This fall saw ever-rising estimates of the number of people reached by Russian-backed troll accounts — just shy of 150 million at last count . Now the social network has at last released the tool it promised last month allowing users to see if they liked or followed one of the many pages or pieces […]
Facebook today announced a first-of-its-kind licensing deal with Universal Music Group that will allow users across its properties – including Facebook, Instagram and Oculus – to use Universal Music in the videos they upload and share. The deal will also allow Facebook to introduce new “music-based products” across platforms, also including Messenger, the companies said. […]
Facebook announced two changes today that it hopes will make it easier to staunch the spread of fake news. The first change is to the News Feed, where users will no longer see “Disputed Flags,” or red badges displayed under articles flagged by Facebook’s third-party fact-checkers. Instead, they will see Related Articles, or links to […]
As Facebook looks to keep its VR dream moving, the company is opening its nascent social VR platform to run on headsets that the company doesn’t build. Today, a VR exec at the company announced that Facebook Spaces would be gaining support to run on the competing HTC Vive headset. The move opens up the […]
Facebook continues to see increased requests for user data from governments worldwide, according to its latest transparency report. The social network first introduced the reports, which give raw figures on data requests and data granted, in 2013 to help increase visibility on government behavior. Facebook is limited on what information it can share, but sheer […]
Khosla-backed one drop blood test startup Genalyte has hired former Facebook exec Kevin Lo as president of the company. Lo comes to Genalyte after leading “connectivity efforts” at Facebook “for the four billion people not online, and the 1.5B under-served who use the Internet at ‘2G’ speeds,” according to his LinkedIn profile. Before that, Lo worked […]
Everyone’s least favorite ads are coming to Facebook, but six-second pre-rolls will only appear on original Watch tab videos you purposefully view and not in the News Feed. Facebook is embracing pre-rolls after years of shunning them as it tries to make payouts to video creators sustainable. Facebook’s head of video Fidji Simo tells TechCrunch […]
Facebook today is launching a new feature designed to give users more control over what content they see in their News Feed: a “Snooze” button. The option, which will become available via the top-right dropdown menu on a post, will mute content from a person, Page or group for 30 days. The new feature can […]
“Social media” is a clumsy term that entangles enriching social interaction with mindless media consumption. It’s a double-edged sword whose sides aren’t properly distinguished. Taken as a whole, we can’t decide if it “brings the world closer together” like Facebook’s new mission statement says, or leaves us depressed and isolated. It does both, but our […]
WhatsApp has always said that it has no plans to put ads into its own app, but this is not stopping Facebook, which now owns WhatsApp, from figuring out other ways of monetizing the hugely popular messaging service, which has around 1 billion daily users. Today, Facebook is launching a new ad unit that will […]