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The world’s largest NFT platform, Opensea, is cutting 20 percent of its workforce. The information comes directly from CEO Devin, who tweeted a screenshot of a Slack message he'd sent to the entire company staff Thursday. Finzer blamed the economic instability around both crypto specifically and the economy broadly for the layoffs. The cuts, he wrote, would prepare the company in the event of a prolonged downturn.

“The changes we’re making today put us in a position to maintain multiple years of runway under various crypto winter scenarios (5 years at the current volume), and give us high confidence that we only have to go through this process once."

Since Opensea doesn’t disclose the number of its employees, it’s unclear exactly how many people are impacted by the cuts. TechCrunchnoted that the company’s LinkedIn page indicates it has 769 employees, which would mean roughly 150 people lost their jobs. In the same Slack message, Finzer states the impacted staffers will get "generous severance" and healthcare coverage into 2023.

In January the company raised $300 million in venture capital funding, which Finzer said it would use to hire 90 new employees and establish a fund for creators. Finzer made no mention of the new investor dollars in his memo to employees.

Opensea joins a growing group of prominent crypto giants who have undergone layoffs this summer. Coinbase cut more than 1,100 jobs last month, also citing the crypto winter and tough economy. Also in June, BlockFi laid off roughly 20 percent of its staff (or around 200 people) and Crypto.com laid off 260 workers — only months after it signed a $700 million deal for naming rights to the Staples Center in Los Angeles.

Wordle players who can’t resist posting their scores on social media to show off their verbal smarts can now subject friends to this behavior in-person. Hasbro and New York Times Games announced a physical adaptation of the online word game phenomenon to be called Wordle: The Party Game, designed to be played with multiple players or teams.

Each round of Wordle: The Party Game begins with one player (the so-called “Wordle Host”) who writes down a secret word. The rest of the players will be given six tries to guess it, much like the online version. Players who take fewer attempts to guess the secret word will earn less points, and the player with the least points at the end of the game wins. The game comes with three Wordle boards, a secret word board for the host and dry-erase markers There’s also a set of physical green and yellow tiles that mimic the ones used in the game.

The board game will cost $19.99, and is available to pre-order today at Amazon, Target and Hasbro’s online store. Wordle: The Party Game is expected to hit stores in October, which will also be the one-year anniversary of the online game's release to the public. Since its debut, the strangely addictive word game has been purchased by the New York Times and inspired a number of spin-offs, including Tradle, which has players identify countries by their exports and Heardle, a guessing game for popular songs. Earlier this week, Spotify purchased Heardle for an undisclosed sum.

It's been just over two years since we learned that EA was working on the first entry in the Skate series since 2010's Skate 3. Although the publisher isn't quite ready to announce the release window, it revealed some more details, including the fact the game is just called Skate.

It's a free-to-play live service title with microtransactions, though there will not be any pay-to-win elements or loot boxes. You won't need to fork over cash to unlock areas of the map (the action is set in a new location called San Vansterdam) and there are no paid gameplay advantages. "We are taking inspiration from games like Apex Legends or other popular titles that are free to play, where spending money is totally optional, and it’s mostly about cosmetics and convenience," Isabelle Mocquard, head of product management at EA, said in a video update. 

EA plans to support Skate for years to come with additional gameplay features, balance changes, more content and seasonal events. "We're in this for the long haul. That means we’re not an iterative title," creative director Chris “Cuz” Parry said. "There won’t be a Skate 5 through 10. We won’t be pumping them out all the time."

The publisher invited fans to playtest "pre-, pre-, pre-alpha software" and provide feedback to help make the game as good as it possibly can be. It will soon welcome more players to try early versions of the game through an insider program.

EA opened a new studio in Vancouver called Full Circle to take the reins on Skate, though it's a mostly remote team with developers based all over North America. Some veterans of the Skate franchise are on board too, including Parry.

Skate will be available on PlayStation and Xbox (including the last-gen consoles), and the series will make its debut on PC. Full Circle is also working on a mobile version, which is in the early stages of development. There will be cross-play and cross-progression across all platforms as well.

Facebook is testing giving users the ability to create up to five profiles on the platform, a major change to its longstanding policy that only allows people to have a single account and identity on the service. The upcoming test was reported byBloomberg, which notes that it’s Facebook’s latest ploy to stave off declining engagement, particularly among younger users.

A spokesperson for Meta confirmed the test. “To help people tailor their experience based on interests and relationships, we’re testing a way for people to have more than one profile tied to a single Facebook account,” the spokesperson said. “Anyone who uses Facebook must continue to follow our rules.”

It’s not clear how big the initial test will be, or if Facebook plans to eventually make it available more widely. If it does, it could significantly alter the dynamics of how people interact on the social network. For one, it would make it easier for people to maintain different personas on the platform, or create separate pages targeted for different friend groups or interests. It’s also a major shift from Facebook’s longtime policy of requiring “real names.” 

