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18 May
7

Facebook Makes Further Steps to Shut Down Clickbait

In Social Media, Social Media News Brief, Social Networking | No comment

clickbaitIn a continuation of their battle against misinformation and misleading news, Facebook has announced further updates that target clickbait specifically. They have been working to create a tool that can identify clickbait based on specific articles and posts rather than certain sites that often create clickbait type articles. An initial update was focused on just illuminating repeat offenders or websites that put out a lot of clickbait type articles, while this is focused more on individual posts and their headlines.

 

The new tool that Facebook will be using is going to be focused on the headline of an article and whether or not this headline is hiding key information to inspire people to click it or exaggerating certain information for the purpose of clicks. Posts that are found to have some key identifiers that make their headlines likely to be clickbait, will be pushed down in the news feed so that viewers are a lot less likely to run into them and click on them. This is good news for Facebook users that commonly are attracted and disappointed by these different types of posts.

 

Facebook’s anti-clickbait tool has been trained to focus on specific signals that generally show that a page is clickbait. They focus on which words often are seen in clickbait headlines and not in reputable news articles. The tools have been extended to recognize clickbait headlines even when articles are not in English. This is going to be a process that is automated throughout Facebook to match different phrases with clickbait criteria that has been previously identified.

 

Ever since the US presidential election, Facebook has been working to clean up its platform to make sure that it can eliminate misinformation and sensationalized headlines. The new update is yet another one targeted at eliminating misleading news and preventing the spread of this throughout the platform.

11 May
6

Facebook Takes Steps to Limit Links to Low Quality Web Pages

In Social Media, Social Media News Brief, Social Networking | No comment

pop up adsA recent string of updates to Facebook have all focused on increasing the quality of the content which is shown on Facebook while getting rid of misinformation. Facebook’s newest update focuses more specifically on identifying links to low quality web pages that will provide a poor user experience. Posts that have links like this will be pushed further down the new feed so that users will be less likely to click on them.

 

Facebook’s strike against websites like this has come about after seeing how many users were disappointed or annoyed when they clicked on links on their news feed which then led them to a website filled with more ads and pop ups than actual content. As a result, Facebook has been working to protect their platform and their users by using tools that will prevent these links from showing up as high in a news feed.

 

To identify these different sites, Facebook says that it looked at hundreds of thousands of web pages that had poor quality landing pages to determine what these kinds of websites had in common. They were then able to train an artificial intelligence program to identify these sites. The goal is to limit poor quality ad filled sites from getting traffic from Facebook and to save users from following links to these sites.

 

If Facebook is able to limit links to poor quality and click bait news sites, they’ll be able to create a social media platform that is free from many of the things that routinely annoy users. Their actions to restrict these kinds of links from showing up high in the news feed will likely cause websites linked to Facebook that are higher quality to have a slight increase in traffic while ones that are low quality will experience a drop off in traffic.

27 Apr
6

Facebook Announces Further Steps to Block the Purposeful Spread of Misinformation

In Social Media, Social Media News Brief, Social Networking | No comment

Facebook recently announced that they are going to be stepping up the level of protection for their platform as they work to further eliminate the spread of fake news. Specifically, Facebook has decided to target Information Operations which are typically started with the goal of spreading misinformation to manipulate political sentiment. While the initial users in these operations are working to spread the information purposefully, real users often get caught up in the operation and take part unknowingly. Facebook has already begun to use different tools to prevent this, which have succeeded in identifying 30,000 fake accounts that Facebook was able to take action against.

Facebook’s focus on preventing these accounts from operating within their platform stems from the fact that hackers used Facebook as a tool for spreading misinformation during the U.S. election. Facebook’s plan to prevent this in the future, includes using new tools to identify strange behavior. They have created algorithms which can block bots from creating fake accounts and others that can recognize when accounts post the same item again and again or send a huge number of messages.

 

Preventing these Information Operations is something that is more complex than fighting traditional scammers and hackers. This is why Facebook has had to spend time working on creating tools to identify false accounts so that Facebook can suspend them or delete the accounts. These tools include machine learning software and tools that encompass intelligence-agency level analysis. The hope is to prevent the unnatural spread of false information before it reaches real accounts that begin spreading it further.

 

Facebook has stated that they’ll be doing more to stop the spread of fake news through their platform. They intend Facebook to be a place for people to engage and communicate much more authentically. As fake accounts and the spread of false information can drown out real conversation, they are determined to eliminate this as much as possible by creating new tools to identify and shut down these practices.

20 Apr
6

Instagram’s Newest Feature Makes it Easy to Organize Saved Posts

In Social Media, Social Media News Brief, Social Networking | No comment

instagramWhile Instagram has allowed users to save posts since December, until now there has been no real organization in the way that the different posts are saved in your personal collection. As part of the newest update to Instagram, users will now be able to save these posts into specific collections. This will make it so that Instagram users will be able to organize all the posts they save rather than having a jumble of various saved posts in their collection.

