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Instagram is giving schools a faster way to get students’ posts taken down

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Instagram is rolling out a new program to fast-track moderation reports made by school districts. After a district joins the new Schools Partnership program, any post or account they flag for potentially violating Instagram’s rules will “be automatically prioritized for review.” The school’s account will then receive notifications about the status of their report, and whether Instagram takes action on it. The partnership program is available to middle schools and high schools in the US, and it will allow them to take action against harmful content students may post.  Schools are often made aware of threats or inappropriate content posted on social media platforms, and some use monitoring programs to keep tabs on what students post online. Educational institutions will get a banner on their profile indicating that they’re part of the program, and they’ll gain access to resources to “help support educators, parents, guardians and students navigate Instagram safely.” Insta...
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Facebook, Instagram, and Threads start testing Community Notes next week

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Meta will begin testing its X-style Community Notes starting March 18th. The feature will roll out on Facebook, Instagram, and Threads in the US – but Meta won’t publicly publish the notes to start as it tests the Community Notes writing and rating system. Meta first announced plans to replace its fact-checking program with Community Notes in January, saying it would be “less prone to bias.” So far, around 200,000 potential contributors have signed up for the waitlist. Not everyone will be able to write and rate Community Notes at launch, as the company will “gradually and randomly” admit contributors to the program. In its post, Meta revealed that it’s adopting X’s approach to Community Notes, allowing contributors to write and rate notes, which “won’t be published unless contributors with a range of viewpoints broadly agree on them.” It’s also using X’s open-source algorithm for its rating system. “When we launched the fact checking program in 2016, we were clear that ...
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Instagram’s Reels may get its own app

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Instagram is reportedly considering spinning its Reels feature into a standalone short-form video app to take advantage of TikTok’s uncertain future in the US. Instagram head Adam Mosseri was overheard discussing the plans with staff this week according to an anonymous source cited by The Information . The Reels app is reportedly part of a Meta initiative code-named Project Ray which aims to help Instagram better compete against TikTok. Plans include improving how Instagram content is recommended and bringing more three-minute-long Reels videos to users in the US.  TikTok has around 170 million US users and still faces a ban after being given a 75-day extension by President Donald Trump in January. During TikTok’s temporary removal from app stores last month, Instagram released Edits — a blatant riff on the CapCut video editing app owned by TikTok’s parent company ByteDance — and allegedly tried to lure creators to its own platform with cash bonuses. It...
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Instagram will now let you schedule and pin DMs

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Instagram’s direct message function is getting a big infusion of features today , including scheduled direct messages that you can prewrite and set to send on a later date, up to 29 days in advance. You can also now pin up to three messages to the top of the chat. Meta says the changes are intended to help with messaging people who live in different time zones or to keep important messages (read: memes) visible in busy group chats where things are easily missed. A few more incoming DM-specific features include the ability to invite friends to a group chat with a QR code, plus message translations with support for 99 languages. You can translate any individual message and see the result inline as if your friend originally sent it. Another fun addition is sharing music natively within the app, which would allow you and your friends to listen to the same song simultaneously, or share them asynchronously without using links or otherwise navigating away from Instagram. You ca...
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Instagram starts testing new button that might downrank comments

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Instagram is beginning to test a button that “gives people a private way to signal that they don’t feel good about that particular comment,” Instagram boss Adam Mosseri says in a post on Threads . The button, based on a screenshot from a Threads user , is a downward-facing arrow next to the like button in comments. If you see the button and press it, however, people won’t know that you did so, and there won’t be a dislike count shown, according to Mosseri. However, “eventually, we may integrate this signal into comments ranking to move disliked comments lower down,” Mosseri says. “Our hope is that this might help make comments more friendly on Instagram.” “We’re working on ways to help people better control their Instagram experience and what they’re seeing on the app,” Instagram spokesperson Christine Pai says in a statement. “We’re testing a new button next to each comment on a Reel or Feed post for people to privately signal they don’t feel good about that partic...
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Instagram’s Threads: all the updates on the new Twitter competitor

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As Twitter continues to flail about under Elon Musk, all eyes are on the newly launched Instagram Threads as a potential replacement. Meta launched Threads on iOS, Android , and the web on July 5th — a little bit ahead of schedule . Two days in, Mark Zuckerberg said Threads has registered over 70 million accounts , and it’s still growing. In an interview about Threads with The Verge , Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri explains why the platform wants to take on Twitter. “Obviously, Twitter pioneered the space,” Mosseri says. “And there are a lot of good offerings out there for public conversations. But just given everything that was going on, we thought there was an opportunity to build something that was open and something that was good for the community that was already using Instagram.” View this post on Instagram A post shared by The Verge (@verge) Rumors about the new Meta-owned platform were swirling for months, wit...
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The hunt for the next Twitter: all the news about alternative social media platforms

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It’s been more than two years since Elon Musk officially took over as the owner of Twitter — now X — and while a lot of platforms rushed in to try and be the next big microblogging service, many haven’t survived. Threads, Mastodon, and Bluesky have all proven to be viable alternatives, but places like Pebble (formerly T2) and Post News didn’t make it. Threads is perhaps the likely successor, having reached 275 million monthly users as of October 2024, and it seems committed to fediverse integration by building features around the ActivityPub protocol. Bluesky, which relies on its own decentralized AT Protocol for social networking, continues to grow and saw a surge of users after the 2024 election, though with somewhere north of 14.5 million use rs , it’s still well behind Threads. Mastodon, which also uses the ActivityPub protocol, was already well-established by the time Musk bought Twitter but has struggled to grow its active user ba...
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