Media Perception Of Social Workers

Illustration: Nick Barclay / The Verge Investigations into “child influencer” accounts on Facebook and Instagram have found that Meta is knowingly allowing parents who sexually exploit their children for financial gain on the platform — and in some cases, using Meta’s paid subscription tools to do so. According to separate reports published by The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal on Thursday, Facebook and Instagram have become a potentially lucrative endeavor for parents who run social media accounts for children — mostly girls — who aren’t old enough to meet the platforms’ minimum 13-year-old age requirements. Several of the “parent-managed minor accounts” investigated sold materials to their large audiences of adult men, including photos of their children in revealing attire, exclusive chat sessions, and their children’s used leotards and cheer outfits. Meta staffers found that some parents were knowingly catering content of their children to p...

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge Meta said Thursday that it will start charging a 30 percent fee when advertisers pay to boost the visibility of their posts in Facebook’s and Instagram’s iOS apps. The change, which goes into effect later this month, stems from a 2022 App Store update where Apple extended its typical 30 percent cut of digital purchases to boosted posts, which are essentially ads. The change particularly targeted Meta and other social apps that let people pay in app to increase the reach of their content. Meta notes in a statement shared with The Verge that small business owners and influencers who want to purchase a boost on iOS will now be billed through Apple, “which retains a 30% service charge on the total ad payment, before any applicable taxes.” Meta says people can still purchase boosts from Instagram’s and Facebook’s websites on desktop or mobile to get around the Apple fee that is being passed on to iOS users. “We are requi...

The update will allow users to see less political content in their recommended feeds. | Illustration: The Verge It’ll soon be easier to avoid seeing political content across Instagram and Threads unless users explicitly choose to have it recommended to them. In a blog post published on Friday , Meta announced that it’s expanding an existing Reels policy that limits political content from people you’re not following (including posts about social issues) from appearing in recommended feeds to more broadly cover the company’s Threads and Instagram platforms. “Our goal is to preserve the ability for people to choose to interact with political content, while respecting each person’s appetite for it,“ said Instagram head Adam Mosseri, announcing on Threads that the changes will be applied over the next few weeks. Facebook is also expected to roll out these new controls at a later, undisclosed date. Users who still want to have content “likely to mention governme...