WebProNews

Tag: Social Media

  • 6 Powerful Ways Social Media Will Build Your SEO

    6 Powerful Ways Social Media Will Build Your SEO

    Because social media shares are not Google ranking factors, many companies ignore social media in their SEO efforts. That’s a mistake for two reasons.

    First, while social media shares have no direct impact on SEO rankings, shares can indirectly improve SEO in very meaningful ways.

    Second, other aspects of social media marketing aside from shares have a positive effect on SEO.

    Here are the top six ways social media builds SEO:

    1- Backlink Generation

    Backlinks are a tremendously important ranking factor — so much so that an SEO campaign may devote well over 50% of its budget to developing high-quality backlinks.

    Social media shares encourage backlinks — when your social media marketing activities are conducted with SEO in mind. What does that mean?

    First, it means your social network community is designed to attract followers with an enthusiastic interest in reading and sharing content about your company, products, services, and/or industry.

    For the most part, such followers will be customers, prospects, industry peers, suppliers, and people in related industries. These are the people who are interested in linking to your shared content on their blogs and websites. 

    Second, it means that your social media communication strategy includes and perhaps emphasizes scheduled sharing of on-site content strategically important to your SEO campaign. While having backlinks to any page of your website is helpful, links to those pages that you want to rank highly produce the best SEO results.

    Third, it means that the quality of your shared on-site content is high. Google’s algorithm evaluates content qualitatively. If your content is relevant, free of grammatical errors, useful, engaging, and authoritative, it will inspire people to link to it.

    Fourth, it means that you engage followers on social media to encourage or even request a backlink. This is best done personally and selectively–blanket social media messages asking for links are interpreted as overly self-promotional and will backfire.

    2- YouTube Optimization

    YouTube is the world’s largest social media platform and the world’s second largest search engine, exceeded only by its parent company, Google. Optimizing video on YouTube and connecting your YouTube videos to your website have tremendous SEO value.

    An optimized YouTube channel and keyword-optimized YouTube videos generate views on YouTube and then send relevant traffic to your website. If your videos do a great job of selling your products and services, that referred traffic will generate conversions, the overriding goal of any SEO campaign.

    Keep in mind that video is a search category for Google. Videos posted on your YouTube channel may rank very well for general searches on Google when properly optimized. If your business involves products or services that need to be seen to be sold, you cannot afford to overlook YouTube’s SEO potential.

    3- Instagram Optimization

    Everything about YouTube and SEO applies to Instagram and SEO.

    Instagram is an excellent platform for products and services that are visually interesting — which can be just about anything if you approach your marketing creatively.

    For instance, plumbing is not a particularly glamorous industry, but photos that depict the steps to install a shower head will be extremely useful and interesting to the Instagram community when the need arises.

    If you connect your Instagram photos to your SEO strategy, especially in terms of images containing your target keywords, you will improve your brand’s visibility for your most important products and services, as well as generate referred traffic from Instagram to your website when people are in the market for what you sell.

    4- High-ranking Social Profiles in Google SERPs

    Your social media profile pages may rank higher on Google SERPs (search engine results pages) than your website content. This can even hold true for branded searches: for instance, a company’s LinkedIn profile page often outranks its website’s home page.

    Facebook profile pages also tend to rank highly for branded searches, and branded search queries may generate a section for your company’s tweets on the SERP.

    Depending on what the Google user is looking for, links to your social media content on Google SERPs may attract a considerable number of clicks. If your social media content is well optimized, with links pointing to your website — including links to the home page and strategically important SEO pages — those clicks can ultimately result in conversions.

    With respect to Twitter, keep in mind your most recent tweets may appear in their entirety on Google SERPs. Make sure your tweets always reflect well on your brand and inspire clicks from your target prospects. 

    5- Boosting Conversions

    Facebook profile pages have an important feature: customer reviews. If you cultivate positive customer reviews on Facebook, you will not only improve your brand perception, but you will also give your SEO campaign a very large helping hand.

    That customer reviews strongly influence buying decisions is a well-known fact. For this reason, your Facebook page can help close sales after SEO has brought visitors directly from Google to your website. Why? Because these SEO visitors will want to check out your company’s Facebook reviews before they make a buying decision.