 

To save posts to new categories, you just have to tap and hold the bookmark icon beneath any post. Instagram will then allow you to either create and name a new collection or to add this post to any existing collections. By separating saved posts into categories, users will be able to go into their collection later on and to find the posts that they saved much more easily. This can make things easier when users are sharing posts with friends or just trying to look back and something that they saved.

 

This new feature will make it easier for users to store recipes, outfit ideas, and so much more in their collection without everything being lost in the jumble. Since many users may already have a lot of posts saved to their collection, they’ll be glad to find that there is a way to sort existing posts that have been saved. Users can sort these posts into collections by clicking the plus sign in the upper right corner of the screen and adding a new collection and then choosing which posts to add to this category as well.

 

These new collections will show up under the saved posts tab on your Instagram profile. The collections will remain private and visible only to you just as they were before. Many users have started to compare the new feature to Pinterest, where people are able to save pins and sort them into a variety of categories so it is easy for them to find them and to view them at a later point in time. Instagram users who like to save a lot of different posts will be especially glad to have this feature to use.

13 Apr
6

Twitter’s Update Prevents @Usernames from Counting Toward Character Limits in Replies

In Social Media, Social Media News Brief, Social Networking | No comment

conversationOver the past year, Twitter has made many moves to prevent their 140-character limit from being too limiting to users. This has meant making it so that pictures and videos don’t count toward the 140-character limit on tweets. In Twitter’s latest update, it has begun preventing @username tags from limiting characters left when replying to posts. This allows users to have more characters to give to their reply rather than having characters eaten up by tags.

 

Instead of having to add @username to a reply tweet, users will now be able to tap on a button labeled “Replying to…” to manage which people are part of this conversation. This will make it so that the username will appear above the text of the Tweet rather than as a part of it, giving you more of your 140-character limit to use in the reply.

 

This change is going to make it so that conversations between two or more people on Twitter can move a lot more smoothly. People won’t have to look at the clutter of @username tags on the beginning of the tweet when they are trying to read a conversation. This should help to clear up conversation and make it easier for people to communicate thorough twitter.

 

The main goal of the update is to make it so that Twitter is a place where conversation is allowed to flow a lot more easily and naturally. Despite this goal, some people worry that this new feature will allow reply tweets to become a lot more spam like in quality. People will be able to post replies to a wide number of people much more easily as these tags don’t count against the character count.

06 Apr
6

Facebook Adds New Tools to Prevent the Spread of Revenge Porn

In Social Media, Social Media News Brief, Social Networking | No comment

facebookOne of the problems that Facebook has faced in the past is the spread of pictures within their various platforms. The way that Facebook sharing and the internet in general work can make it challenging to stop the spread of an image once it is out there. This can be frustrating and unpleasant for people who have their pictures being distributed without permission. Facebook has recently been working on tools that can help prevent the spread of these different images and especially of what is often called “revenge porn.”

 

Initially Facebook had been controlling the spread of these images simply by having users report them and then removing them as they appeared. The main problem with this was that the images would still continue to spread as people would see them and share them or save them before the image could be reported. For this reason, Facebook has extended the tools it uses. They will now be using image matching software to find images that have been previously reported and removed. When someone tries to post this image or send it to another user, they will automatically receive an alert saying that the content violates Facebook policy.

 

Some people have voiced concern about how this software will work. Many are worried about the way that the images will be stored so that Facebook can use them with photo matching software. Facebook says that the images will be kept for a certain period of time, but then they will be reduced to data that is essentially the image’s virtual fingerprint. Photos cannot be reconstructed from this information, allowing for greater privacy. Images that are stored temporarily will have parts blurred out to further protect privacy.

 

It is likely that a recent case involving a young girl in which Facebook was found to have fault for failing to prevent the spread of these images has contributed to Facebook’s desire to control these different types of images better. While pictures will still have to be reported initially, Facebook will be able to use software to prevent the images from appearing again within their various platforms.

30 Mar
6

Facebook Adds a Feature to Accept Donations for Personal Fundraising

In Social Media, Social Media News Brief, Social Networking | No comment

donate buttonFacebook has announced that their newest feature will allow customers to conduct personal fundraising through Facebook pages. People will be able to make pages that ask for donations that go to a personal account. The feature that Facebook is planning to add will be similar to GoFundMe and other crowd raising websites that gather money for people who are in need.

 

The plan is for the feature to roll out over the next few weeks in the United States. It will only be available to those who are 18 and older on the website. These individuals will be able to set up a dedicated Facebook page to include information about the fundraiser. The page will feature a blue donate button that will allow other Facebook users to donate money to the cause. One of the benefits of having these pages be a part of Facebook is that they will be linked with individuals so people will know who they are donating to.

