Social Media Archives - Page 6 of 7

Study Shows Misinformation Dominates Facebook Engagement Than Real News

It’s the age of information, or should we say misinformation. It’s always the social media giants that come under the radar of spreading false information in the name of news. A new peer-reviewed study from researchers at New York University and the Université Grenoble Alpes in France shows that misinformation received six times more engagement on Facebook than real news.

The study, which looked at posts of more than 2500 new Facebook publishers between August 2020 and January 2021, found that the pages that post more misinformation regularly got more likes, shares, and comments. Unsurprisingly, the political spectrum had the increased engagement, with the right-wing having a much higher propensity to share misleading news than publishers in other political categories.

However, a Facebook spokesperson, in an attempt to defend the organization, pointed out the fact that the study looks at engagement and not “reach”- a term used by the company to describe how many people see a piece of content on Facebook regardless of whether they interact with it.

In August, it cut off a group of researchers access to data that would help them understand the problem of misinformation. Facebook cited that continuing to give third-party researchers access to the data could violate a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission that it entered into following the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

In August, the company released a ‘transparency report that laid out the most viewed post from April to June. Just days later, The New York Times revealed that Facebook had first scrapped plans to release a report in the first quarter because the most-viewed post was an article that wrongly linked the coronavirus vaccine to a Florida doctor’s death.

A recent survey also showed that Facebook users were less likely to be vaccinated against coronavirus than any other type of news consumer.

Twitter Launches New Process To Flag False Information

On Tuesday, Twitter reported that it will allow selected users in the US, South Korea, Australia to flag tweets for misinformation. It is safe to assume that the feature will eventually be expanded if successful.

The test basically adds another category under the ‘Report Tweet’ section. Click on those three dots in the top right corner of a tweet, select “Report Tweet,” and the option to flag it for being “misleading” is there right between the existing options “It’s abusive or harmful” and “It expresses intentions of self-harm or suicide.”

“We’re testing a feature for you to report Tweets that seem misleading—as you see them,” Twitter explained. “We’re assessing if this is an effective approach so we’re starting small.”

The newly added feature will allow users to report any tweet that they think is misleading or serves half-truth. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll see anything actually happen, a fact that Twitter fully acknowledges.

“Although we may not take action on this report or respond to you directly, we will use this report to develop new ways to reduce misleading info,” Twitter tells you when you go to report a misleading tweet. “This could include limiting its visibility, providing additional context, and creating new policies.”

You can flag the tweet in question under ‘Politics’, ‘Health’ or ‘Something else’, giving users more capacity to address misinformation on the platform. This might also become a new avenue for misuse, or for reporting tweets simply because they run counter to your opinion.

The idea, therefore, is not to stamp out specific tweets that each user reports. But if say 100 or 1000 people flag the same tweet, then it is likely to go under Twitter’s surveillance. It will help Twitter to take action against such tweets, hence improving the tweet process.

Companies like Facebook and Twitter and consistently working on improving their algorithms to avoid amplifying false information or misinformation.

Facebook Adds End-to-End Encryption For Voice And Video Calls In Messenger

Social media giants are consistently working on users’ privacy to earn the trust of their customers. Facebook is now adding end-to-end encryption for voice and video calls in Messenger. The company announced the changes alongside new controls for disappearing messages through a blog post.

Facebook rolled out end-to-end encryption for text messages in 2016. The social media giant says it is adding voice and video calls as Messenger now sees more than 150 million video calls a day.

Facebook says,

“Since 2016, we’ve offered the option to secure your one-on-one text chats with end-to-end encryption. In the past year, we’ve seen a surge in the use of audio and video calling, with more than 150 million video calls a day on Messenger. Now we’re introducing calling to this chat mode so you can secure your audio and video calls with this same technology if you choose.

The content of your messages and calls in an end-to-end encrypted conversation is protected from the moment it leaves your device to when it reaches the receiver’s device. This means that nobody else, including Facebook, can see or listen to what’s sent or said. Keep in mind; you can report an end-to-end encrypted message to us if something’s wrong.”

