Facebook says Trump can’t skirt its ban through daughter-in-law’s account

Trump’s daughter-in-law Lara Trump promoted a new interview with the former president on Facebook and Instagram Tuesday, but a workaround to Trump’s ban on two of the world’s most popular social networks wasn’t long for this world. She was apparently swiftly cautioned by Facebook that anything posted “in the voice of President Trump” is not currently allowed on Facebook or Instagram and would be subject to removal. Trump himself remains banned on...

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Instagram officially launches Remix on Reels, a TikTok Duets-like feature

Instagram today is officially launching a new feature called Remix, which offers a way to record your Reels video alongside a video from another user. The option is similar to TikTok’s existing Duets feature, which also lets users to react to or interact with another person’s video content while creating their own. Instagram’s new feature has been in public testing before today, so some Instagram users may have already gained access. We recently...

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Discord is launching new Clubhouse-like channels for audio events

Everyone is scrambling to build a Clubhouse clone right now, but for Discord it makes perfect sense. With everyone stuck at home searching for safe ways to rekindle their social lives over the last year, Discord’s appeal exploded. The company cites new behavior it observed during the pandemic as the inspiration for Stage Channels, a new feature that will facilitate more structured voice chats with designated speakers and listeners. Voice chat is...

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Facebook gets a C; startup rates the ‘ethics’ of social media platforms, targets asset managers

By now you’ve probably heard of ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) ratings for companies, or ratings for their carbon footprint. Well, now a U.K. company has come up with a way of rating the “ethics” of social media companies. EthicsGrade is an ESG ratings agency, focusing on AI governance. Headed up Charles Radclyffe, the former head of AI at Fidelity, it uses AI-driven models to create a more complete picture of the ESG of organizations, harnessing...

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LinkedIn confirms it’s working on a Clubhouse rival, too

Clubhouse’s list of competitors is growing. LinkedIn has now confirmed it’s also testing a social audio experience in its app which would allow creators on its network to connect with their community. Unlike the Clubhouse rivals being built by Facebook and Twitter, LinkedIn believes its audio networking feature will be differentiated because it will be connected with users’ professional identity, not just a social profile. In addition, the company...

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Facebook denies its algorithms are a problem, but launches a tool to more easily view a non-algorithmic News Feed

Following years of backlash over its algorithms and their ability to push people to more extreme content, which Facebook continues to deny, the company today announced it would give its users new tools to more easily switch over to non-algorithmic views of their News Feed. This includes the recently launched “Favorites,” which shows you posts from up to 30 of your favorite friends and Pages, as well as the “Most Recent” view, which shows posts in...

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YouTube tests hiding dislike counts on videos

YouTube announced today it will begin testing what could end up being a significant change to its video platform: it’s going to try hiding the dislike count on videos from public view. The company says it will run a “small experiment” where it will try out a few different designs where dislike counts are no longer shown, however none will see the “dislike” button itself removed entirely. The company announced the tests on Twitter, but then further...

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Jake Paul looks to knock out the venture capital world with Anti Fund

During every economic boom, there are startup investors who appear on the scene from new corners. Some churn out; others earn the respect of the old guard over time. Jake Paul would be happy to be in the latter camp. Then again, the 24-year-old didn’t become a YouTube star by being conventional. Little wonder that Paul is now jumping into venture capital with an outfit that’s branded the Anti Fund. Newly formed with serial entrepreneur Geoffrey Woo, the...

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Slack wants to be more than a text-based messaging platform

Last October as Slack was preparing for its virtual Frontiers conference, the company began thinking about different ways people could communicate on the platform. While it had built its name on being able to integrate a lot of services in a single place to alleviate the dreaded task-switching phenomenon, it has been largely text-based up until now. More recently, Slack has started developing a few new features that could bring different ways of...

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Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey busted for tweeting during congressional hearing

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey got called out by Rep. Kathleen Rice (D-NY) for tweeting during today’s congressional hearing on disinformation and extremism. The tech exec’s tweet was likely expressing frustration with the format of the hearing, which once again saw the tech CEOs forced to boil down their answers to complicated questions into simple “yes” or “no” answers — or otherwise be cut off from responding. Cryptically, Dorsey this afternoon tweeted...

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Social media CEOs hedge on whether they’d boot the 12 anti-vax ‘super-spreaders’ cited by states’ attorneys general

On Wednesday, a coalition of a dozen state attorneys general called on Facebook and Twitter to step up their enforcement of their community guidelines to curtail the spread of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation on their platforms. Their letter specifically identified 12 “anti-vaxxer” accounts that were responsible for a sizable 65% of public anti-vaccine content on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. In today’s House hearing on disinformation and extremism,...

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Snapchat is developing its own take on TikTok Duets with a new ‘Remix’ feature

One of the challenges that some would-be TikTok rivals have faced is that they often lack the same robust set of content creation tools, like filters, effects, and tools for repurposing others’ content — like TikTok’s Stitch and Duet, for example. It now appears that Snapchat is working to correct that latter problem, however, as it’s been spotted working on a TikTok Duets-like feature called “Remix,” designed for replying to Snaps. This feature...

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Twitter is exploring the use of Facebook-style emoji reactions

If you’re old enough to remember the outrage that followed Twitter’s decision to replace stars with hearts (aka likes instead of favorites), then you know that Twitter’s user base has strong feelings about how it wants to engage with tweets. Now, Twitter is considering another radical change on this front that could shake things up yet again. The company has been surveying users throughout the month to get input on how they feel about a broader set...

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Indian social network Public App raises $41 million

Public App, a location-based social network that connects individuals to people in their vicinity, has raised $41 million in a new round, just six months after securing $35 million as the hyper-local Indian startup looks to expand its presence in the world’s second largest internet market. A91 Partners led the new round in Public App, valuing the Indian startup at over $250 million (more than double since its last fundraise). The Indian startup,...

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