Media Perception Of Social Workers

A screenshot of Artifact, the new news app from Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger. | Image: Artifact Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger are back. The Instagram co-founders, who departed Facebook in 2018 amid tensions with their parent company, have formed a new venture to explore ideas for next-generation social apps. Their first product is Artifact, a personalized news feed that uses machine learning to understand your interests and will soon let you discuss those articles with friends. Artifact — the name represents the merging of articles, facts, and artificial intelligence — is opening up its waiting list to the public today. The company plans to let users in quickly, Systrom says. You can sign up yourself here ; the app is available for both Android and iOS. The simplest way to understand Artifact is as a kind of TikTok for text, though you might also call it Google Reader reborn as a mobile app or maybe even a surprise attack on Twitte...

These Notes are all wasted opportunities to post vague lyrics that are definitely not targeted toward your crush. | Image: Meta Instagram Notes, the social network’s recently launched text status feature that reminds me of the AOL Instant Messenger away messages of my youth, is expanding to the EU, UK, and Japan this week, Instagram head Adam Mosseri announced Monday . The rollout is beginning on Monday, spokesperson Christine Pai said in an email to The Verge . Notes are short text posts of up to 60 characters that float above your profile icon and disappear after 24 hours. The feature officially launched in December , and Mosseri says it’s done “really well” in Asia, North America, and Latin America and “specifically with teens.” The later launch in Europe and Japan was to ensure the feature complied with local regulations, Mosseri said. Notes Launch Worldwide Notes are now available in Europe and Japan. Check it out and let me know what you think! ...

Photo by Joe Raedle / Getty Images Meta announced Wednesday that it will allow former President Donald Trump back on Facebook and Instagram two years after his initial suspension. In a Wednesday blog post , Meta announced that it would reinstate Trump’s accounts sometime over the next few weeks. If Trump once again violates Meta’s content policies, the company said that his accounts would be subject to additional suspensions, ranging from one month to two years, “depending on the severity of the violation.” “As a general rule, we don’t want to get in the way of open, public and democratic debate on Meta’s platforms – especially in the context of elections in democratic societies like the United States,” Clegg said in Wednesday’s blog post. “The public should be able to hear what their politicians are saying – the good, the bad and the ugly – so that they can make informed choices at the ballot box.” As part of Wednesday’s announcement, Meta updated its poli...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Instagram’s adding a way to temporarily silence push notifications whenever you want to take a break from the app. The feature, called Quiet Mode, will send automatic replies to users who try to message you on the platform, letting them know you weren’t notified. Instagram will specifically prompt teen users to toggle on Quiet Mode “when they spend a specific amount of time on Instagram late at night.” However, the platform doesn’t state how much time teens have to spend on the app to see the prompt and also doesn’t say what timeframe it considers “late at night.” Meta spokesperson Liza Crenshaw tells The Verge the notification will appear after “several minutes.” Image: Instagram Instagram will automatically reply to users who message you while you’re in Quiet Mode. It’ll also display an “in quiet mode” status on your profile to warn other users that you’re using the feature as well as gi...

Twitter headquarters in San Francisco, California, US, on Tuesday, November 29th, 2022.  Meta made millions last year on advertising that greenwashes fossil fuel companies and spreads disinformation about climate change, according to a new report . And outright climate denialism exploded on Twitter in 2022, according to the analysis published today by a coalition of environmental groups and researchers. They identified fossil fuel-linked entities that spent about $4 million on Facebook and Instagram ads around the time of the United Nations’ climate change conference in November. Those ads disparage the transition to clean energy that’s necessary to slow climate change, the report says, while portraying oil and gas companies as unlikely environmental champions. Meanwhile on Twitter, the hashtag #climatescam has seen a meteoric rise since July of last year. The findings show “a stark comeback for climate denial” and “negligence from Big Tech companies who ...

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Even Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, now believes that the platform put a lopsided emphasis on videos and Reels last year — and traditional photo posts were worse off because of it. In one of the answers from his weekly Q&A with users today, he acknowledged, “I think we were overfocused on video in 2022 and pushed ranking too far and basically showed too many videos and not enough photos.” Mosseri said that Instagram has since worked behind the scenes to restore a more even balance, and internal metrics show that it’s working. “Things like how often someone likes photos versus videos and how often someone comments on photos versus videos are roughly equal, which is a good sign that things are balanced,” he said. “To the degree that there is more video on Instagram over time, it’s going to be because that’s what’s driving overall engagement more. But photos are always going to be an important part of what we do.”...

Meta claims to have disabled over 60,000 fake Facebook and Instagram accounts used by Voyager Labs. | Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge Meta has filed a legal complaint against a company for allegedly creating tens of thousands of fake Facebook accounts to scrape user data and provide surveillance services for clients. The firm, Voyager Labs, bills itself as “a world leader in advanced AI-based investigation solutions.” What this means in practice is analyzing social media posts en masse in order to make claims about individuals. In 2021, for example, The Guardian reported how Voyager Labs sold its services to the Los Angeles Police Department, with the company claiming to predict which individuals were likely to commit crimes in the future. Voyager Labs is accused of creating over 38,000 fake Facebook user accounts to scrape data Meta announced the legal action in a blog pos t on January 12th, claiming that Voyager Labs violated its terms of servi...

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge Tired of comparing your behind-the-scenes with everyone else’s highlight reel on Instagram? ( To quote Steven Furtick .) The social network has its charms, but for many, it can be a place that’s littered with envy-inducing photos and videos of everybody else’s “perfect” lives. If you’re not careful, it can trigger all sorts of insecurities — sometimes even to the detriment of your mental health . That’s why it’s important to be mindful of the type of Instagram content you’re consuming on a daily basis. While it’s easy to unfollow accounts from influencers, though, you can’t exactly unfollow or full-on block a friend or a family member without hurting some feelings. That’s where Instagram’s “mute” feature comes in handy: it lets you mute posts and / or stories from people without them ever knowing. As a result, you won’t have to see your friend’s seemingly hundreds of vacation photos and stories on your feed. It’s a nice...

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge Meta is further restricting how advertisers on its platforms target users under 18, the company announced today. Starting next month, the company is removing the ability for advertisers to target kids on Facebook and Instagram by gender, though they’ll still be able to use age and location. In 2021, Meta rolled back ad targeting based on the interests and activity of teen users, a catch-all term for the trove of data the company collects about your internet activity. With this most recent tightening of rules, advertisers will also no longer be able to target teens based on in-app engagement, like Instagram and Facebook pages they follow and like. Beginning in March, teens will also have more tools available to (somewhat) control what kind of ads they see. Under Ad Preferences they’ll be able to select topics they want to see fewer ads about, though it’s worth noting that there doesn’t appear to be a way to complete...