    Social media thus becomes a component of your SEO campaign’s conversion strategy. The path is: Google search  ̶  to website  ̶  to Facebook profile  ̶  to website  ̶  to inquiry form submission or online order. Complex … but common!

    While other social media sites don’t feature formal customer reviews, they do reveal what sort of communication you have with customers. Again, search engine traffic to your website will lead interested prospects to explore your social media pages to better understand how you engage with your customers and how being your customer would feel.

    What conclusions will they reach based on your social media customer interactions?

    6- Improving Website Ranking Factors

    As illustrated throughout this article, when visitors come to your website from social media sources, they are likely to be very interested in what you sell.

    This high level of interest is important from an SEO perspective because it encourages website activity that Google loves to see:

    ●  Long visits

    ●  Visits to multiple website pages

    ●  Repeat visits

    ●  Low bounce rates

    By improving the quantity and quality of your website’s traffic, social media thus helps improve your website’s overall authority and thus its rankings.

    Conclusion

    Social media is a powerful tool for building your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts. By utilizing these six strategies, you can increase your online visibility and drive traffic to your website.

    Social media and SEO are interconnected, and by incorporating social media into your SEO strategy, you can establish a strong online presence, connect with your target audience, and ultimately improve your bottom line.

    So, whether you’re just starting or have been in the game for a while, make sure to take advantage of social media’s SEO benefits to grow your business and increase your online reach.

  • Instagram’s Founders Are Launching An AI-Powered Social News Feed

    Instagram’s Founders Are Launching An AI-Powered Social News Feed

    Instagram’s founders are on to their next venture, launching Artifact, an AI-powered social news feed app.

    Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger launched Instagram and helped lead the company through its acquisition by Facebook. After reported tension over Mark Zuckerberg taking a more hands-on approach to Instagram’s day-to-day operations, the pair left the company.

    Systrom and Krieger are now launching their new project in an effort to utilize AI and machine learning in the social media space. The company’s site describes Artifact as “a personalized news feed driven by artificial intelligence.”

    According to The Verge’s Casey Newton, the app will show users a personalized and curated news feed. Clicking on a story will show similar stories, TikTok-style. The company is also beta testing features that will let users post links to stories and allow other users to follow them. Another feature would allow users to offer commentary and privately discuss linked news items.

    Systrom emphasized the importance of machine learning to the new app.

    “Throughout the years, what I saw was that every time we use machine learning to improve the consumer experience, things got really good really quickly,” he told Newton.

    The two founders saw the possibilities of combining machine learning with a TikTok-like approach but with a focus on text rather than video.

    “I saw that shift, and I was like, ‘Oh, that’s the future of social,’” Systrom said. “These unconnected graphs; these graphs that are learned rather than explicitly created. And what was funny to me is as I looked around, I was like, ‘Man, why isn’t this happening everywhere in social? Why is Twitter still primarily follow-based? Why is Facebook?’”

    Given Systrom and Krieger’s past success, there’s a good chance Artifact could be the next big thing in social media.

    Users can join the waitlist here.

  • Vietnam Cracks Down on ‘False’ Social Media Content

    Vietnam Cracks Down on ‘False’ Social Media Content

    Vietnam is cracking down on “false” social media content, giving platforms 24 hours to remove such content.

    Governments and companies the world over are struggling with misinformation and the other challenges that come with social media. Vietnam appears to be taking a rather aggressive stance, passing new rules that will require platforms to remove “false” content within 24 hours, according to Reuters.

    “False news, if it is handled in a slow manner, will spread very widely,” Nguyen Manh Hung, Minister of Information and Communications, told parliament.

    The new rules make Vietnam one of the strictest countries in the world, in terms of its efforts to control social media.

  • Elon Musk a Social Media Influencer? Tesla CEO Teases the Possibility

    Elon Musk a Social Media Influencer? Tesla CEO Teases the Possibility

    Elon Musk is well-known for his social media presence, but the Tesla CEO is teasing a full-time switch to social media influencer.

    Musk has long been a vocal Twitter user, boosting cryptocurrencies, taking jabs at rivals and discussing upcoming Tesla features. His tweets have even landed him in hot water with the SEC, but that hasn’t slowed the CEO down.

    In one of his latest tweets, Musk teases the possibility of trading in his jobs as CEO of Tesla and SpaceX for that of social media influencer.

