Twitter Updates Its Verification Policies
Twitter plans to relaunch its verification process in early 2021 after years of criticism over its previous verification policies. The company is laying out its core account types that are served by verification. They also plan on removing verification badges if a notable account is inactive or incomplete. Twitter knows how important it is for its users to trust who they're engaging with online. So they are leaning on the community to better improve their 2021 verification updates.
Snapchat Unveils Its New TikTok-like Feature
Another day and another social platform creating a TikTok-like feature. Shocker! For context, this isn’t the first feature Snapchat has released to compete with TikTok. Just last month, Snapchat released its music-powered feature that allows users to add songs to their Stories.
Their latest feature, Spotlight, a TikTok-like feed showcasing creators’ videos and Snaps using the new music-powered feature. Spotlight will even use an algorithm similar to TikTok’s to help rank a user’s videos for a more personalized viewing experience. The major difference between TikTok’s ‘For You Page’ and Snapchat’s Spotlight is that Spotlight will display videos from private and public accounts.
Facebook Experiments Prioritizing “High Quality” News Sources on Users’ Timelines
Since the 2020 election outcome, many right-wing news sources are sharing false and misleading information on the timeline. This most recent spread of election misinformation caused many Facebook employees to come up with an emergency proposal that changes Facebook’s news feed algorithm. The new algorithm would emphasize “new ecosystem quality” or N.E.Q., based on the quality of news sources journalism.
Zuckerberg has agreed to increase the weight N.E.Q. plays in the news feed algorithm to help prioritize reliable news source visibility. This change is part of Facebook’s “break the glass” plans they spent developing for the election aftermath. This change promotes news sources like CNN, New York Times, and NPR over extremist news publications. This is a vision of what a less divisive Facebook might look like. However, if this change becomes permanent, Facebook could be deciding between social responsibility and the bottom line.
TikTok Creates New Photosensitivity Features
TikTok prides itself on being an inclusive platform open to all types of creators. However, there was a gap in creators and viewers in the epilepsy community who couldn’t watch videos due to photosensitive content. TikTok met with epilepsy advocates to find ways to improve its platform for these community members. A few months ago, TikTok released a feature that warned creators when they used a feature that could trigger photosensitive viewers.
In the coming weeks, TikTok will be releasing a new feature that will protect people with photosensitive epilepsy. This feature will allow viewers who come across photosensitive videos to skip all future photosensitive content. TikTok plans to continue meeting with leading epilepsy organizations to spread the word about the new feature and bring awareness to epilepsy.