 

The new feature will put Facebook into competition with different website like GoFundMe. For now Facebook is going to only allow fundraisers to cover education expenses, medical bills, pet medical bills, crisis and disaster relief, personal emergencies, and assistance for family members after a death in the family. They plan to have a 6.9% transaction fee in addition to a fee of 30 cents per donation to cover the costs of processing the donations and reviewing each fundraiser before it goes live.  

 

With this new feature in place Facebook pages will be created to help accept donations for different things. People visiting the page will be able to read about the fundraiser and also share the information with their own friends in addition to contributing money to the situation. The feature will be a way to fund raise directly with Facebook rather than sharing pages outside of this social media site.

23 Mar
6

Instagram to Release a New Update to Help Businesses Using this Platform

In Social Media, Social Media News Brief, Social Networking | No comment

instagramWhile many updates to different social media sites, include updates that help make different items much more user friendly, many social media sites have begun to work on making their social media sites appeal much more to businesses as well. Most recently, Instagram announced that they would be adding a new update that would allow users to schedule appointments with businesses from Instagram pages. This update is one that will allow customers and businesses to connect more easily.

 

There are at least eight million businesses that have accounts on Instagram, so adding an update to help these businesses thrive makes a lot of sense. The idea of this update is to make it so that businesses can easily transfer people looking at their pictures to actual customers. People who see things that they like within the business Instagram account will not only be able to like pictures, but schedule appointments based off of them.

 

The main benefit of this new update is that businesses will be able to see the way that their Instagram campaign actually contributes to their business itself. They’ll be able to track customers coming from Instagram to see how sharing photos on this site can turn followers into paying customers. This will also allow Instagram to compete with websites like Yelp and OpenTable as many of the features they offer will now be similar to ones on these websites.

 

While the new update is not intended to change the focus of Instagram as a platform, the intention is to allow businesses new ways to connect with customers. By providing an easy way for customer to make appointments after seeing photos that inspire them to go to a certain business, Instagram is extending the way in which people and businesses can interact on their platform.

16 Mar
6

Facebook Policy Update Prevents Data from Being Used for Surveillance

In Social Media, Social Media News Brief, Social Networking | No comment

facebook surveillanceThis week, Facebook announced a new update to their policies that more clearly forbids developers from using Facebook as a place to gather data for surveillance tools. Facebook feels that tools that use the data on their platform for surveillance discourage users from sharing openly on Facebook. Part of the goal of the new policy is to help people feel safer when they are using Facebook so that they don’t have to filter what they say on social media as much.

 

The update is partially a result of Facebook’s work with the ACLU and other civil rights groups. A recent report by the ACLU uncovered that police were using a surveillance tool that acquired data through Facebook to keep tabs on protests in Oakland and Baltimore. If people worry that police might be targeting their posts and keeping an eye on them, they might be less likely to use Facebook in different ways. Since Facebook is concerned with civil rights, they are implementing this update to help prevent apps connected to Facebook being used to spy on members of the Facebook community.

 

The main focus of the update is to make it easier for Facebook to shut down apps using Facebook data for surveillance purposes. The updated policy is intended as a barrier against developers who could use their access to Facebook information to provide information to law enforcement or other agencies. Facebook hopes that the language of the new update will make it clearer what isn’t allowed so that apps can easily follow the policies.

 

The new update to this policy is just another update on top of previous updates that have helped to prevent discrimination within the platform through third party sources. Other recent changes to the policies have includes ones to prevent discriminatory adds and using Facebook data to help in the process of approving or denying loans.

10 Mar
6

Newest Twitter Update Helps iOS Users Free Up Storage Space on Their Phones

In Social Media, Social Media News Brief, Social Networking | No comment

iPhoneA few days ago, Twitter rolled out a small but helpful update to iOS users. On their iOS app, Twitter has made it so that users will actually be able to see how much space is taken up by the various photos, files, and web data stored within the Twitter app. The update has also made it possible for users to begin deleting this information, effectively freeing up space on their device. For many Apple users, this new update is extremely helpful.

 

Twitter’s newest update is focused on making it a lot easier for users to manage the storage space taken up by their Twitter app and to even regain some of their devices internal storage by deleting cached data. For some users, this may free up a huge amount of internal storage space as regular Twitter users may have 1 MB or more filled with information that Twitter stores. Anyone with limited phone storage is sure to love Twitter’s update for this reason.

 

Prior to the update that Twitter has now implemented, users would have had to delete the Twitter app entirely and then reinstall to get rid of the cached information taking up so much of their internal storage space. The new update makes the process a lot easier allowing users to just go in and clear their cache whenever necessary. This update is especially great for iPhone users who have iPhones with limited memory as people trying to choose between apps or pictures, will now be able to free up space used by Twitter.

 

To clear the cached information that Twitter uses, start by updating the iOS app on your device. You’ll then be able to click on the gear icon to go into your settings. From there, simply click on Data Usage under General. There will then be two options, Media Storage and Web Storage. By going into either of these, you’ll be able to see how much data is being stored and you’ll be able to clear it, freeing up storage space on your phone.

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