    In all likelihood, this is just another one of Musk’s famous attempts at humor — but only time will tell.

  • Instagram Finally Brings Back Chronological Feeds

    Instagram Finally Brings Back Chronological Feeds

    After years of complaints and unhappy users, Instagram has finally brought back the ability to see feeds chronologically.

    Instagram used to display feeds chronologically, before switching to an algorithmic-based feed in 2016. Users were not happy, but Instagram resisted attempts to bring back the feature…at least until now.

    In a blog post, Instagram announced two new features, Favorites and Following, both of which give users the ability to see posts chonologically.

    Favorites shows you the latest from accounts that you choose, like your best friends and favorite creators. In addition to this view, posts from accounts in Favorites will also show up higher in your home feed.

    Following shows you posts from the people you follow. Both Favorites and Following will show you posts in chronological order, so you can quickly catch up on recent posts.

    The features are sure to be a welcome change for users.

  • Facebook Rebrands as ‘Meta’

    Facebook Rebrands as ‘Meta’

    Facebook has followed through on rumored plans to rename itself, going with the name “Meta.”

    Facebook was rumored to be considering a name change to better reflect its various endeavors and to distance itself from the scrutiny it has garnered. CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced in a post that the company would rebrand itself as Meta.

    To reflect who we are and the future we hope to build, I’m proud to share that our company is now Meta.

    The move is reminiscent of Google’s rebrand, when Google become one of many brands under the Alphabet parent company. Zuckerberg seems to be taking the same approach, with Facebook being relegated to just one of the company’s many brands — including Instagram, WhatsApp and Oculus — under the new Meta parent.

    Zuckerberg said the rebrand will allow the company to focus on “the metaverse,” its term for the convergence of visual reality, augmented reality and in-person reality.

    From now on, we will be metaverse-first, not Facebook-first. That means that over time you won’t need a Facebook account to use our other services. As our new brand starts showing up in our products, I hope people around the world come to know the Meta brand and the future we stand for.

    It remains to be seen if the rebrand will be successful, especially in helping the company move away from the scrutiny it’s under.

  • Reddit 1-800 Flowers Ad Goes Viral

    Reddit 1-800 Flowers Ad Goes Viral

    “Our ads on Reddit have gotten a lot of traction and puts a big smile on people’s faces,” says 1-800 Flowers CEO Chris McCann. “That’s what we’re trying to do is just make sure we’re relevant and create that cognitive speed bump when people think about our company. They see something different and I’m thrilled with the creative team for coming up with something like that.”

    Reddit Ad That Went Viral for 1-800-Flowers.com

    As usual, some opinionated Redditers expressed their thoughts on the ads:

    1-800 Flowers CEO discusses the company’s growth that was accelerated by the pandemic:

    Ecommerce Growth Accelerated During Pandemic

    What we’ve seen is an acceleration of growth in our company that began back in 2018 and really then accelerated even further in 2020 with the pandemic. It’s driven by the need for us as people to connect and express ourselves. As a company whose vision is to inspire more human expression, connection, and celebration, and as an ecommerce leader, we’re well-positioned in the trends that we see coming out of this pandemic. We think these trends are sustainable going forward.

    We started out as one flower shop many years ago. What we’ve done is created this e-commerce platform for growth, a platform for expression, connection, and celebration. It starts with this all-star family of brands that we have led by Harry & David, 1-800-Flowers, Cheryl’s Cookies, Shari’s Berries, and our recent acquisition just this past August of Personalization Mall. You see us now as a company in the expression and connection business with a leadership position in floral, a leadership position in gourmet food gifting, and certainly now leadership and position in expressions and personalized items which is a fast-growing market.

    You’ll continue to continue to see us grow by organic product development of products that help customers express and connect. And as we’ve done through acquisition, adding to that platform and leveraging that platform that we’ve built.

    Need To Express and Connect Is a Lasting Trend

    Hopefully, the vaccines accelerate and we turn to some sense of normalcy sooner rather than later. As we look at our business, the momentum we saw began in 2018 and 2019 and then accelerated with the pandemic. We’ve been on a good momentum growth even before the pandemic and we really see ourselves now as a bigger stronger company than we were prior to it. We’ve acquired Personalization Mall just this past August and by putting it on our platform and leveraging our digital marketing expertise we accelerated the growth of that company. It grew by 50 percent this last quarter.

