Social

A Facebook executive said in an interview on Sunday with CNN that the company does not believe that its social media service is a primary contributor to the political polarisation that has become widespread in the United States. The company’s vice president of policy and global affairs, Nick Clegg, spoke ahead of an expected Sunday

Discord, the Slack-like chat app, recently said that it’s going to sunset its Stage Discovery tool on October 4, less than six months after it launched. Rolled out in June, Stage Discovery was designed to help users find its social audio rooms called Stage Channels. It used machine learning to curate a list of channels

WhatsApp is found to be upgrading the existing voice messages function on its platform with a global voice message player that would allow you to listen to voice messages when you look at your recent chats. The update is reportedly in development for beta testers at the present stage. Separately, WhatsApp is reported to have

WhatsApp now allows you to permanently hide chats by archiving them, even if new messages come in that conversation. This feature from the Facebook-owned messaging company is a great way of shutting off unwanted conversations, and keeping them from showing up in your main list of chats. The Archive folder essentially allows users to ignore

US senators on Thursday grilled Facebook on its plans to better protect young users on its apps, drawing on leaked internal research that showed the social media giant was aware of how its Instagram app harmed the mental health of teens. The hearing in front of the Senate consumer protection subcommittee was called after the Wall

Major social media stars including Kim Kardashian, Justin Bieber, and Charli D’Amelio are among celebrities whose Instagram followers experience more negative feelings about their self-image, according to internal Facebook research revealed by the Wall Street Journal this week, raising questions about the impact of celebrity culture online. The Journal released the leaked research slide decks

WhatsApp banned over 2 million accounts in the month of August to curb abuse and prevent harmful behaviour on the platform. The latest transparency report from WhatsApp, published to comply with the new Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules 2021, reveals that it banned a total 20,70,000 accounts in one month.

Facebook has announced a set of new features to enhance integration between Instagram and Messenger. The new features include cross-app group communication, new group typing indicators, and polls on Instagram DMs (direct messages). The cross-app group feature chat allows people to start group chats between their Instagram and Messenger contacts, while with the group typing

TikTok is joining hands with creators and artists like Lil Nas X, Rudy Willingham, Bella Poarch, and Curtis Roach to issue its first non-fungible token (NFT) collectibles. TikTok Top Moments from the Bytedance-owned app will feature six original NFT videos from creators. The TikTok creators will work with established NFT creators like Coin Artist, x0r,

Social audio chat app Clubhouse is launching the ability to record and replay conversations and also download 30-second clips to share on social media or other sites, it said on Thursday. The app will also roll out an improved search function to help people find live and scheduled audio rooms, users and clubs oriented around

YouTube will block all anti-vaccine content, moving beyond its ban on false information about the COVID vaccines to include content that contains misinformation about other approved vaccines, it said in a blog post on Wednesday. Examples of content that won’t be allowed on YouTube include claims that the flu vaccine causes infertility and that the

Meesho, an Indian “social commerce” platform backed by Facebook and SoftBank Group, said on Thursday it had raised $570 million (roughly Rs. 4,230 crores) in a funding round led by Fidelity Management & Research Company and B Capital Group. The latest funding round values the company at $4.9 billion (roughly Rs. 36,400 crores), Meesho said in

Facebook, under criticism over internal data showing its Instagram app damaged the mental health of teenagers, plans to highlight during a US Senate hearing on Thursday what it argues were more positive impacts, according to the company’s prepared testimony seen by Reuters. Antigone Davis, global head of safety at Facebook, will detail the company’s previously announced

CNN said it has stopped posting articles on Australian Facebook pages, citing a court ruling that publishers are liable for defamation in public comments and the social media firm’s refusal to help it disable comments in the country. The move makes CNN, which is owned by AT&T, the first major news organisation to pull its Australian

China’s cyberspace watchdog and other government bodies will set up governance rules for algorithms in around three years, it said on Wednesday, as Beijing seeks to tighten its grip on the algorithms technology companies use to attract users. The Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) said in a statement that algorithms developed by technology firms should

