PicsArt hits 130 million MAUs as Chinese flock to its photo editing app
If you’re like me, who isn’t big on social media, you’d think that the image filters that come inside most apps will do the job. But for many others, especially… Read more »
Category: Social
Morphin instantly Deepfakes your face into GIFs
Want to star in your favorite memes and movie scenes? Upload a selfie to Morphin, choose your favorite GIF, and your face is grafted in to create a personalized copy… Read more »
YC-backed Basement is a social network for close friends only
The past few years have been a bit of a dark age for budding social media startups. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snap and messenger apps took up all the time of… Read more »
After Christchurch, Reddit bans communities infamous for sharing graphic videos of death
In the aftermath of the tragic mosque massacre that claimed 49 lives in Christchurch, New Zealand, tech companies scrambled to purge their platforms of promotional materials that the shooter left… Read more »
Facebook says its new AI technology can detect ‘revenge porn’
Facebook on Friday announced a new artificial intelligence-powered tool that it says will help the social network detect revenge porn — the nonconsensually shared intimate images that, when posted online,… Read more »
The adversarial persuasion machine: a conversation with James Williams
James Williams may not be a household name yet in most tech circles, but he will be. For this second in what will be a regular series of conversations exploring… Read more »
Wattpad gains strategic investment from Times Bridge to further expand in India
Wattpad is further expanding into Asia with a new partnership and undisclosed strategic investment from Times Bridge, the global investment arm of the Times Group in India. The deal aims… Read more »
Periscope cracks down on inauthentic behavior, including fake hearts, follows, chats and more
Twitter’s video streaming app, Periscope, is cracking down on spam and, specifically, fake engagements. The company says it’s updating its policies around how it enforces its anti-spam rules, and is… Read more »
A first look at Twitter’s new prototype app, twttr
Yesterday, Twitter rolled out its much-anticipated prototype application to the first group of testers. We’ve now gotten our hands on the app and can see how the current version differs… Read more »
Instagram founders say losing autonomy at Facebook meant “winning”
Rather than be sore about losing independence within Facebook, Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom told me it was an inevitable sign of his app’s triumph. Today at South By South West,… Read more »
Online platforms need a super regulator and public interest tests for mergers, says UK parliament report
The latest policy recommendations for regulating powerful Internet platforms comes from a U.K. House of Lord committee that’s calling for an overarching digital regulator to be set up to plug… Read more »
Twitter’s new prototype app ‘twttr’ launches today
Twitter’s new prototype application is rolling out to the first group of testers starting today, the company announced this afternoon by way of a tweet. The app, which Twitter is… Read more »
Instagram prototypes video co-watching
The next phase of social media is about hanging out together while apart. Rather than performing on a live stream or engaging with a video chat, Instagram may allow you… Read more »
Zuckerberg wants messages to auto-expire to make Facebook a ‘living room’
On feed-based “broader social networks, where people can accumulate friends or followers until the services feel more public . . . it feels more like a town square than a… Read more »
Twitter debuts new analytics tools for publishers focused on improving video engagement
In January at CES 2019 in Las Vegas, Twitter announced that it was developing new tools that would make it easier for publishers to better understand what sort of content… Read more »
Barstool Sports founder reportedly blames company ‘idiots’ for copyright controversy
In a recent Twitter thread, comedian Miel Bredouw recounted some shady behavior by Barstool Sports’ legal team. In fact, even Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy isn’t trying to defend it,… Read more »
UK Far Right activist circumvents Facebook ban to livestream threats
Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, a Far Right UK activist who was permanently banned from Facebook last week for repeatedly breaching its community standards on hate speech, was nonetheless able to use its… Read more »
Facebook admits 18% of Research spyware users were teens, not
Facebook has changed its story after initially trying to downplay how it targeted teens with its Research program that a TechCrunch investigation revealed was paying them gift cards to monitor… Read more »
TikTok is launching a series of online safety videos in its app
On the heels of news that TikTok has reached 1 billion downloads, the company today is launching new initiative designed to help inform users about online safety, TikTok’s various privacy… Read more »
Twitter co-founder Ev Williams to step down from the company’s board
Ev Williams, a co-founder of Twitter and the social media business’s former chief executive officer, is stepping down from its board of directors effective at the end of the month,… Read more »
Pinstagram? Instagram code reveals Public Collections feature
Instagram is threatening to attack Pinterest just as it files to go public the same way the Facebook-owned app did to Snapchat. Code buried in Instagram for Android shows the… Read more »
Instagram’s fundraiser stickers could lure credit card numbers
Mark Zuckerberg recently revealed that commerce is a huge part of the 2019 road map for Facebook’s family of apps. But before people can easily buy things from Instagram etc., Facebook… Read more »
UK parliament calls for antitrust, data abuse probe of Facebook
A final report by a British parliamentary committee which spent months last year investigating online political disinformation makes very uncomfortable reading for Facebook — with the company singled out for… Read more »
VCs aren’t falling in love with dating startups
Joanna Glasner Contributor More posts by this contributor Startup names may have passed peak weirdness Where seed and early-stage funding is growing, contracting or holding steady Some 17 years ago,… Read more »
Even years later, Twitter doesn’t delete your direct messages
When does “delete” really mean delete? Not always, or even at all, if you’re Twitter . Twitter retains direct messages for years, including messages you and others have deleted, but… Read more »
Sean Parker’s govtech Brigade breaks up, Pinterest acqhires engineers
Facebook co-founder Sean Parker bankrolled Brigade to get out the vote and stimulate civic debate, but after five years and little progress the startup is splitting up, multiple sources confirm… Read more »
Is Europe closing in on an antitrust fix for surveillance technologists?
The German Federal Cartel Office’s decision to order Facebook to change how it processes users’ personal data this week is a sign the antitrust tide could at last be turning against… Read more »
Instagram thinks you want IGTV previews in your home feed
If you can’t beat or join them… force feed ’em? That appears to be Instagram’s latest strategy for IGTV, which is now being shoved right into Instagram’s main feed, the… Read more »
Fabula AI is using social spread to spot ‘fake news’
UK startup Fabula AI reckons it’s devised a way for artificial intelligence to help user generated content platforms get on top of the disinformation crisis that keeps rocking the world… Read more »
Facebook’s head of comms hits the road after 8 years at the company
Facebook head of communications Caryn Marooney is leaving for greener pastures, she announced today, on Facebook of course. She joins the growing number of executives and high-level employees departing the… Read more »