As applications, and especially Social Media, have become an integral part of our daily lives, we want to learn everything about them. Below you can find the latest news that was released last week.
Last week, Facebook announced the expansion of a new section called “Today In.” Facebook is also starting a test of local notifications from relevant government pages.
The “Today In” feature connects people with local news and information in more than 400 cities in the U.S. And now it’s being tested in Australia.
If you live in a city where the “Today In” feature is available, then you can find it by opening the Facebook app, tapping the three-line menu, and then tapping “Today In.”.
Facebook may soon add the ability to hide comments that contain certain words. Users will be able to ban certain words along with certain phrases and emojis. But users who post those words will still see the full comment, and their friends will be able to see it too. This feature could prevent users from seeing hateful messages or becoming victims of online bullying. Instagram also has the ability to filter comments with certain keywords. And Twitter also has the ability to block certain keywords from appearing.
Facebook is also rolling out Party Watch to all users. This feature allows users to watch and comment on videos together across pages and profiles.
A Facebook engineer warned the company about a major data issue involving Russia as early as 2014. According to a report by Business Insider, a UK lawmaker discovered these details in a cache of sealed Facebook documents. The engineer warned that entities with Russian IP addresses were using a Pinterest API key (the Ordered Friends API) and were receiving “over 3 billion pieces of data per day.”
The Wall Street Journal has reviewed some internal Facebook emails from 2012 to 2014 and revealed that the social network was believed to be charging companies for access to user data.
A bug in Facebook Messenger that resurfaced users' conversations that took place years ago and initially appeared as if they were new was fortunately fixed within a day.
Instagram has announced two new improvements that will make it easier for people with visual impairments to use the social networking site.
The platform has introduced automatic alt text so that visually impaired users can hear photo descriptions through a screen reader as they use Feed, Explore, and Profile. Instagram uses object recognition technology to generate a photo description for screen readers so that users can hear a list of items that photos may contain while browsing the app.
Additionally, Instagram now lets you set a Close Friends list in Stories and share them only with the people you've added. Instagram has been testing this feature for over a year and it's available on the iOS and Android versions of the app.
Neeraj Arora, chief business officer at WhatsApp, is leaving the company. Arora was reportedly set to take over as CEO of the company after the departures of WhatsApp co-founders Brian Acton and Jan Koum. Acton left last year and Koum said he would leave Facebook in April 2018.
YouTube
YouTube launched Stories for more creators last week, according to The Verge. Video creators with more than 10,000 subscribers will be able to use the feature.
YouTube Stories last seven days on the mobile app, compared to Instagram's 24-hour period. Stories appear for subscribers and non-subscribers. And they appear in the "Up Next" sidebar next to videos.
Through stories, fans can write comments and ask questions. Video creators can then respond and the answers will be publicly displayed.
