Media Perception Of Social Workers

Illustration by Alex Castro / The Verge Instagram and Facebook users in Europe are getting more options to opt out of Meta’s recommendation algorithms, the company has explained in a blog post today . According to Meta’s president of global affairs Nick Clegg, European users will be able to access features like Reels, Stories, and Search on Facebook and Instagram without seeing content that’s been ranked by Meta’s recommendation algorithms. “For example, on Facebook and Instagram, users will have the option to view Stories and Reels only from people they follow, ranked in chronological order, newest to oldest,” Clegg writes. “They will also be able to view Search results based only on the words they enter, rather than personalized specifically to them based on their previous activity and personal interests.” “Users will have the option to view Stories and Reels only from people they follow, ranked in chronological order” Meta is making the changes to comply

Image: The Verge Meta is finally launching a much more capable web app for Threads, the company announced on Tuesday. You’ll be able to post, interact with other posts, and look at your feed, spokesperson Christine Pai tells The Verge . It’s set to roll out over the next few days, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg says . So far, Threads on the web has essentially been a glorified way to look at somebody’s profile — you couldn’t even like or reshare a post even though the web app included the buttons to do so. (If you clicked them, Threads would show you a QR code to download the mobile app.) The new desktop web interface looks a lot like the one in the mobile app, though with some small differences; the navigation icons are on the top of the page, and to switch between the For You and Following feeds, you’ll click a button in the bottom-left corner. Image: Meta However, the web experience doesn’t let you do everything that you can in the mobile

Illustration: The Verge Meta will launch the web version of Threads , its competitor to X (formerly known as Twitter) early this week, reports The Wall Street Journal. A web version has been frustratingly missing since the short-form posting service began. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said the company is working on adding the feature along with better search (well, search at all, really — right now, you can only search for usernames on the platform) earlier this month, and that it would be ready in “the next few weeks.” However, WSJ writes, its sources say the feature’s “launch plans aren’t final and could change.” Mosseri posted on Threads last week that Meta had been testing “an early version internally for a week or two,” but that it “needs some work” before wide release. Threads launched as a very barebones Twitter clone only about a month and a half ago , quickly soaring past the 100 million user mark and filling with celebrities and brands , but it’

Lil Tay in 2018. | Image: Lil Tay / YouTube Younger generations expect news to come straight from creators. But when creators are wrong, the news ecosystem quickly breaks down. On Wednesday, August 9th, an announcement appeared on the Instagram account belonging to 16-year-old influencer Lil Tay , real name Tay Tian. The message said that Lil Tay, along with her brother, Jason, had suddenly and unexpectedly died. This was the first time anything had been posted to Lil Tay’s account in five years. While she first went viral in 2018 for her combative and brash personality, she faded back offline after just a few months. The statement was abrupt. But it appeared to come straight from the family, and it was posted directly on the account of the creator herself. Why wouldn’t it be true? The news exploded across social media, propelled by creators on TikTok sharing and reacting to the Instagram post. Many outlets also ran with the story, some reporting confirma

Illustration: The Verge Threads is adding reposts (aka retweets) to its reverse-chronological “Following” feed, Instagram head Adam Mosseri announced in a Threads post on Thursday . It’s a small but nice addition to the app that makes the Following feed a bit more useful, and while Mosseri said Meta added it “based on your feedback,” the Following feed does still have its flaws . That’s not the only repost-related update from Meta. It’s also rolling out a reposts tab on your profile so that you and others can more easily find the threads that you’ve reposted. I don’t appear to have either update yet on iOS, but I do have the reposts tab when I view my profile on the web . (I think I need to repost more.) Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge Threads’ repost tab when viewing my profile on the web. The new updates probably aren’t enough to bring over the many Threads users that haven’t returned to the platform , but CEO Mark Zuckerbe

Image: Instagram A new Instagram feature allows users to add music to their grid posts — and Olivia Rodrigo is the first person to do it. The feature was introduced today by Rodrigo, who used it to unveil her new song, “bad idea right?” Instagram users can attach a song of their choice to soundtrack a carousel post with multiple photos, similar to how tracks can be added to Stories or Reels. The feature appears to be in the process of rolling out to users. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Olivia Rodrigo (@oliviarodrigo) Sadly, The Verge did not get a preview of the song and post under embargo, so I can’t really tell you much about it. But if it’s anything like “good 4 u” off of her last album, I already like it. Instagram is also releasing a handful of new features besides this one. First, followers will have a new incentive to make Reels: when a fan uses the “add yours” sticker to make a video based on a p

Illustration: The Verge Threads, Meta’s Twitter competitor, is getting some new features “this week,” according to a post from CEO Mark Zuckerberg. The new features include the ability to share a Threads post to your Instagram DMs, a way to add custom alt text to photos and videos that you include in posts, and a new “mention button” that lets you “easily mention someone’s account in your Thread,” Zuckerberg says . (For some reason, this link only works for me on mobile.) To share a post via Instagram DMs, tap the paper airplane-like icon on a post. To add alt text, start a post, attach photos or videos using the paperclip icon, and then tap the “Alt” button that appears on the image. I don’t appear to have the mention button — maybe I’m missing it! — but you can mention another user while drafting a post by entering the @ symbol and then typing somebody’s username or picking from one of the suggested options. And I should note that my iPhone had recently upda

