1, Reducing Political Content in News Feed
As people don’t want much political content to take over their News Feed, Facebook has temporarily reduced the distribution of political content in News Feed for a small percentage of people in Canada, Brazil and Indonesia and the US. COVID-19 information from authoritative health organizations like the CDC and WHO, as well as national and regional health agencies, content from official government agencies and services from affected countries, will be exempt from these tests. To study it’s impact they have also decided to survey people on this. Their aim is to preserve the ability for people to find and interact with political content on Facebook, while respecting each person’s appetite for it at the top of the News Feed.
2. Safer Internet Day 2021
Safer Internet Day has now been celebrated globally despite being introduced in Japan and Twitter aims for safety too. To celebrate the global conversation around Internet safety, Twitter has launched a special emoji that is activated by using the hashtags #SaferInternetDay and #SID2021. The emoji helps to unify and strengthen the conversation on Twitter, around Safer Internet Day. The theme for Safer Internet Day 2021 is ‘Together for a better Internet’. Twitter has also mentioned that safety of Twitter and the health of the public conversation is one of their highest priorities, this year. Throughout 2021, they have decided to continue to support our safety partners, and work to ensure the public conversation on Twitter stays healthy, open and safe.
3. Work to tackle abuse on Instagram
As instagram is a place for people to connect with the people and things they love, they have decided to eliminate those accounts which abuse others, mostly through direct messages. Instagram has made clear their stance on hate speech and they have announced that they will take tougher action when they become aware of people breaking rules in DMs. People who send such DMs would be restricted to send any more messages for a set period of time. They have also mentioned that they are committed to cooperation with UK law enforcement authorities on hate speech and will respond to valid legal requests for information in these cases. Instagram has asked the people to use the tools such as comment filters and switching off DM requests to control such experiences.
4. Introducing “Interests,” the new iOS Widget that helps you discover fresh content right from your home screen
Pinterest has introduced a new widget for their IOS users called “Interests”, where Pinners can choose their top interests and have fresh content served to them daily, right on their home screen. They have also mentioned the range of topics available under this feature and have also mentioned the methods to avail this new option in your IOS device.
5. Dark mode now on Quora for desktop and mobile web
Quora has introduced the hugely requested feature, the dark mode on both desktop and mobile web. They have provided the details to enable the dark mode on the web and on phone, on their official site.
6. Celebrating Lunar New Year on Instagram
As the lunar new year is celebrated differently across the world, instagram has now brought new features to make the online celebrations festive. At the top of the sticker tray in Stories, there will be an exclusive Sticker pack in relation with the event. The design embraces the spirit of the Year of the Ox.
When a story is posted with the Lunar New Year stickers, it will be added to a collective shared story which will be visible at the top of the Stories tray.
A new Lunar New Year AR effect, titled “Year of the Ox” is also available now in the effects gallery.
7. Twitter expanding work to identify government affiliated accounts.
Twitter has decided to add labels to the verified accounts of key government officials, including foreign ministers, institutional entities, ambassadors, official spokespeople, and key diplomatic leaders. They’re updating the label text to add more specificity to the government account labels by differentiating between individuals and institutions, and expanding labels to the personal accounts of heads of state to give people on Twitter additional context. As the next phase of this project, they will work to apply additional labels on state-affiliated media accounts, to ensure we capture all relevant accounts.
8. New York fashion week on Pinterest
From February 14th, Pinners will have easy access to videos from the runway, behind the scenes photos from Pinterest some of the creators, including interviews, collection reviews and street style ideas just by clicking on the Today Tab located at the top of the Pinterest home feed. Pinners will be able to have an instant peek at everything happening at Fashion Week without even searching for it.