Facebook will invest $50 million (roughly Rs. 370 crores) to partner with organisations to responsibly build the so-called metaverse — a digital world where people can use different devices to move and communicate in a virtual environment. Facebook, the world’s largest social network, has invested heavily in virtual reality and augmented reality, developing hardware such

Social media firms must do more to stop advertising “dodgy financial promotions” that fuel a surge in fraud or face action, Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority said on Tuesday. “We are putting them on notice that we expect them to be involved in this process of protecting the community,” the FCA’s head of enforcement Mark Steward

Skype is getting a bunch of new features in its latest update. Microsoft is rolling out design changes along with a bunch of improvements on the video calling platform. The grid displayed during calls on Skype will soon include everyone in a call. Also, Microsoft is adding new layouts and themes to the application. Skype

TikTok hit 1 billion monthly active users globally this summer, the company told Reuters, marking a 45 percent jump since July 2020. The United States, Europe, Brazil, and Southeast Asia are the biggest markets for the popular short-video app, the company said. TikTok has experienced surges in users around the world in the past few years,

Instagram is pausing work on a version for children younger than 13, called “Instagram Kids”, the Facebook-owned photo sharing app said on Monday. US lawmakers and advocacy groups have opposed the launch of “Instagram Kids”, urging the social media giant to drop its plans and stating that it had failed to “make meaningful commitments to protecting

Longtime Facebook executive Mike Schroepfer said on Wednesday that he was stepping down as the company’s chief technology officer. Schroepfer said in a Facebook post that veteran leader Andrew Bosworth, who heads up the social media company’s augmented reality and virtual reality efforts, including products like its Oculus Quest VR headset, will take over the

Twitter has announced plans to release new updates that would prevent tweets from disappearing while the users are reading them. Many Twitter users have earlier complained that tweets will sometimes disappear from their view when the user switches back to the Twitter app or desktop website and start reading a Tweet. The timeline is said

Over 200 Chinese gaming companies have pledged to regulate their industry to combat gaming addiction, including through the possible use of facial recognition to identify minors, a state-backed gaming association said on Friday. The statement, published by the CGIGC gaming association, which is affiliated to the online game publishing regulator National Press and Publication (NPPA),

US social audio app Clubhouse launched a feature on Thursday to let users virtually wave at friends inside its audio-only chat app to show they are open to a private chat, in a move to expand beyond public rooms that can have thousands of listeners. Clubhouse, which pioneered the “social audio” feature that has since

Twitter has expanded its tipping feature called Tips to users around the world, and added support for tipping using Bitcoin. First introduced in May for a small group of users in the US, Tips uses third-party payment services and platforms including India’s Razorpay to enable paying tips to creators. Twitter is also expanding the feature

A US federal judge has ordered Facebook to release records of accounts connected to anti-Rohingya violence in Myanmar that the social media giant had shut down, rejecting its argument about protecting privacy as “rich with irony”. The judge in Washingon, DC, on Wednesday criticised Facebook for failing to hand over information to investigators seeking to

Facebook has told Australian publishers it has stopped negotiating licensing deals, an email to the industry seen by Reuters showed, a move which came just six months after the passing of a law designed to make tech giants pay for news content. While Facebook has announced deals with most of the country’s largest news outlets, some

Facebook shareholders have reportedly alleged that the social media giant overpaid $5 billion (roughly Rs. 36,928 crores) to the American antitrust watchdog to protect CEO Mark Zuckerberg from personal liability related to the Cambridge Analytica data leak probe. The shareholders said to have alleged in two lawsuits, which were filed last month but made public on

Slack Clips is beginning to roll out as a new feature on the popular workspace messaging app. Announced Tuesday, September 21, Clips will let Slack users send short audio and video messages on the platform. Clips support audio messaging, alongside video as well as screen recordings. It helps users communicate easily with their teams across

Facebook Portal Go and Facebook Portal+ — the two new models of video calling devices from the social media giant — was announced on Tuesday, September 22. Portal Go is the first portable model in the lineup. Facebook also said it was testing its Portal for Business service to help companies remotely manage Portal work