Facebook on Wednesday said it’ll be “sharing messages across Facebook in both English and Spanish” about the US Food and Drug Administration’s full approval of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. On Monday, Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine became the first to win full approval by the FDA. “This is part of our ongoing efforts to connect people with …
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Facebook Messenger adds more features, continues focus on encryption
Facebook has been moving forward with plans to integrate messaging on Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp, but those efforts are still far from over. Facebook Messenger users can already reach people through Instagram direct message and vice versa without downloading a new app. The company also wants to make cross-app communication between Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp, an encrypted messaging app, possible. …
Read More »Facebook test brings voice and video calling back to main app
Facebook is bringing voice and video calling back to its main mobile app, the company said. The features have been absent from the main mobile app since 2014 when Facebook moved them into its separate Messenger app. The features began appearing for some people on Monday as part of a test, as reported earlier by Bloomberg. The move follows on the heels …
Read More »Facebook unveils tools to protect Afghan people who fear becoming Taliban targets
As many Afghans hurry to hide their social media profiles out of fear the profiles will make them targets for Taliban violence, Facebook is launching new tools to help them delete their digital footprints. The move comes just days after the Taliban reclaimed Kabul, the Afghan capital, on Sunday, and announced they’d be taking power in the country for the …
Read More »Reels are coming to Facebook in expanded test
Starting Thursday, you might see Reels pop up on Facebook. The social network is running a limited test, putting Reels on Facebook in the US, the company said. Reels launched on Instagram in August 2020 as a TikTok-esque way to post short, multiclip videos with elements like audio and various effects. The announcement also follows news in July that Facebook …
Read More »Virtual Mark Zuckerberg showed me Facebook’s new VR workplace
I got to meet Mark Zuckerberg two days ago, during a meeting in a conference room along with a handful of other tech reporters. He talked about the metaverse and the future of work. That’s not all that unusual. What was unusual is that the CEO of Facebook beamed into our demo session on a shaft of light — and was a …
Read More »Facebook butts heads with Instagram researchers studying photo site’s algorithm
AlgorithmWatch, a German research and advocacy group, shut down its Instagram monitoring project after what it says was a “thinly veiled threat” from Facebook. But the social network says it made no such threat and that the group’s project ran afoul of Facebook policies around data collection. The advocacy group says it’s “committed to evaluating and shedding light on … …
Read More »Facebook could be forced to sell Giphy amid competition concerns
Facebook could be forced to sell Giphy, a platform that allows people to find and share animated images known as GIFs, because of concerns the acquisition would harm competition in the social-media and digital-advertising markets. Facebook purchased Giphy last year for a reported $400 million. The social network said in May 2020 that Giphy would join the team at Instagram, …
Read More »Instagram lets you limit comments to cut down abuse from strangers
Instagram added the ability to limit comments and DM requests from people who don’t follow you, or who only started following you recently, it said in a blog post Wednesday. You can toggle the Limits feature within Instagram’s privacy settings. The Facebook-owned social media platform developed Limits due to creators and public figures experiencing sudden spikes of comments and DM …
Read More »Facebook shares its Time Card atomic clock tech to speed internet services
Facebook on Wednesday shared hardware and software designs for its Time Cards, the devices it uses to keep its massive data centers working at peak efficiency. The timekeeping technology, based on ultra precise atomic clocks and navigation satellites, ultimately helps speed up services running at enormous internet scale. Just about every digital device has to know what time it is, …
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