Media Perception Of Social Workers

Image: Meta New generative AI tools announced Wednesday at Meta’s Connect event will allow users to edit images and create stickers using text prompts. AI image editing will be available on Instagram, and AI-generated chat stickers will roll out on Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp, and Messenger. AI-powered photo editing on Instagram includes two new features: restyle and backdrop. With restyle, users input a text prompt — Meta’s examples include “watercolor” or “magazine collage” — and the tool updates the existing image based on those directions. The backdrop feature also utilizes a text prompt by the user to add new AI-generated backgrounds to images (“surround me with puppies,” for example). For both editing features, Meta says it will identify when images are created using AI tools so audiences can discern whether what they’re seeing is synthetic or human-generated. The company says it’s experimenting with other labeling features, including visible and invi

Image: The Verge Threads, Instagram’s X (formerly Twitter) competitor, is struggling to keep users around following its blockbuster launch, according to data from Insider Intelligence. The data, which was first reported on by CNBC , suggests that Threads will have far fewer monthly active users than Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok by the end of this year, but it may still have a chance to close the gap with X. Insider Intelligence indicates that Threads will have 23.7 million active monthly users in the US by the end of 2023. That’s far fewer than what’s expected for Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, which Insider Intelligence says could have 177.9 million, 135.2 million, and 102.3 million respective US active monthly users by the end of 2023. Surprisingly, Elon Musk’s X is forecast to have 56.1 million active monthly users in the US by the end of 2023, but Insider Intelligence warns that this number won’t stay high for long. The agency predicts that X’s month

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge Meta is preparing to announce a generative AI chatbot, called “Gen AI Personas” internally, aimed at younger users, according to The Wall Street Journal . Reportedly set to launch during the company’s Meta Connect event that starts Wednesday, they would come in multiple “personas” geared towards engaging young users with more colorful behavior, following ChatGPT’s rise over the last year as one of the fastest-growing apps ever. Similar, but more generally targeted, Meta chatbot personas have already been reportedly tested on Instagram . According to internal chats the Journal viewed, the company has tested a “sassy robot” persona inspired by Bender from Futurama and an overly curious “Alvin the Alien” that one employee worried could imply the bot was made to gather personal information. A particularly problematic chatbot reportedly told a Meta employee, “When you’re with a girl, it’s all about the experience. And if s

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge Businesses on Meta platforms will soon be able to purchase a blue check to get exclusive features and support. The expansion was announced by CEO Mark Zuckerberg at an event today. Earlier this year, the company announced Meta Verified for creators, a $12 per month subscription that gives creators a blue check and access to features like priority customer support and impersonation protection. Businesses can buy verification on Facebook or Instagram for $22 a month or $35 for both — an increase over creator pricing that ranges from $12 to $15. Testing on Facebook and Instagram will begin in the coming weeks, with WhatsApp to follow. Paying businesses will get similar perks as creators, including account security features and troubleshooting. Verified businesses will also get increased visibility in search on Facebook and Instagram. Businesses on WhatsApp will be able to create a landing page that’s discoverable through

Twitter is called X now, and the logo still looks weird to anyone who was used to the blue bird. | Illustration: The Verge The platform formerly known as Twitter still takes a surprisingly long time to load a few bytes of data — at least, if that data leads to a platform that Elon Musk might consider a competitor. An analysis by The Markup has found that X makes users wait about two and a half seconds to access links to Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, and Substack. If you click a link on X, you get redirected via X’s link shortener, t.co. Most sites load within 30 to 40 milliseconds. Meta’s platforms, Bluesky, and Substack take more than 60 times longer. The Markup has built a tool that lets you check the load times to any domain yourself. It isn’t the first time X has throttled competitors. In August, an analysis by The Washington Post revealed that X put a delay in place both for other social media sites and news organizations that Musk had publ

Illustration: The Verge I was thrilled when Threads finally launched on the web in August , but I quickly found that it was missing one important feature: you couldn’t quote posts, only repost them. (In X / Twitter lingo, that translates to quote tweet and retweet.) But that’s now changing, as Instagram Adam Mosseri said Thursday that quote posts on the web were rolled out this week . To quote a post, just click the two arrows icon and then click the “quote” option. Screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge That quote button. Right there. Mosseri also said that Threads users on mobile can follow a thread and get notifications on it. This feature apparently hasn’t rolled out for me on iOS — I can’t find it — but I expect I’ll get it soon enough. These may seem like incremental features, but even small features help making Threads feel like it can be a proper alternative to X (formerly Twitter). That said, X still feels much more live t

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge Meta has been snapping up AI training chips and building out data centers in order to create a more powerful new chatbot it hopes will be as sophisticated as OpenAI’s GPT-4, according to The Wall Street Journal . The company reportedly plans to begin training the new large language model early in 2024, with CEO Mark Zuckerberg evidently pushing for it to once again be free for companies to create AI tools with. The Journal writes that Meta has been buying more Nvidia H100 AI-training chips and is beefing up its infrastructure so that, this time around, it won’t need to rely on Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform to train the new chatbot. The company reportedly assembled a group earlier this year to build the model, with the goal of speeding up the creation of AI tools that can emulate human expressions. That goal feels like a natural extension of rumored generative AI features Meta has already been working on. A June l