Unlike Instagram, which allows users to create multiple accounts and doesn’t require them to use their real names, Facebook has had strict — and oftencontroversial — rules about users’ identities, regularly suspending users it catches using multiple accounts. In some cases, the service will even ask users to verify the name on their profile by providing a copy of an official I.D.

But users who have access to multiple profiles will now only need to use their real name on their main profile. Additional profiles will be able to use nicknames or other identities as long as they don’t break other rules, like those barring impersonation.

That the company is now changing its approach to users’ names and identities is a sign of just how important it is for Facebook to reverse recent declines in engagement. Mark Zuckerberg had said the platform will reorient itself to be more appealing to younger users in an effort to better compete with TikTok and other rivals. The app is also planning a significant redesign that will emphasize recommendations more than posts from friends.

Social networks still aren't doing much to safeguard LGBTQ people against abuse, according to GLAAD. Bloombergnotes the media monitoring organization has published its second-ever Social Media Safety Index, and has given failing scores to Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube after examining their LGBTQ-oriented features and policies. While GLAAD found that all the platforms had strong policy commitments and barred hateful ads, their actions generally didn't live up to those goals.

None of the five platforms did enough to restrict anti-LGBTQ content, the watchdog said. They also fell short on offering gender pronoun options, providing adequate moderator training, minimizing takedowns of legitimate content, banning non-consensual ad targeting and protecting the privacy of gender identity and sexual orientation data. Only TikTok and Twitter adequately barred targeted deadnaming and misgendering (maliciously using a trans or non-binary person's pre-transition name or gender), while Facebook and Instagram were the only ones making sufficient promises to shield LGBTQ users from harm.

GLAAD made recommendations in the wake of the findings. It called for more policies against practices like deadnaming and unwanted ad targeting. The organization also wanted Facebook to outline how it enforces its LGBTQ policies, and YouTube to disclose how it minimized wrongful demonetization and content bans. There was also pressure on TikTok to publicly promise to diversify its workforce.

All five social networks defended their current approaches in statements to Bloomberg. Facebook and Instagram parent Meta said it barred dehumanizing and violent anti-LGBTQ material, and will pull misgendering content upon request. Twitter said it already worked with GLAAD and was discussing the new recommendations. YouTube parent Google stressed that it made "significant progress" in pulling harmful videos, while TikTok highlighted both its anti-hate policies and recent tools to promote kinder comments.

As Bloomberg pointed out, though, there are still significant gaps in these protections. GLAAD is hoping the Safety Index will pressure companies to act, and that regulators will step in to demand greater accountability.

Hulu has ordered a docuseries inspired by the influential hip-hop playlist RapCaviar from Spotify and Sony’s IPC studio, reportedThe Hollywood Reporter. RapCaviar Presents will feature the perspectives of artists like Tyler, the Creator, Jack Harlow, Megan Thee Stallion, Doja Cat and Saweetie. The show has no official release date yet, but is expected to debut on Hulu sometime later this year.

For those who are unfamiliar with RapCaviar, both the 14-million follower strong playlist and companion podcast are known for launching the careers of once unknown artists such as Migos, Lil Uzi Vert and Kyle. For emerging hip-hop artists, getting a track featured on RapCaviar can quickly result in millions of streams and draw the attention of record labels. The creator of the playlist is Tuma Basa, Spotify’s global head of hip hop programming, who hand-picks the music himself.

Filmmaker Karam Gill (Supervillain: The Making of Tekashi 6ix9ine) will serve as executive producer and creative director of the docuseries. The co-EPs are Av Accius and Marcus A. Clarke. The showrunner is Steve Rivo, the writer of the Showtime film about the world’s longest-running music video, You’re Watching Video Music Box.

If the appetite for original programming about music is strong enough, we could possibly see even more documentaries and shows in other genres from Spotify in the future. There’s even a fictionalized series about Spotify in the works. The Playlist, a scripted series about the music streaming service's origin story, will debut on Netflix later this year.

Many creators use a control pad like Elgato's Stream Deck to help them manage livestreams and create art. Razer is looking to make moves in the space with its own control pad, the Stream Controller.

The company is working with Loupedeck on the device, which seems to be a rebadged version of the Loupedeck Live with Razer's marketing muscle behind it. The Stream Controller has 12 haptic switchblade keys, six analog dials and eight physical buttons, all of which you can customize using Loupedeck's software on Windows or macOS. You can use the controls to change all kinds of settings (such as layouts and scenes) on the fly, launch apps and even manage smart home devices.

