Polly blew up with teens last month by tacking multiple-choice polling onto Snapchat. Instagram is following suit with its own polling feature within Stories. Now just like adding a location sticker, you can add a two-answer poll on top of you Stories that friends can answer with a tap. Instagram Stories lets you write your own question and defaults the answers to Yes and No, though you can… Read More Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/social/~3/b6VYMvYQOpo/
Shopify rolling out Instagram shopping feature to thousands of merchants
Online commerce giant Shopify is ready for its Instagram moment: The one-stop shop platform provider is opening up its Instagram integration to thousands of its merchants leading up to the holiday season. The platform expansion adds yet another sales channel to the considerable quiver Shopify providers sellers, which includes Facebook, Messenger, Buzzfeed and others, too.
Instagram’s… Read More Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/social/~3/kG9YnNbtGZ0/
Challenge to data transfer tool used by Facebook will go to Europe’s top court
Facebook has bought itself a little more time over a major legal challenge in Europe after the Irish High Court decided not to strike down a b2b mechanism it uses to transfer user data to the U.S. for processing. Read More Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/social/~3/6OCCG7Ek-Us/
Snapchat to launch augmented reality art platform tomorrow
Snapchat plans to launch a new augmented reality art platform featuring pop artist Jeff Koons and others. It will allow art to be pinned to specific locations in augmented reality so users can see it when they hold up their phones in the right spot. Snapchat will solicit sign-ups from artists who want their art added to the platform. Read More Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/social/~3/2b5bKnat84k/
The sorrow of Biz Stone
A friend of mine wakes up every morning and reports every single instance of crass, homophobic, and racist behavior she sees on Twitter. She sees it as her duty, an ordering of things in an unordered stream. Her efforts are quixotic at best because when she wakes up and rubs the sleep out of her eyes the firehose still rages. Why does she have to do this? Because of Twitter’s success and… Read More Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/social/~3/s7SGHLfrmQQ/
Bumble’s business networking feature launches today
About a year ago we reported that Bumble would soon launch BumbleBizz – a swipe-based networking tool that is designed to help people make professional connections. And now the feature is finally rolling out today to users in the US, UK, Germany, France and Canada. Essentially BumbleBizz will use the same types of parameters that regular Bumble does – your location, network,… Read More Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/social/~3/utvaSJcQgnE/
Search and social media was filled with clickbait and propaganda in the wake of Vegas shooting
Letting an algorithm cull links from the sewer of internet commentary, and then distributing that to millions of people, is a losing game. It’s another sign of how Facebook and the rest continue to abdicate responsibility. Read More Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/social/~3/6yRJnXLoWms/
Facebook brings data plan-saving Messenger Lite to U.S. Androids
Facebook’s data-conserving version of Messenger is no longer just for developing nations with slow networks: the Messenger Lite Android app is expanding to the U.S., Canada, the U.K. and Ireland after previously being available in more than 100 mostly-developing countries. Read More Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/social/~3/TTys-6bwGLo/
Germany’s social media hate speech law is now in effect
A new law has come into force in Germany aimed at regulating social media platforms to ensure they remove hate speech within set periods of receiving complaints — within 24 hours in straightforward cases or within seven days where evaluation of content is more difficult. Read More Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/social/~3/PRnEWllyaSg/
Facebook will hire 1,000 and make ads visible to fight election interference
Facebook today handed over to congressional investigators 3,000 ads that were bought by a Russian company to influence U.S. politics. “Many appear to exploit racial and social divisions and exploit ugly stereotypes. We find this interference deeply offensive,” a Facebook spokesperson wrote this morning. Read More Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/social/~3/JgEUS3_yyQI/
Hey! VINA, the female-focused friendship app, launches on Android
Hey! VINA, the female-focused friend finding app, has today announced the launch of an Android app. The VINA app is almost identical to Tinder, except the end-result is to find women a new friend instead of a hot date. That said, VINA only shows one photo of the user, and instead of relying fully on swipes, it uses a matching algorithm that takes into account mutual friends, location,… Read More Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/social/~3/CwQdGzBHyXo/
