John

Popular social networking site Pinterest hosted an event focused on its creator community recently where it introduced a set of updates comprising its $500K Creator Fund and “Creator Code,” a new content policy along with other moderation tools and updates. The company said that it aims to make sure the platform remains a “positive, inclusive and inspiring place with these changes.” With the launch of the new content guidelines, Pinterest creators will be required to fact-check their content, practice inclusion, practice discretion for visually sensitive content, be kind and make sure any call to action they make via the platform does no harm. Creators will have to agree to and sign the Creator Code before posting any Story Pins. They will have to tap an “I Agree” button, meaning they accept the “Be Kind,” “Check my facts,” “Beware of triggers,” “Practice inclusion,” and “Do no harm” guidelines of the platform. The company will enforce the Creator Code similar to how it implements the ...

Popular social networking company Facebook is all set to introduce some new features to give users more control over their news feed. This update would mainly focus on what shows up on users’ news feed and who can comment on their posts. On Wednesday, Facebook announced these changes along with several other updates, all of which are aimed at increasing transparency on the platform and intended to build trust among Facebook users on how the platform’s algorithms work. Nick Clegg, Facebook’s VP of Global Affairs, said he had a problem with the way some people claimed that Facebook’s algorithms intended to fuel polarization and meant to manipulate the users for monetary gains. Further, Clegg said that these new features announced by Facebook are part of the company’s broader move to show people that their experience on the platform only depends on their ‘own’ relationship with Facebook’s algorithm. This is a big step taken by the social networking company as for years now, the users and ...

  The social networking platform Twitter has launched its new voice DM feature for iOS and Android users recently. According to reports, the company has made the voice “direct messages” available in three countries as of now, including India, Brazil, and Japan. The company had announced last year that it is planning to bring audio messages to Twitter. As per Twitter India’s latest announcement, this feature, which it calls an “experiment,” will be rolled out in phases. Manish Maheshwari, the managing director of Twitter India, in a statement, said that these voice DMs are meant to provide users with a new way of expressing themselves and helping them connect through subtlety, empathy, and emotion developed by hearing a person’s voice. Similar audio message features are already available on other  social media  platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp. In its latest tweet, Twitter India uploaded a video showing how this new voice DM feature works. Users can reco...

Stiffening its attitude on hate speech in private messages, the popular social networking giant Instagram has recently announced that it will start disabling accounts of users sending hateful DMs to other users over and over again. At the moment, when a user sends messages that go against the company’s guidelines, the platform forbids the user from sending any more DMs for a given time frame. However, in a recent statement, the company announced that from now on, if a user continues to send messages that violate the platform’s policies, they will disable the account of that particular user. Further adding to their statement, the company said that it would also disable new accounts made to dodge or escape the company’s messaging restrictions and continue disabling accounts found to be created solely to send abusive and hateful DMs to others on the platform. The company also revealed that it has begun rolling out more controls to private accounts in numerous countries, and they expect to...

The popular professional social networking site LinkedIn has recently introduced on-demand Marketing Labs video courses for advertisers to teach them how to use the platform’s ad tools to succeed. These courses will cover a range of topics, including the basics such as introduction to LinkedIn ads, using LinkedIn’s ad targeting, analytics and reporting for LinkedIn Ads, using LinkedIn for brand awareness, lead generation, etc. Most advertisers on this platform have varying opinions about the effectiveness of LinkedIn ads, with many of them agreeing that success is usually attainable for niche industries. Businesses that are hoping to run ads on the platform should know that LinkedIn has a history of being challenging for advertisers to use. In addition to this, using LinkedIn ads has become a hard sell due to the lack of results for a lot of marketers. On the other hand, some advertisers also claim that once they figured out how to get it right, they have experienced success for their ...

  Social media giant Facebook acquired WhatsApp back in 2014, and it slowly changed the way the platform accessed user data. And now Facebook is displaying a “take it or leave it” stance to the WhatsApp users with the newly updated privacy policy. Earlier this week, users from around the world started seeing a popup notification regarding privacy policy and terms of service update on their WhatsApp, and most users had no idea what this was all about. With this latest update, the social networking company has expanded the way WhatsApp will share its user data with other Facebook-owned platforms and third-party apps as well. And that’s not all. This update also arrived with the condition that if a person denies sharing their data with the company, i.e., Facebook, they need to leave the messaging platform. These new terms of service will come into effect next month, on 8th February. WHAT DOES THIS NEW PRIVACY POLICY PUT AT STAKE? WhatsApp will continue to hold on to data, including th...

  In 2020, the Facebook-owned social networking site Instagram introduced some significant changes to its platform. From the release of Vanish Mode, Reels to enhancements in Instagram Live, and the integration of Instagram DMs with Facebook Messenger, these modifications and additions have indeed contributed towards improving the user experience and app usage. Once again, this popular photo-sharing platform seems to be testing a new interface on its desktop version for viewing Instagram Stories. According to the reports, with the launch of this new layout, Stories will be displayed in a carousel in place of the single tile (like it does currently, consuming the entire space). Nevertheless, the navigation process will remain as it is; users will still be required to either click through the Stories or allow them to play automatically. With the rollout of this new interface, users will, like before, be able to tap/click to proceed to the next story and see what they have already view...

Instagram is back once again with another set of changes. This time it has updated its Terms and Conditions, giving rise to controversies ever since the platform has rolled it out. Users from all around the world are questioning these new policies. And this is why a lot of people who are yet unfamiliar with these changes, their impacts, and consequences are left wondering what precisely this dispute is all about. So if you are also one of those who are unaware of Instagram’s new terms and conditions, updated privacy policy, camera access, and content access, then here is everything you need to know about it. Let’s dive in! THINGS TO NOTE ABOUT INSTAGRAM’S NEW TERMS AND CONDITIONS As per the ongoing debates across the various social media platforms, Instagram’s new privacy policy lets the company see and inspect things using your device’s front camera, copy your contact list, phone records, and text message history as well, as save data from everything you search on the platform. After ...