Razer

The dials help the Stream Controller stand out from similar devices. They allow for fine adjustment of certain settings, such as lighting and volume, so you might use it as an audio mixer to balance out your microphone, gameplay and background music. You can find plugins, profiles and icon packs on the marketplace and create your own actions and macros.

You'll be able to set up multiple control layouts (called workspaces) for dedicated purposes and map those to the eight physical buttons or swipe between them. Digital artists who stream on Twitch for fun could use the Stream Controller for both work and pleasure, since they can switch to a separate workspace with completely different functions. Or you might use the Stream Controller to control music playback during the day and help you edit YouTube or TikTok videos at night.

You'll pay a premium for the extra utility of the dials and other functions, though. At $270, the Stream Controller is more expensive than the $150 Stream Deck. Razer will start shipping the device this fall.

Meta has released its first yearly human rights report, and you might not be shocked by the angle the company is taking. As CNBCnotes, the 83-page document outlines the Facebook parent's handling of human rights issues during 2020 and 2021, with a strong focus on justifying the company's strategies for combatting misinformation and harassment. Meta said that its approaches to fighting health misinformation (in light of COVID-19), implicit threats and similar problems reflected a "balance" between freedom of expression and other rights, such as life, security and elections.

The report also outlined Meta's bid to prevent rights abuses with its Ray-Ban Stories smart glasses. The company said studied both the privacy risks and potential harms to vulnerable groups, such as women, children and minorities. Meta touted its privacy protections elsewhere, including end-to-end WhatsApp message encryption that now includes chat backups.

The text won't satisfy critics of Meta's responses to misinformation and violence in India, however. The social media giant only provided a summary of an independent human rights impact assessment for India, noting that law firm Foley Hoag found the "potential" for Facebook, WhatsApp and other platforms to be linked to incendiary speech and safety threats. Meta made changes that included stronger local moderation teams and crackdowns against coordinated harm and hate speech. The company didn't provide the full report, though, and didn't commit to implementing Foley Hoag's recommendations.

There are other holes. The India study didn't touch on allegations of biased content moderation. You also won't find any meaningful discussion of the metaverse — Meta didn't announce its pivot until October 2021, leaving little opportunity for AR and VR to make an impact on the human rights report. Any substantial update will have to wait until 2023. Even so, it's notable that Meta is acknowledging rights concerns more directly than it has in the past.

Instagram has been building out its creator subscription program this year and now it's slotting a couple of key pieces into place. Creators can now share subscriber-only feed posts. Those Reels and photos will have a purple badge with a crown symbol to make them stand out. Instagram head Adam Mosseri said this was the feature he's had the most requests about from creators in the program.

Also new is a subscriber chat option. Influencers can hop into group DMs with up to 30 subscribers, perhaps in an attempt to persuade them to spend more time chatting on Instagram instead of, say, Discord. The group chats are powered by Messenger and creators can start them from their inbox or a Story. They'll automatically end after 24 hours. Fans will have access to a subscriber home tab on a creator's profile as well. Paywalled content will be centralized there, including photos, Reels and archived Lives.

Mosseri says tens of thousands of creators in the US now have access to the subscription program, which enables them to charge fans up to $100 per month to access exclusive content. Instagram started testing creator subscriptions in January with paywalled Stories and livestreams. Subscribers also get a purple badge that appears next to their usernames on comments and in DMs.

Parent company Meta is offering creators other incentives to build an audience and share content on Facebook and Instagram. Last month, Meta said it won't charge a commission on earnings creators make through the apps until 2024. The company previously stated it wouldn't take a cut of their Facebook and Instagram incomes through the end of this year.

Instagram

It may be too early for you to think about the upcoming school year, but it can’t hurt to get a jump-start on planning. We don’t mean to take away from the myriad beach days and barbecues you have planned for the rest of the season – we merely want to help you prep for school as efficiently as possible, so you’re not scrambling as we get closer to that return date.

Enter our annual back-to-school gift guide, where we curate the best gadgets available to help you write those term papers, ace those exams and study more efficiently. As always, we have a slew of laptop recommendations for all kinds of students, including budding streamers who need a laptop suitable for both work and play. Plus, we have lists of our favorite streaming hardware, dorm room essentials and even free services that will come in clutch for students. We’ve also collected the best student discounts we were able to find from all over the web, including the likes of Apple, Samsung, Amazon, Microsoft and others.

In addition, this year we dove deeper into students’ productivity needs. If you’ve wanted to clean up your Google Drive files and folders but have no idea where to start, we’ve got you covered. And if you’ve ever driven yourself to the brink trying to edit (or even worse, sign) and PDF properly, one of our guides can help you out.

We know returning to school isn’t the highlight of everyone’s year. You may even feel more anxious about it this time around than before, for a variety of reasons. We hope our product recommendations, how-tos and guides can alleviate some of that stress and help you live your best academic life.