Photo by Grayson Blackmon / The Verge According to Meta , its Trusted Partner program “is a key part of our efforts to improve our policies, enforcement processes, and products, to help keep users safe on our platforms.” According to some trusted partners, though, Meta neglects its flagship initiative — leaving it significantly underresourced, understaffed, and allegedly prone to “operational failures” as a result. That’s one of the core accusations of a report that the media nonprofit Internews published on Wednesday . The Trusted Partner program consists of 465 global civil society and human rights groups. It aims to provide them with a designated channel to alert Facebook and Instagram of dangerous and harmful content such as death threats, hacked accounts, and incitement to violence. Meta promises to prioritize those reports and escalate them quickly. But Internews claims that some participating organizations experience the same treatment as regular use

Illustration: Nick Barclay / The Verge Meta could launch AI-powered “personas” in its services — which include Facebook and Instagram — as soon as next month, giving users a new way to search, get recommendations, and otherwise engage with its products, the Financial Times reports . Citing conversations with three company insiders, the FT notes that the chatbots could come with distinct personalities, including one that offers travel recommendations “in the style of a surfer” and another that speaks like Abraham Lincoln. The imminent launch could help Meta compete on two fronts. On the one hand, built-in chatbots could be a way to boost engagement with services like Facebook and Instagram in the face of competition from the likes of TikTok. On the other, the chatbots could serve as a display of Meta’s AI capabilities as it competes with Microsoft-backed OpenAI and Google’s Bard. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been open about his plans to build “AI personas” in

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge Meta is proposing to make some of its personalized, targeted ads an up-front opt-in choice for users in the European Union, reports The Wall Street Journal . If the EU accepts Meta’s proposal, the company says it would need three months or more to let users choose whether to allow the company to target ads based on what they do within its social media services. The company’s proposal aims to end its ongoing fight with the EU over its use of personal data for advertisements under European privacy laws, the Journal says. Right now, EU users of Meta’s platforms can opt out of this sort of targeting rather than choose to opt in. For those who opt out, the company still targets ads using some broader demographics data , such as users’ general location and their age range. Presumably, Meta’s new proposal still allows generalized targeting, but we’ll have to wait on the details to know for sure. Meta’s once inexorable revenue

Threads.net , as of August 2023. | Image by Meta; Screencap by Sean Hollister / The Verge If you go to Threads.net to access Meta’s popular Twitter clone, you’ll still find a spinning placeholder galaxy — but that should change in the next few weeks, according to a new tweet from CEO Mark Zuckerberg . “Search and web coming in the next few weeks,” he tweets, saying he’s “excited about the team’s pace of shipping.” Meta took a gamble on launching a barebones Twitter alternative at breakneck speed while Twitter continued to crumble , and it may have paid off — my colleague Alex Heath recently wrote that Threads hit 100 million signups faster than any consumer software product in history. But more than half of those users didn’t stick around, according to Reuters , and while that may be expected for any software product, much less a buzzy unfinished social media app (and Zuck has been outwardly happy about the retention!) it does seem like Meta is tryin

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge Instagram is trying to make it more difficult for people you don’t follow to spam you with unwanted DM requests. After testing the feature in June, Instagram now only lets users you don’t follow send a one-message invite before they can start chatting with you. That message can also only contain text, so that means you should no longer see any unsolicited photos, videos, or voice messages popping up in your message requests. Previously, Instagram let users send an unlimited number of message requests, which could get out of hand pretty quickly. Image: Instagram Now, users can only send you more than one message once you’ve accepted their request to connect. Message requests live in the Requests button located above your inbox in Instagram’s DM tab. Keep in mind that you’ll only receive requests if your privacy settings require users to send a request before they can message you. “We want people

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge Instagram appears to be working on new notices that would identify when AI has played a role in creating content on its platform. App researcher Alessandro Paluzzi, who frequently discovers new Instagram features before they’re officially announced or released, has posted a screenshot of a page in the Instagram app that reads “the creator or Meta said that this content was created or edited with AI.” The specific notice notes that in this case it’s an image that’s been “generated by Meta AI,” before giving a brief description of what generative AI is, and how to identify posts that use AI. #Instagram is working to label the contents created or modified by #AI in order to be identified more easily pic.twitter.com/bHvvYuDpQr — Alessandro Paluzzi (@alex193a) July 30, 2023 The discovery comes shortly after Meta, along with other major AI players including Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI, made commitments to the

Image: Nick Barclay / The Verge Meta has begun blocking all news content on Facebook and Instagram in Canada, a change it expects all users in the country to see within “the next few weeks.” That’s in response to the country’s Online News Act, which would require tech companies like Meta and Google to negotiate with and pay publishers for their news content. The blocks don’t just apply to news publishers with accounts on the two platforms but also to links shared by users. If a Canadian person is friends with someone who lives in Kansas and that Kansan shares a link on Facebook to, say, this Verge article, their northerly friend won’t be able to view it. On Twitter, which is currently rebranding as X, journalists for local Canadian publications IndigiNews and The Sarnia Journal spoke out against Meta’s change : Scary times. I’m no longer able to see the @IndigiNewsMedia page or stories on @instagram . #BillC18 isn’t even in full force yet, and Meta a