Facebook’s Whatsapp has already offered end-to-end encryption on call, preventing anyone but a sender and the receiver from seeing the data. Other video calling apps like Zoom, Signal, and Apple’s FaceTime also offer end-to-end encryption on their platforms.

Facebook says that E2EE is becoming the industry standard across messaging platforms. Rumours also suggested that Facebook might roll out a unified, end-to-end encrypted messaging system across Whatsapp, Messenger, and Instagram – but that didn’t happen.

A few days back, Whatsapp rolled out a ‘One Time’ view feature on its app, allowing users to send photos and videos disappearing content once the receiver has opened it.

Facebook Updates its Data Transfer Tool: Know What’s New In It

Facebook likes to be in the news. As if Zuckerberg has given instruction that there should be some development coming out the company’s front every day when he wakes up. Why? See the frequency of news related to Facebook that Exhibit has covered in the last few days. A few days back, news came out associated with Metaverse and Smart Glass, on which the R&D and development team is working. But this time, it is about Facebook’s Transfer Your Information feature. Facebook has updated this feature by adding more traits. Let’s find out more about this Facebook updating its data transfer tool news from this edition of Exhibit blog.

Facebook Data Transfer Tool

Facebook has announced that they have expanded data portability in the Transfer Your Information feature. According to the organization, this update will widen the choice of users like you to add events at other places. This update will also help users understand what sort of data gets support from the Facebook social media platform to store information on other applications, e.g., Google Calendar. In addition to this, Facebook will empower you to add filters on which data you want to transfer. And, for data transferring, Facebook has selected two new destinations, Google Calendar and Photobucket.

What is the use of adding different data transfer destinations?

Let me help you understand this entire thing with an example. Today, it’s the 11th of August. You opened your Facebook application and found that your friend’s birthday is on the 20th of August. Now, you know that Facebook will surely send a notification. But sending a birthday wish that too through a call or message from other platforms can create a huge impact. It will look to your friend that you remembered their special dates. But, how to do that? Well, here’s what Facebook has helped you. Now, you can directly store these events to Google Calendar. You know that Google Calendar has the habit of sending alarm messages regarding events. So, it may happen that on the 20th of August, you will wake directly with that alarm message.

Final Word

No doubt that Facebook updating its data transfer tool will enhance its functionality for sure. However, it also becomes important that one must note what steps Facebook has taken to transfer them securely. If Facebook allows transferring data with Google Calendar, will such information get shared with Google by default? Facebook has said that their development team will come forward to contribute to the open-source projects that deal in data transfer.

Make a Job Application with TikTok Resume

Copy That. An epic line by Akshay Kumar in the movie “Mission Mangal” tells many things. There are hardly any instances when we say others copy us. But, here’s a time again where a foreign company has tried to copy our trend. The social video app TikTok is coming up with its resume section platform that one can use as a job application. An Indian firm, Naukri, already has such a feature, but with TikTok adopting it will surely get worldwide coverage. What’s more there and what new will be coming with this TikTok Resume will get covered with this Exhibit blog.

I Need A Job

Creating a job gets more recognition than finding a job. Remember such similar lines from the movie ‘The Social Network.’ But, there will be some like us who want to get a job rather than creating it. And, to cater to this requirement, you will need someone else who is running a company. Several job portals are floating all around that can help you in landing a good designation. TikTok can also be their name among these platforms. TikTok Resume will now help people like you who just love to create quirky videos and get a fascinating life where you can feel employed.

What will this TikTok Resume mean to the people?

Now please don’t take a stand considering that you are sitting in the opposition panel of the Parliament seeking a reply from me about the number of jobs lost in recent times. Honestly, I am not a minister who is bound to give such replies. It’s well known about the aggravated situation as the economy got shut for some months. Hence, TikTok Resume is no less than a golden opportunity for those who posted about their unemployment status on social media profiles like LinkedIn. And, yes, many of you may curse such platforms with a job section, but you cannot tap the same. Well, it’s all about the day and suitability of you and the company where you got an interview offer. So, sit tight and showcase your best look and best of yours to express why you will be a perfect match for any employer.

