Snapchat and Instagram pull Giphy stickers over racist GIF
When Snapchat and Instagram introduced Giphy stickers for Stories, they expected to offer PG-rated GIFs that even their young patrons can use. Unfortunately, things don't always go as planned: both platforms have disabled the feature after users discovered an extremely racist GIF that says "N—- Crime … Read More
What Women’s Day Was Supposed to Be About, and What It Became
How did you celebrate Women's Day? Did you start the day off with a flurry of empowering WhatsApp forwards? … A group of women decided to copy-edit patronising (and perennially annoying) WhatsApp forwards to reflect what Women's Day greetings really ought to say. What does 'Woman' stand for? Read More
Jameis Winston takes to Twitter to recruit Richard Sherman to the Buccaneers
Let me just say that if Sherman is basing his free agency decision on who recruited the best through Twitter, then he's definitely going to sign with the Buccaneers. I mean, Winston's tweet has so many layers that we should probably unpack them all, so let's do it. First, the …
Troy police propose deal on Twitter: ‘If we get 10000 followers by April, we want a police cat’
If the Troy Police Department gets 10,000 Twitter followers by April, the department wants a police cat. The department proposed the deal Tuesday on its account, which currently has just over 7,600 followers. "Trying to broker this deal now: If we get 10,000 followers by April, we want a police …
Twitter moves to boot meme stealers and accounts that force tweets to go viral
Friday went poorly for a select group of Twitter users that have earned a reputation for their expertise at gaming the system. The social media company moved to suspend a number of popular accounts with millions of followers between them, Buzzfeed reports. Their offense? Stealing people's tweets … Read More
How much do Facebook and Google really know about me?
There are more than 2 billion active Facebook users globally and more than 15 million active users in Australia. Google registers 3.5 billion daily searches. These two gigantic conglomerates have access to mountains of my data. Snippets of information which expose my age, my gender, whether I went … Read More
Facebook and Warner Music Group Announce Licensing Deal
Warner Music Group and Facebook have finalized on a partnership that includes licensing agreements covering the music company's recorded music and music publishing catalogs for use in videos and messages. The new deal allows fans to create, upload and share videos with licensed music from … Read More
Dan Rather on Facebook spreading fake news: “They lost their humility”
When Dan Rather began posting topical essays to his Facebook page years ago, he didn't think much of it. Younger members on his staff prodded him to do it, but he was a little skeptical of social media. To his surprise, Rather started to build a devoted and sizable following, …
Government should impose screen time limits for children on social media, minister suggests
The Government could impose limits on the amount of time children spent on social media, the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport has suggested. Matt Hancock said the negative impact on young people from too much screen time was a “genuine concern”. He suggested an … Read More
Lidl looters identified through social media posts with Gardai expected to arrest ‘at least 20 more’
A report from The Journal claims that gardai investigating the incident at the Dublin supermarket have identified several more people they wish to speak to after officers examined social media, online messages and Lidl's CCTV system. A number of videos circulated on Whatsapp and Snapchat last … Read More