Media Perception Of Social Workers

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge Meta is launching a paid subscription that will remove ads from Facebook and Instagram. The service is available throughout the European Union and will be offered for around €9.99 per month on the web or €12.99 / month on iOS and Android to account for additional fees for those platforms. The subscription is meant to address concerns by the European Union about Meta’s ad targeting and data collection practices. By making users choose between paying for the service to remove ad targeting or using the service for free but consenting to its data collection practices, Meta believes it will have more clearly and definitively met privacy requirements set by a collection of European data laws, including the Digital Markets Act and GDPR. Free access (with ads) will remain available “We respect the spirit and purpose of these evolving European regulations, and are committed to complying with them,” Meta writes in a blog post ...

Illustration: Alex Castro / The Verge Instagram is testing a new feature that will let your friends add to your posts. When you’re about to post a carousel, Instagram will give you the option to let followers submit their own photos and videos that they want to include. The submissions won’t get added to your post by default, as you’ll have to approve each photo and video before they’re added. In a screenshot of the feature shared by Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri, collaborative carousels will have an “add to post” button in the bottom-left corner. Image: Instagram This feature seems like a nice way to invite friends to share memories of recent outings or events you attended together. There are probably a lot of other creative prompts people can come up with, too, like having your friends and followers submit their favorite pet pictures. Instagram already lets you collaborate with other creators on the platform to create shared feed posts...

Mark Zuckerberg. | Image: Meta The rumors of Threads’ early demise have been exaggerated. Meta’s competitor to Elon Musk’s X has hit “just under” 100 million monthly users since it was released in early July, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Wednesday during his company’s quarterly earnings call. “We’re three months in now, and I’m very happy with the trajectory,” he said, echoing the bullish comments he made about how Threads is doing during a recent interview with The Verge . “We’re now getting to the point where we’re going to be focusing on growing the community further. From what we can tell, people love it so far.” As the head of Instagram explained at the launch of Threads , Meta sees an opening to seriously compete with the platform formerly known as Twitter now that Musk has blown it up to create his X super app vision . “I’ve thought for a long time there should be a billion-person public conversations app that is a bit more positive” “I’ve thought...

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge Dozens of states sued Meta on Tuesday, accusing the company of putting profit ahead of the safety of its young users. The lawsuit, filed in a California federal court , argues that Meta unlawfully misled the public about the harms its products, like Facebook and Instagram, could impose on children and teens. By implementing a business model meant to maximize time on the platform, Meta contributed to a youth mental health crisis, the complaint says. “Over the past decade,” the lawsuit says, “Meta has profoundly altered the psychological and social realities of a generation of young Americans.” “Meta has profoundly altered the psychological and social realities of a generation of young Americans.” The complaint alleges that Meta knowingly rolled out features and platform incentives that promote harmful behaviors to young users, including allowing “Likes” on posts and failing to remove content related to disordered eati...

A screenshot of the Meta Verified toggle. | Image: Meta Instagram is testing a toggle that lets you only see posts from Meta Verified users, according to Instagram head Adam Mosseri on Monday. “We’re exploring this as a new control for people and a way for businesses and creators to get discovered,” Mosseri wrote on his broadcast channel. The new Meta Verified toggle will appear as an option under “Following” and “Favorites” when you tap the Instagram logo at the top of the app. The prominence of the toggle could make paying for Meta Verified, which costs $11.99 on the web or $14.99 in an app, a more attractive proposition as it gives people a new way to try and appear more prominently in an Instagram feed. That said, Mosseri’s post didn’t say how big the test is or who might have access to it, though he did encourage people to “let us know if you’d be interested in using this.” Earlier this year, Meta introduced its Meta Verified program for Instagram and F...

Illustration by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge The war in Israel presents content moderation challenges for the most popular social media sites. Following the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel, social media companies are facing increased pressure to crack down on violent content, hate speech, and disinformation. Some social platforms are already sharing details of their response: Meta is tightening security measures amidst an increase in content violating its rules , while TikTok has also committed to stepping up its moderation in the wake of the attacks. Despite this, both Meta and TikTok are facing scrutiny from the European Commission over whether their response complies with the Digital Services Act , a set of rules that hold large social media companies accountable for preventing illegal content from being posted to their platforms. The European Commission is looking into the way X (formerly Twitter) is handling the Israel-Hamas war as well and a...

Illustration: The Verge Meta is starting to roll out an edit feature and “Voice Threads” for its Threads platform, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced on Thursday . They’re two major new features for Meta’s burgeoning X-like social network — and unlike on X (formerly Twitter), you won’t need to pay a subscription fee to be able to edit your posts for five minutes after they’re published. Posts that are edited will have a little icon next to the timestamp showing that they’ve been revised. You aren’t be able to see an edit history — that’s one advantage X still has over Threads — and Meta spokesperson currently doesn’t have plans to add one, Christine Pai tells The Verge. Post by Richard Lawler / The Verge, screenshot by Jay Peters / The Verge See that icon next to the timestamp? That’s how you know a Threads post has been edited. Still, I’ll give Meta some credit for taking months to launch an edit button instead of years; Twitter adde...