Can TikTok Resume be successful?

Once again, I want to say that I am not Cybill Trelawney of Harry Potter, who predicted the birth of a boy in July. Predicting the success of TikTok Resume is not possible as of now. However, one should expect to raise the question of the relevance of this application of TikTok. I mean, considering TikTok’s niche and outreach, such applications and moves may look irrelevant. But, there’s one thing that will happen for sure: this feature and functionality will push other job portals to add such quotients.

TikTok Tests TikTok Story Feature On Its Platform

Almost every major social media app now has one thing in common; Stories. It is TikTok’s turn to experiment with the story feature on its platform. Matt Navarra confirmed the new feature on Twitter.

‘TikTok Stories’ appears to work similarly to that on other platforms such as Instagram and Snapchat, where users will be able to see content posted by accounts they follow for 24 hours before it gets deleted.

This comes just after messaging app Whatsapp rolled out a feature for users to post photos or videos that vanish once they are opened. Whatsapp has named it a ‘View Once’ feature.

The new TikTok feature lives in a newly-added slide-over sidebar, where you will get to see the disappearing stories. Users will be able to react and comment on your story, too, and you will also be able to tap on the user’s profile picture to load a story.

TikTok, which ByteDance owns, told the BBC,

“We’re always thinking about new ways to bring value to our community and enrich the TikTok experience. Currently we’re experimenting with ways to give creators additional formats to bring their creative ideas to life for the TikTok community.”

TikTok describes this feature as a new way to interact with your fans. Users can create stories and add the usual captions, music, and text. Considering TikTok’s video-first nature, it seems you can add videos to the stories and not still images.

However, the company did not provide any further details on how extensively it is testing TikTok stories, or when we can witness its wider release. For now, this feature has been rolled out for selected users.

Stories have been constants in all major social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Linkedin, Pinterest, Netflix, and Youtube. It is not surprising that Tiktok decided to experiment with the feature. The Story Feature was initially rolled out on Snapchat back in 2013.

However, Twitter is the latest example of why Stories aren’t always successful since the platform was forced to shut down its feature called Fleets just eight months after its launch.

Whatsapp Launches View Once Feature : Send Disappearing Photos And Videos

Messaging app Whatsapp has recently rolled out a ‘View Once’ feature that deletes photos or videos from the app once the recipient has opened them.

You can make the photo or video to deliver on ‘view once’ by tapping the ‘1’ button to the left of the send button. It will get deleted once the recipient has opened it. However, the recipient will see if it’s a regular photo/video or a disappearing one.

The message will be shown as opened once the content has been viewed.

In June, Mark Zuckerberg confirmed that this feature would be coming on Whatsapp, although the details were very scarce about the same.

In a blog post, Whatsapp has warned about using this feature only with people you trust not to take a screenshot. The app won’t notify you if someone takes a screenshot.

“Only send photos or videos with view once media enabled to trusted individuals. For example, it’s possible for someone to: Take a screenshot or screen recording of the media before it disappears. You won’t be notified if someone takes a screenshot or screen recording.”

Moreover, the media content sent using the ‘view once’ feature will no longer be visible in the chat where it was sent once the recipient exits the media viewer. The content will also not be saved on the recipient’s gallery, and they won’t forward it through the app. Also, the content will expire from the chat if it’s not opened within 14 days.

Key Features of View Once

Recipients will not be able to save the content in their gallery.
Once you have viewed the content, you won’t be able to view it again.
One cannot forward the photos/videos with this feature.
The sender will be able to see if the recipient has opened the content.
If you don’t open it within 14 days, the content will expire.
The sender must select the ‘view once’ feature each time they want to send it with this feature.
If the message is unopened, it can be restored at the time of backup.

About privacy, Whatsapp said,

“As with all the personal messages you send on Whatsapp, View Once media is protected by end-to-end encryption, so Whatsapp cannot see them. They will also be marked with a new ‘one-time’ icon.”