Facebook will share Russian-bought election interference ads with congress tomorrow
Facebook will release over 3000 ads bought by a Russian entity to interfere in U.S. politics and the 2016 presidential election with congressional investigators tomorrow morning at 8am Pacific, a Facebook spokesperson confirmed to TechCrunch. Facebook’s disclosure to the House and Senate Intelligence Committees and the Senate Judiciary Committee will include information on the… Read More Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/social/~3/KKpu65S6esg/
Zuckerberg asks forgiveness, but Facebook needs change
“For the ways my work was used to divide people rather than bring us together, I ask forgiveness and I will work to do better” Mark Zuckerberg posted to Facebook tonight on Yom Kippur, the Jewish day of atonement. Yet first Facebook must redeem itself by recognizing how its dewy-eyed trust in the world can be abused. Zuckerberg has recently faced stern criticism from liberals… Read More Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/social/~3/uDFUnG0Xod0/
Thinking about the social cost of technology
All too often the fact that human lives are increasingly enmeshed with and dependent on ever more complex, and ever more inscrutable, technologies is considered a good thing. Negatives don’t generally get dwelled on. And for the most part people are expected to move along, or be moved along by the tech. Read More Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/social/~3/DITEFcs1LHU/
Researcher Emilio Ferrara talks about the rise of fake news and botnets
Emilio Ferrara has been thinking about botnets for over a decade. As the first social networks climbed out of the mire, he noticed that they were very easy to game. Now, it seems, all of those early tools have finally been weaponized.
I spoke to Ferrara about his research work as well as his fascinating study that found that Twitter bots can be used for good. In this episode of Technopia we… Read More Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/social/~3/2kWpbL6Mu3A/
Facebook can unlock your account with facial recognition
Facebook has its own version of Apple’s Face ID. If you get locked out of your Facebook account, the company is testing a way to regain access by using your face to verify your identity. That could be especially useful if you’re somewhere that you can’t receive two-factor authentication SMS, like on a plane or while traveling abroad, or if you lose access to your email… Read More Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/social/~3/_5UWyeyUawI/
After a 4% pop, Rovio closes at a lackluster €11.50, level with its IPO price
Rovio, maker of the Angry Birds gaming franchise, saw a small pop of 4.3 percent in its first day of trading as a public company, but like the very birds that get catapulted in Rovio’s original blockbuster game, the rise was not to last.
After pricing its IPO at €11.50 per share — the top of its range — to raise €30 million, today the stock opened on the Nasdaq Nordic… Read More Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/social/~3/RwryezkFYX4/
Facebook partners with ZipRecruiter and more aggregators as it ramps up in jobs
Facebook has made no secret of its wish to do more in the online recruitment market — encroaching on territory today dominated by LinkedIn, the leader in tapping social networking graphs to boost job-hunting. Today, Facebook is taking the next step in that process. Facebook will now integrate with ZipRecruiter — an aggregator that allows those looking to fill jobs to post ads to… Read More Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/social/~3/cukwqnIHNSU/
Twitter is briefing Congress today in election probe
Congressional investigations into Russia’s role in the 2016 U.S. presidential election are looking at the spread of misinformation on a number of online services — not just Facebook. In fact, Twitter is meeting with Congressional staffers today. Recode’s Tony Romm says Twitter’s Vice President of Policy Colin Corwell is currently in a closed-door meeting with the… Read More Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/social/~3/Vyz-F9UHypc/
Tech giants pressured to auto-flag “illegal” content in Europe
Social media giants have again been put on notice that they need to do more to speed up removals of hate speech and other illegal content from their platforms in the European Union. The bloc’s executive body, the European Commission today announced a set of “guidelines and principles” aimed at pushing tech platforms to be more pro-active about takedowns of content deemed… Read More Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/techcrunch/social/~3/sZJ_pIiIAXQ/ Source: https://techcrunch.com/
