Evelyn Gosnell Contributor Evelyn Gosnell is a managing director at Irrational Labs, a behavioral research and design consultancy. Richard Mathera Contributor Richard Mathera is a managing director at Irrational Labs, a behavioral research and design consultancy. The news is awash with stories of platforms clamping down on misinformation and the angst involved in banning prominent […]
Facebook tries to get less political, Oracle’s TikTok acquisition may not be happening and Twitter says Donald Trump is banned forever. This is your Daily Crunch for February 10, 2021. The big story: Facebook tests a News Feed with less politics Facebook announced today that it’s testing changes to the News Feed that would downrank […]
Shopify announced this morning it’s partnered with Facebook to expand its payment option, Shop Pay, to all Shopify merchants selling across both Facebook and Instagram. This is the first time Shop Pay will be made available outside of Shopify’s own platform, and represents a significant expansion for the e-commerce platform’s payments technology. The company tells […]
Updated at 1.46AM PT February 6: Telenor says Myanmar Ministry of Transport and Communications (MoTC) has directed all mobile operators to temporarily shut down the data network in Myanmar. Voice and SMS services remain open. “In the directive, the MoTC cites legal basis in Myanmar’s Telecommunication Law, and references circulation of fake news, stability of […]
Myanmar’s new military government has ordered local telecom firms to temporarily block Facebook until February 7 midnight, days after the military seized power in the Southeast Asian nation in a military coup. Several users on Myanmar subreddit reported moments ago that Facebook was already inaccessible on their phones, suggesting that internet service providers had already […]
The newly resurrected Gowalla wants to realize its mobile dreams from the early-aughts in an augmented reality world, and they’ve raised some new funding to make it happen. The AR startup tells TechCrunch that it has raised $4 million in seed funding co-led by Google’s venture arm GV and Spark Capital. Other investors include Niantic, […]
Google’s parent firm, Alphabet, is done exploring the idea of using a fleet of balloons to beam high-speed internet in remote parts of the world. The firm said on Thursday evening that it was winding down Loon, a nine-year-old project and a two-and-a-half-year-old spin-off firm, after failing to find a sustainable business model and partners […]
India has asked WhatsApp to withdraw the planned change to its privacy policy, posing a new headache to the Facebook-owned service that identifies the South Asian nation as its biggest market by users. In an email to WhatsApp head Will Cathcart, the nation’s IT ministry said the upcoming update to the app’s data-sharing policy has […]
Every picture posted to Facebook and Instagram gets a caption generated by an image analysis AI, and that AI just got a lot smarter. The improved system should be a treat for visually impaired users, and may help you find your photos faster in the future. Alt text is a field in an image’s metadata […]
Facebook has hired Roy Austin to become its first-ever VP of Civil Rights and Deputy General Counsel to create a new civil rights organization within the company, Facebook announced today. Austin is set to start on January 19 and will be based in Washington, DC. Austin most recently served as a civil rights lawyer at […]