Tag Archives: Facebook

Staying private online can sometimes feel like a cat-and-mouse game. As you download the latest ad blocker to prevent trackers from knowing your online activities, advertisers are already looking for ways to work around it. And unless the internet’s entire business model changes, you’re doomed to this cycle of constantly trying to protect your privacy …

Facebook on Tuesday announced new tools for making money off the social network, like direct merchandise sales, for pubic figures including musicians and bands, actors, athletes and authors. The company also said it’s testing features designed to help public figures widen their audiences, adding tools like fancy stickers to engage with fans and sharing new ways for public figures to …

Facebook appears to be trying to get ahead of a new iPhone privacy feature that gives you far more control over how often apps can access your location. The social network on Monday detailed the ways it uses location data and outlined how users can control location settings in Apple’s upcoming iOS 13 for the iPhone 11, 11 Pro and 11 Max Pro, …

Snapchat and Instagram were both struggling on Monday afternoon, with users unable to send chats. Tests of both apps showed everything else working — on Snapchat you could send snaps and see stories and on Instagram you could view your feed and stories and send pictures.  Snapchat confirmed it was completely back online as of around 3:30 p.m. PT. Snapchat …

Facebook recently removed a setting that controls how the company uses facial recognition on photos posted to the social network. It used to be that you’d just turn on a setting to identify and tag yourself and your friends. Now, Facebook will automatically scan your photos to suggest people you can tag based on who’s in your photo. It’ll also send alerts if …

Shelby Ruth, a 20-year-old Canadian, started online dating because it was a quick way to meet new people. So when Facebook launched its new dating feature in Canada last year, she signed up because the social network made it easy to do. Compared with Tinder, Ruth noticed, users share more profile information on Facebook Dating. But there are also downsides. …

There are a lot of efforts trying to rein in advertising tech that tracks you online, and the newest option is coming from the ad industry itself. The IAB Tech Lab, a partner to the Interactive Advertising Bureau that has long represented online ad companies, proposed a new digital token on Wednesday designed to offer a better balance between advertisers’ …

Facebook is considering a test to hide likes on News Feed posts. The company already tested a similar move on Instagram in August as a way to help break users’ fixation with getting likes on their pictures.  Data miner Jane Manchun Wong discovered that Facebook is experimenting with the change in its Android app Monday. The company said Monday it’s considering …

Mozilla has switched on Firefox’s tracking protection feature for everyone on Windows and Android, dialing up its effort to protect privacy from website publishers and advertisers that would like to keep tabs on your online behavior. Mozilla enabled tracking protection for new Firefox users in June, but now it’s on for everyone, the nonprofit said Tuesday. Tracking protection is all …

Minecraft is getting an artificial intelligence assistant, with Facebook and MIT working on the project. The goal is to develop an AI system that can multitask well instead of being “superhuman” at just one activity, MIT Technology Review said Thursday in a blog post. Minecraft has over 90 million monthly players and just celebrated its 10th anniversary. Also coming soon …