Study of YouTube comments finds evidence of radicalization effect

Study of YouTube comments finds evidence of radicalization effect

Research presented at the ACM FAT 2020 conference in Barcelona today supports the notion that YouTube’s platform is playing a role in radicalizing users via exposure to far-right ideologies. The study, carried out by researchers at Switzerland’s Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne and the Federal University of Minas Gerais in Brazil, found evidence that users […]

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44% of TikTok’s all-time downloads were in 2019, but app hasn’t figured out monetization

44% of TikTok’s all-time downloads were in 2019, but app hasn’t figured out monetization

Despite the U.S. government’s concerns over TikTok, which most recently led to the U.S. Navy banning service members’ use of the app, TikTok had a stellar 2019 in terms of both downloads and revenue. According to new data from Sensor Tower, 44% of TikTok’s total 1.65 billion downloads to date, or 738+ million installs, took […]

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Facebook and eBay pledge to do more to tackle trade in fake reviews after pressure from UK regulator

Facebook and eBay pledge to do more to tackle trade in fake reviews after pressure from UK regulator

Facebook and eBay have made commitments to do more to stop fake reviews being sold on their platforms after coming under pressure from a UK markets regulator — even as fresh examples of the problem have been found on Facebook-owned Instagram. Last June the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) warned the two platform that they […]

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UK’s competition regulator asks for views on breaking up Google

UK’s competition regulator asks for views on breaking up Google

The U.K.’s competition regulator has raised concerns about the market power of digital ad platform giants Google and Facebook in an interim report published today, opening up a consultation on a range of potential inventions — from breaking up platform giants to limiting their ability to set self-serving defaults and enforcing data sharing and/or feature […]

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Instagram to now flag potentially offensive captions, in addition to comments

Instagram to now flag potentially offensive captions, in addition to comments

Earlier this year, Instagram launched a feature that would flag potentially offensive comments before they’re posted. Now, the social media platform is expanding this preemptive flagging system to Instagram’s captions, as well. The new feature will warn users after they’ve written a caption for a feed post that Instagram’s AI detects as being similar to […]

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Twitter is bringing back Election Labels to identify 2020 US election candidates

Twitter is bringing back Election Labels to identify 2020 US election candidates

With just less than a year until U.S. Election Day, Twitter is bringing back its Election Labels, which provide information about political candidates — including which office they’re running for and their state and district number. The labels will also have a small ballot box icon to accompany this information. The feature was first launched […]

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Facebook’s video calling Portal devices add WhatsApp login, new features and content

Facebook’s video calling Portal devices add WhatsApp login, new features and content

Facebook is making its line of Portal-branded smart video calling devices more relevant to consumers, including those who don’t even have a Facebook account. The company today says its Portal family of products will now work with just a WhatsApp account, allowing users to make video calls to friends and family, as well as access […]

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