    A year ago August we acquired Shari’s Berries and took a business that was stagnant and losing money to now one that’s got a nice growth rate and is generating a nice contribution margin as well. If we just keep our focus on what the consumer is looking for to help express and connect then we’ll be continuing to see double-digit growth for some time to come. That trend that we’ve all learned from being isolated, our need to express and connect is a lasting trend coming out of this pandemic along with the shift from offline to online.

    1-800 Flowers Ecommerce Growth Accelerated During Pandemic

  • Trump Wants Court to Force Twitter to Reinstate His Account

    Trump Wants Court to Force Twitter to Reinstate His Account

    Former president Donald Trump is turning to the court system in a long-shot bid to regain access to his Twitter account.

    Trump was banned from Twitter two days after the January 6 insurrection, with the social media platform citing “the risk of further incitement of violence.” According to The Washington Post Trump is asking for preliminary injunction that would restore his access while a broader lawsuit continues to play out.

    “Plaintiff Donald J. Trump respectfully moves for a preliminary injunction directing, inter alia, Defendant Twitter, Inc. and all persons acting in concert with Defendant, to reinstate Plaintiff’s access to Defendant’s social media platform(s),” read the filing.

    Trump’s efforts are a long shot, since the First Amendment applies to protecting individuals from government censorship. There is no provision in the First Amendment protecting individuals from censorship at the hands of other individuals or corporations. Therefore, there’s little legal precedent for forcing Twitter to reinstate Trump’s account.

  • TikTok Hits 1 Billion Users

    TikTok Hits 1 Billion Users

    TikTok has crossed a major milestone, saying it now has over 1 billion users.

    TikTok has taken the social media world by storm, quickly becoming one of the most popular, fastest growing platforms. The app even survived the Trump administration’s attempts to ban it in the US, or force it to sell to an American company.

    The company now says it has crossed the 1 billion user threshold.

    At TikTok, our mission is to inspire creativity and bring joy. Today, we’re celebrating that mission and our global TikTok community. More than 1 billion people around the world now come to TikTok every month to be entertained as they learn, laugh, or discover something new. We’re honored to be a home for our immensely diverse community of families, small businesses, and creators who transform into our favorite stars.

  • Twitter Introduces Communities

    Twitter Introduces Communities

    Twitter has introduced Communities, a featured designed to help people connect around common interests.

    Twitter has been experimenting with new ways to drive engagement. The company introduced Spaces, and has been expanding the feature to include Paid Spaces. The company also experimented with Fleets before killing that feature.

    Communities is the latest feature, aimed at helping people to connect with like-minded users.

    The company described the feature in a blog post:

    Some conversations aren’t for everyone, just the people who want to talk about the thing you want to talk about. When you join a Community, you can Tweet directly to that group instead of to all your followers. Only members in the same Community are able to reply and join the conversation so it stays intimate and relevant. 

    While you can Tweet only to your Community for a focused conversation, Community pages and timelines are publicly available so anyone can read, Quote Tweet, and report Community Tweets. We want to continue to support public conversation and help people find Communities that match their interests, while also creating a more intimate space for conversation.

    Moderators will be able to set the rules and focus for a Community, and invite individuals who will add to the conversation. Twitter is currently limiting Community creation, but the feature will become more widely available in the coming months.

  • Twitter Buying Scroll to Serve as Foundation for Subscription Service

    Twitter Buying Scroll to Serve as Foundation for Subscription Service

    Twitter has announced it is buying Scroll as it looks to establish a subscription service for premium content.

    Twitter has been looking for ways to diversify its services and new ways to monetize its user base. Despite being one of the oldest social media platforms, Twitter has been surpassed in many ways by newer, upstart platforms.

    The company is purchasing Scroll in an effort to introduce paid subscription services, free of ads. Twitter VP Mike Park announced the company’s plans on the company’s blog:

    That’s why we’re excited to announce that Twitter is acquiring Scroll. Scroll has built a way to read articles without the ads, pop-ups, and other clutter that get in the way, cleaning up the reading experience and giving people what they want: just the content. Meanwhile, publishers who work with Scroll can bring in more revenue than they would from traditional ads on a page. It’s a better Internet for readers and for writers.

