It’s been a rough week for Facebook, and it seems that Friday afternoon had no mercy for the tech giant. After one of their longest outages in company history on Monday, Facebook went down again on Friday afternoon. The outage affected all Facebook properties, including WhatsApp, Messenger and Instagram. ut oh pic.twitter.com/NqA3xpWKsN — Matt Navarra […]
Twitch streamers respond after huge leak of creator payout data
Twitch confirmed yesterday that a massive cache of internal data, including creator payouts, was published online after a breach. The streaming platform said in a blog post that the leak was caused by an error in a Twitch server configuration change, which was then accessed by a malicious third party. For many streamers, this leak […]
Blue Fever, an anonymous social network, acquires Gen Z-founded Trill
With Senate hearings and leaked documents galore, teen mental health on social media is a hot topic right now. But Gen Z founders Georgia Messinger and Ari Sokolov have been trying to create healthier online spaces since they were in high school, when they started the anonymous virtual support app Trill. “People ask us sometimes, […]
Sora is the final ‘Super Smash Bros. Ultimate’ fighter
At the Nintendo Direct livestream a few weeks back, fans speculated that they might learn who the last remaining character in the extensive “Super Smash Bros. Ultimate” lineup would be. Instead, we found out that Chris Pratt will be playing Mario in a feature film. But today, in Nintendo’s final “Mr. Sakurai Presents” livestream, game […]
Facebook, Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp are all down
Global users are experiencing outages on Facebook, including all social networks the company owns, which include Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp. When navigating to these websites, a server error will appear — Instagram shows a “5xx server error,” which indicates that this is an issue with Facebook’s servers. Users are also unable to send messages or […]
Twitter for Professionals will begin to roll out this week for businesses and creators
Twitter really can’t go a day without releasing new products. But if you’re running an account for a business or a public figure, its latest addition might capture your interest. Soon, businesses and creators will be able to opt into “professional accounts,” giving them additional tools to distinguish their profile, quickly promote content through ads […]
Clubhouse adds clips, replays for asynchronous listening, better search, and spatial audio for Android
Clubhouse announced today that it is unveiling four new features: Clips, Replay, Universal Search, and spatial audio for Android (which already exists on iOS). All of these features will launch today, except for Replay, which will roll out in October. These additions will help expand Clubhouse’s reach by making content available even after a live […]
Facebook grilled in Senate hearing over teen mental health
Last night, Facebook published two annotated slide decks in an attempt to contextualize the documents that the Wall Street Journal published this month, which reported evidence that the company is aware of its negative impact on teen mental health. These documents were released in anticipation of today’s Senate hearing on the mental health harms of […]
Twitch adds phone-verified chat, expands email authentication settings as users face ‘hate raids’
Twitch announced today that it will add new channel-level security features to help curb harassment on the platform. Now, creators and moderators can enable verified chat, requiring chatters to validate their phone and/or email before they can send messages. These settings can be toggled to enable verified chat for all accounts, first-time chatters, those under […]
YouTube will now ban content with vaccine misinformation
YouTube expanded its medical misinformation policies today to include new guidelines that ban vaccine misinformation. The Google-owned video platform had previously banned over 1 million videos spreading dangerous COVID-19 misinformation. Now, YouTube says it will also remove content that spreads misinformation about vaccine safety, the efficacy of vaccines and ingredients in vaccines. The platform previously […]