? And is the platform worth exploring for crypto and NFT projects? First, let’s understand

A special set of editorials published in today’s issue of the journal Science argue that social media in its current form may well be fundamentally broken for the purposes of presenting and disseminating facts and reason. The algorithms are running the show now, they argue, and the systems priorities are unfortunately backwards. In an incisive

Messenger is rolling out its “Split Payments” feature to all iOS and Android users in the United States, Meta announced on Wednesday. The company began testing the feature late last year as a way for users to share the cost of bills and expenses through the app. Meta sees the new feature as a “free

Microsoft is working to warm lawmakers up to its plans to bring a collection of the world’s most popular video games under its wing. The company announced its intention to buy Activision Blizzard last month in a deal that would be worth $68.7 billion — the largest gaming acquisition of all time, if the deal

The widespread success of platforms ranging from Second Life to Roblox shows that people are open to virtual worlds where they can socialize, play games, exchange information, and share some laughs. More recently, the rise of virtual HQs, Meta’s investment in interactive social software, and a handful of acquisitions by Microsoft signal that the metaverse

Reading back through a transcript from Facebook’s investor-disappointing fourth-quarter earnings call has solidified my perspective that we need a third-party, benevolent central entity for the metaverse. A sort of central digital clearinghouse that can transport me from place to place, inclusive of the platform-locked areas that will inevitably come to constitute a portion of our

Meta’s external advisory organization issued new recommendations Tuesday, urging the company to bolster its policies that protect users against doxing. Facebook requested advice on the policy last year, acknowledging that it had difficulty balancing access to public information with privacy concerns. The company now known as Meta’s current policy on sharing private identifying details carves

Months after TikTok was hauled into its first-ever major congressional hearing over platform safety, the company is today announcing a series of policy updates and plans for new features and technologies aimed at making the video-based social network a safer and more secure environment, particularly for younger users. The changes attempt to address some concerns