    Twitter also hopes integrating Scroll will help it to assist the journalism industry, one that has experienced major setbacks as a result fo the digital transformation.

    Those who create and consume news know that reading – and more broadly, journalism – deserve a better future. Scroll will help us build that future, solving one of the most frustrating parts about reading content online. We want to reimagine what they’ve built to deliver a seamless reading experience to our hyper-engaged audiences and allow publishers to deliver cleaner content that can make them more money than today’s business models.

    To do this, we plan to include Scroll as part of an upcoming subscription offering we’re currently exploring. As a Twitter subscriber, picture getting access to premium features where you can easily read articles from your favorite news outlet or a writer’s newsletter from Revue, with a portion of your subscription going to the publishers and writers creating the content.

    Park said Scroll will pause new sign-ups while the service is integrated with Twitter. After the integration, Twitter will work on growing Scroll’s subscriber base.

  • Reddit Hits $10 Billion Valuation

    Reddit Hits $10 Billion Valuation

    Reddit has secured another round of funding, bringing the social media company’s valuation to $10 billion.

    Reddit has been the darling of the social media industry, posting impressive growth, especially compared to its larger rivals. The company has been moving toward an IPO, hiring Drew Vollero as its first CFO in an effort reach that goal.

    The company has now revealed its latest round of funding, placing the company’s valuation at $10 billion.

    We are optimistic and encouraged that not only are we resourced and capitalized to continue on our growth path, but also that our investors support our vision and want to deepen their stakes in our future. We will raise up to $700 million in Series F funding, led by Fidelity Management and Research Company LLC. and including other existing investors, at a post-money valuation of over $10 billion.

    Reddit reiterated its solid growth, noting its first $100 million advertising revenue quarter, a 192% increase from the previous year.

  • Russia Passes Law Forcing Social Media Companies to Have Local Office

    Russia Passes Law Forcing Social Media Companies to Have Local Office

    Vladimir Putin has signed a law that forces social media companies to have an office in the country.

    Russia has a long history of trying to control information and stamp out dissent. For such a regime, few things are more dangerous than social media, where information can go viral, making it difficult for a government to easily control. As a result, social media platforms have been in the government’s crosshairs for some time.

    The latest law is another attempt to exert control, and will require social media giants to have an office in-country, according to Reuters.

    “A foreign entity, carrying out activities on the internet in Russia, is obliged to create a branch, open an office or establish a Russian legal entity,” the new law reads.

    Not all social media companies will be impacted. The law specifically targets platforms with at least 500,000 daily users in Russia. Even so, roughly 20 companies will likely fall under the new legislation.

  • Facebook Poised for Slowest US Growth Ever in 2021

    Facebook Poised for Slowest US Growth Ever in 2021

    Facebook is poised to experience its slowest US growth ever in 2021, dropping to a mere 1%.

    Facebook is the 800-pound gorilla among social media platforms, but it no longer enjoys the growth rate it once had, or that its up-and-coming competitors enjoy. Even so, 2021 will see the company’s growth rate drop to its lowest ever, according to Business Insider.

    Much of the company’s challenges come from younger users abandoning the platform, or skipping it altogether, in favor of TikTok, Instagram and other, newer, hipper platforms. According to BI, Facebook will gain 19.4 million users 25 and older from 2019 to 2025. In spite of that, it will lose 4.1 million users ages 12 to 24 during the same period.

    The low growth rate is just the latest issue the company is facing, adding to regulatory challenges, moderation controversies and the toxic culture that has come to define social media.

  • YouTube Shorts $100 Million Fund Aims to Take on TikTok

    YouTube Shorts $100 Million Fund Aims to Take on TikTok

    YouTube has established a $100 million fund in an effort to attract creators to its YouTube Shorts TikTok competitor.

    TikTok has taken the social media world by storm, attracting content creators and users alike. During the pandemic, the platform was the clear winner among social media companies, and did especially well attracting the most valuable demographics. As a result, virtually every major competitor has been working to come out with features to better compete with TikTok.

    YouTube Shorts is YouTube’s answer, and the company is willing to spend big bucks to attract content, unveiling the YouTube Shorts Fund. The $100 million fund will be distributed over 2021 and 2022.

