The world of social media is pretty fast moving and news travels fast. We have rounded up some of the biggest stories of the past seven days into one handy resource…
Twitter begins hiding entire profiles that may contain sensitive content
A number of Twitter accounts are reporting that the social network has begun hiding accounts behind a sensitive content warning, sources suggest. The message reads “Caution: This profile may include potentially sensitive images or language. Do you still want to view it?”.
The feature appears to be next in a long line of new safety features intended on tackling abusive behaviour. However, many of the users affected are confused about why their profiles were ever flagged in the first place. Another cause for confusion is that the showing of these messages is currently inconsistent, with some users being able to access affected profiles without encountering it.
Some are questioning whether the decision to flag entire profiles is really a good idea. The reason for this is simple – it is hard enough to train AI to search for and flag specific posts for sensitive content, let alone analyse an entire profile and decide how it appears as a whole.
Facebook tests reactions on messages
Facebook has begun to allow users to respond to their friends’ messages in the same way that they do with news feed posts. Facebook Messenger is showing a reactions option for messages sent in chat. Users have the option to reply with thumbs-up, thumbs-down, heart-eyes, lol, wow, sad or angry emojis.
Facebook have also included a reaction counter, which can be tapped to see a list of who has reacted and with what emoji. What sets reactions on this platform apart from traditional news feed is the inclusion of the commonly requested dislike emoji.
Facebook announces 360 VR app
Facebook has announced its first app dedicated to virtual reality. Designed for use with Samsung Gear VR, Facebook 360 uses 360-degree virtual reality media on Facebook. The app can be downloaded via Oculus app on any Gear VR-compatibale Samsung device.
In a statement released by Facebook, product director Brent Ayrey and software engineer Christopher Wong said this:
“With more than 25 million 360 photos and more than 1 million 360 videos posted on Facebook to date, there’s plenty of great content to discover in Facebook 360. The app is a one-stop shop for catching up on what you may have missed from your friends and others you follow, diving into the 360 photos and videos you’ve saved, and finding something new to enjoy
LinkedIn restores some reportedly lost member search functionality
Following a petition by a recruitment manager calling for the restoration of certain services, a spokesperson for LinkedIn has confirmed that the professional network will be restoring a number of advanced free search features. This includes text search for a number of things and saved searches, but still not tags and notes in LinkedIn’s free version. The full list can be seen here on Recruiter.co.uk.
And finally, Facebook’s obligatory weekly Snapchat feature theft
Facebook has launched Messenger Day, a repackaged version of Instagram Stories, itself a complete copy of Snapchat stories. It appears above your chats on Messenger as thumbnail tiles depicting the days of friends in reverse chronological order.
Facebook are now pinching features from Snapchat left right and centred. However, Messenger Day is apparently about looking-forward to today whereas Stories was always about looking-back at today. Facebook believe that while the rival network may have invented Stories, it is actually a content medium bigger than any one company.