    We’re introducing the YouTube Shorts Fund, a $100M fund distributed over the course of 2021-2022. Anyone is eligible to participate in the fund simply by creating unique Shorts that delight the YouTube community.

    Each month, we’ll reach out to thousands of creators whose Shorts received the most engagement and views to reward them for their contributions. We’ll also ask these creators to share their feedback with us so we can continue to improve the product experience.

    Only time will tell if YouTube and other platforms can crack TikTok’s winning formula, but the YouTube Shorts Fund is certainly a step in the right direction.

  • Twitter Uses Prompts to Encourage Nicer Tweeting

    Twitter Uses Prompts to Encourage Nicer Tweeting

    Twitter is rolling out a feature that prompts user to be more considerate, with iOS and Android English-speaking accounts first to see it.

    One of the biggest challenges social media grapples with is discouraging bullying, vitriol and hateful content. Since the early days, social media has struggled with the best way to moderate such content, while still encouraging open, free-flowing discussion.

    Twitter believes it has found a solution, using prompts to warn people of potentially harmful content, and give them the opportunity to change it before posting.

    Based on feedback and learnings from those tests, we’ve made improvements to the systems that decide when and how these reminders are sent. Starting today, we’re rolling these improved prompts out across iOS and Android, starting with accounts that have enabled English-language settings.

    Based on an initial test period, Twitter was able to improve their algorithm for accuracy and consistency. The tests ultimately resulted in 34% of people revising their tweets once they were prompted, or deciding not to send the tweet at all. In addition, once prompted, individuals sent 11% fewer offensive replies in the future.

    Twitter says this is just the beginning, with more improvements yet to come.

    We’ll continue to explore how prompts — such as reply prompts and article prompts — and other forms of intervention can encourage healthier conversations on Twitter. Our teams will also collect feedback from people on Twitter who have received reply prompts as we expand this feature to other languages. Stay tuned for more updates as we continue to learn and make new improvements to encourage more meaningful conversations on Twitter.

  • Facebook Oversight Board Upholds Trump Ban

    Facebook Oversight Board Upholds Trump Ban

    Facebook’s Oversight Board has decided Donald Trump’s fate, upholding the ban imposed after the January 6 insurrection.

    Then-President Donald Trump was banned by every major social media outlet in the aftermath of the January 6 insurrection, one that saw a violent mob attach the US Capitol. During the riot, Mr. Trump made two Facebook posts, both of which continued to claim the election had been stolen and was fraudulent. Since it was those false claims that had fired up the mob, and incited it to violence, Facebook removed both posts and suspended Mr. Trump’s account.

    Mr. Trump’s case was one of many that Facebook’s Oversight Board was reviewing to either uphold or overturn. Ultimately, the board has decided to uphold the ban, although with the recommendation it be revisited in six months.

    The Board has upheld Facebook’s decision on January 7, 2021, to restrict then-President Donald Trump’s access to posting content on his Facebook page and Instagram account.

    However, it was not appropriate for Facebook to impose the indeterminate and standardless penalty of indefinite suspension. Facebook’s normal penalties include removing the violating content, imposing a time-bound period of suspension, or permanently disabling the page and account.

    The Board insists that Facebook review this matter to determine and justify a proportionate response that is consistent with the rules that are applied to other users of its platform. Facebook must complete its review of this matter within six months of the date of this decision. The Board also made policy recommendations for Facebook to implement in developing clear, necessary, and proportionate policies that promote public safety and respect freedom of expression.

    It remains to be seen what the fallout of the board’s decision will be, although Mr. Trump’s former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, has warned the decision could make Republicans more likely to sign off on antitrust action against Facebook and other tech giants.

  • Twitter Co-Founder Biz Stone: Platform Has ‘Scary Amount of Power’

    Twitter Co-Founder Biz Stone: Platform Has ‘Scary Amount of Power’

    Twitter co-founder Biz Stone is the latest to weigh in on the increasing power of social media, labeling it “scary.”

    According to Bloomberg, the comments came in an interview for the Collision Conference. The conversation turned to Twitter’s ban of then-President Donald Trump, in the wake of the January 6 insurrection.

    “It’s a scary amount of power,” Stone said. “The CEO of a company in San Francisco can quiet the president of the United States. He is not elected, nothing like that, and yet that had a major impact.”

    At the same time, Stone believed Twitter made the right call, despite his reservations about it having the ability to take the action it did.

    “It was a good decision for Twitter I think,” he added. “But it’s also a little bit frightening to know that maybe there’s that much power in one person’s decision.”

    Stone’s comments illustrate the challenging tightrope social media platforms are walking right now, as they struggle to uphold freedom of speech, while cracking down on posts and comments that incite violence.

  • Instagram Testing the Ability to Hide Likes

    Instagram Testing the Ability to Hide Likes

    Instagram is testing a feature that will allow users to hide Likes, both in other users’ posts and in their own.

    One of the downsides of social media is the pressure many users feel to be popular. Younger users are especially vulnerable to the pressure, and will often agonize about whether something is worth posting — not based on the validity of the post, but on whether it is likely to go viral.

    Instagram is working on a way to address the problem by giving users the ability to hide Likes, according to TechCrunch. The company is testing whether removing Likes is a long-term solution, as users are torn on whether they want them hidden or visible.

    Instagram also hopes the ability to hide Likes will pave the way for posts to be seen and appreciated more fairly, based on their own merit. In contrast, many posts currently achieve popularity simply because of how many Likes they have, while other posts are ignored just because they haven’t gone viral and don’t have as many Likes.

    It remains to be seen whether Instagram’s strategy will work but, if it does, it could be a step in the right direction toward addressing much of what is wrong with social media.

  • Twitch Updates Policy to Address Severe Off-Service Misconduct

    Twitch Updates Policy to Address Severe Off-Service Misconduct

    Twitch has announced it will start addressing severe cases of misconduct that impact its community, even if they occur off-service.

    Social media platforms are struggling to find the balance between free speech and cracking down on harassment, misinformation, racism, hateful content and more. Twitch began enforcing its updated Hateful Conduct and Harassment policy in January, but the platform is now expanding its policy to cover conduct that happens off-service.

    The company’s previous guidelines are highlighted below:

    Our current guidelines state that in some serious cases where there is available, verifiable evidence, we may take action against users for hateful conduct or harassment that occurs off Twitch services—meaning on social media, other online services, or even offline—when directed at members of the Twitch community.

    Under the new guidelines, the company outlines two categories of conduct that will be impacted. Category One involves when “someone is harassed on Twitch, as well as (italics theirs) off Twitch.”

    Category Two will involve “serious offenses that pose a substantial safety risk to the Twitch community, even if these actions occur entirely off Twitch (emphasis theirs).” Examples would include terrorist activities, deadly violence, violent extremism, credible and explicit threats of mass violence, membership or leadership in a known hate group, sexual exploitation of children, being involved in non-consensual sexual activities and/or assault, and anything that would explicitly threaten the physical safety of the Twitch community or Twitch staff.

    These behaviors represent some of the most egregious types of physical and psychological harm, but we understand that this list is not inclusive of all types of harassment and abuse.

    The company is also involving a third-party to help it navigate the challenges involved in moderating content and users.

    In order to be as thorough and efficient as possible in these situations, we’re bringing on a highly-regarded third party investigative partner to support our internal team with these investigations.

    Twitch is clearly taking its responsibilities seriously and is rolling out a comprehensive and measure approach to make sure it strikes the proper balance.

  • Twitter Fixes Bug That Locked Out Users Who Tweeted ‘Memphis’

    Twitter Fixes Bug That Locked Out Users Who Tweeted ‘Memphis’

    In a strange turn of events, some Twitter users found themselves locked out of their accounts for tweeting the word “Memphis.”

    Twitter, like most social media platforms, has been under fire for its moderation policies. Some criticize the company for not moderating enough, while others accuse it of censorship.

    Whatever one’s views of Twitter’s moderation, no one expected to be locked out for tweeting the word “Memphis.” Fortunately, it appears to have been a simple bug that Twitter has since fixed.

    Many Twitter users were quick to reply with some tongue-in-cheek humor.

    https://twitter.com/roadtoserfdumb/status/1371236422376583170?s=20

    Other users pointed out that the company still struggles to effectively ban abusive speech, yet has no problem banning a city.

    Either way, at least Memphis is once again safe in the Twitterverse.