Do you feel guilty for playing a game's single-player campaign on release day when all your friends are jumping into the multiplayer mode? You won't have that burden with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II. Activision has revealed that pre-order customers can play the MW2 story starting October 20th, a week before the game officially debuts on October 28th. You can get the solo content out of the way before you spend all your hours online.

As mentioned before, pre-order purchasers also get two-day early access to MW2's open beta sessions as well as instant use of special character and weapon skins. Splurge on the Vault Edition and you also get a Battle Pass for the first season as well as characters and cosmetics accessible in the open beta, Warzone and even the original Modern Warfare remake.

Activision is promising more details for MW2 and the next Warzone (including its new mobile version) at an hours-long Call of Duty event on September 15th. However, the advance access to single-player gameplay shows the company's priorities. While it's still committed to furthering the series' plot, it sees this latest game as the foundation for a new multiplayer experience.

Despite some missteps with Instagram, Meta is marching forward with its plan to make Reels a bigger component of its apps in an attempt to better compete with TikTok. It's rolling out several updates to Reels, particularly on Facebook's side. For one thing, everyone can now cross-post Reels from Instagram to Facebook with the tap of a button. Meta suggests that this may help creators to grow their audiences on the apps and monetize their content across both platforms.

In addition, Facebook now offers a way to automatically create Reels using Stories you have already shared. The idea is to help folks create Reels with little additional effort. On top of that, Facebook has gained more Reels remix options, which Meta previously introduced to Instagram. You can now show your video after the original Reel that you're remixing in addition to having the side-by-side option.

Elsewhere, the Add Yours sticker that became popular in Stories is coming to Reels on Instagram and Facebook. The idea is to nudge other users to take part in a trend. If you create your own Add Yours prompt, every Reel that uses the sticker will appear on a dedicated page. The person who created the prompt will be displayed prominently on the page as well. So, if an Add Yours trend takes off and you're behind it, that could help you to grow your audience.

Meanwhile, the Facebook Stars tipping feature will soon be available to all eligible creators on the platform. Creators will also have access to more Reels insights via Creator Studio (with metrics including reach, minutes viewed and average watch time) to help them figure out what content is working for their audiences.

Meta has a long way to go to catch up to TikTok, but perhaps these features will help, especially since engagement with Reels is growing across both platforms. TikTok is gobbling up almost every other social media app's lunch. A recent Pew Research report suggested that 16 percent of US teens "almost constantly" use the app, compared with 10 percent for Instagram and two percent for Facebook. 

Less than two months before Brazil’s 2022 election, a report from international NGO Global Witness found Facebook parent company Meta “appallingly” failed to detect false political ads. The organization tested Facebook’s ability to catch election-related misinformation by submitting 10 ads.

Five of the advertisements featured blatantly false information about the election. For instance, some mentioned the wrong election date and methods citizens could use to cast their votes. The other five ads sought to discredit Brazil’s electoral process, including the electronic voting system the country has used since 1996. Of the 10 ads, Facebook only rejected one initially but later approved it without any further action from Global Witness.

In addition to their content, the ads had other red flags Global Witness contends Meta should have caught. To start, the non-profit did not verify the account it used to submit the advertisements through the company’s ad authorizations process. “This is a safeguard that Meta has in place to prevent election interference, but we were easily able to bypass this,” Global Witness said.

Additionally, the organization submitted the ads from London and Nairobi. In doing so, it did not need to use a VPN or local payment system to mask its identity. Moreover, the ads did not feature a “paid for by” disclaimer, which Meta notes all “social issue” advertisements in Brazil must include by June 22, 2022.

“What’s quite clear from the results of this investigation and others is that their content moderation capabilities and the integrity systems that they deploy in order to mitigate some of the risk during election periods, it’s just not working,” Jon Lloyd, senior advisor at Global Witness, told The Associated Press.

Meta did not immediately respond to Engadget’s request for comment. A Meta spokesperson told The Associated Press it has “prepared extensively” for Brazil’s upcoming election. “We’ve launched tools that promote reliable information and label election-related posts, established a direct channel for the Superior Electoral Court (Brazil’s electoral authority) to send us potentially-harmful content for review, and continue closely collaborating with Brazilian authorities and researchers,” the company said.

This isn’t the first time Global Witness has found Facebook’s election safeguards wanting. Earlier this year, the non-profit conducted a similar investigation ahead of Kenya’s recent election and reached many of the same conclusions. Then, as now, Global Witness called on Meta to strengthen and increase its content moderation and integrity systems.

Spotify is trying another method to get people more engaged with the platform while tapping into the power of social recommendations. It's prompting some users in Vietnam to record a playlist reaction with their voice. This clip will be shared as a podcast episode.

Those who see the prompt, which a Reddit user spotted, can create a voice reaction in one go or piecemeal with shorter clips by pausing the recording. They can edit their captures and add background music. They'll be able to link to the playlist before posting their episode.

Spotify confirmed to TechCrunch that it's running the test, though it didn't reveal how it will moderate the recordings or whether it plans to roll out the feature more broadly. Theoretically, this could lead to people dabbling in audio creation for the first time, but whether people actually want to hit the record button to react to a playlist remains to be seen.

Spotify has been testing an in-app podcast recording option off and on for years. In a recent trial that took place in New Zealand, it published podcast episodes that a user recorded to that person's profile. That seems a smart way for the company to take advantage of friend connections on Spotify — a playlist recommendation from a buddy is perhaps more effective than one suggested by the algorithm. Recording a reaction podcast to offer a recommendation seems unnecessary, though.

Disney's D23 Expo takes place in just a few weeks and one panel that will be worth paying attention to is all about games. It takes place at 4PM ET on September 9th and it will feature several Disney, Marvel, Lucasfilm and 20th Century projects.

The first Disney and Marvel Games Showcase will include new game announcements. It will also offer a look at something new for Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, as well as updates on upcoming titles Disney Dreamlight Valley and Marvel’s Midnight Suns. On top of all that, we'll get an early peek at a Marvel action-adventure title that's in the works at Amy Hennig’s studio, Skydance New Media.

The showcase will stream live on the D23, Disney and Marvel YouTube, Twitter and Facebook accounts, as well as on Marvel's Twitch channel. After the showcase, D23 attendees will be able to view a presentation that features developer interviews and special guests.

Ahead of Andor’s debut on September 21st, Disney will bring Rogue One: A Star Wars Story back to theaters. The 2016 film will return to IMAX screens in the US on August 26th, along with an “exclusive look” at the upcoming Disney+ series. Details on the preview are sparse, but it’s likely to expand on the most recent Andor trailer Disney shared on August 1st. Either way, Rogue One’s rerelease will give Star Wars fans a chance to rewatch the film before Diego Luna reprises his role as Cassian Andor.

Set five years before the events of Rogue One, itself a prequel to A New Hope, Andor tells the story of how the rebellion began. Disney is billing the series as a spy thriller. With Andor, Diego Luna isn’t the only actor returning to the franchise. Genevieve O’Reilly and Forest Whitaker reprise their roles as Mon Mothma and Saw Gerrera. The series was originally scheduled to debut on August 31st, but Disney pushed it back to give more time for She-Hulk: Attorney at Law to find an audience. The first three episodes of Andor will debut simultaneously, with subsequent episodes to follow every Wednesday.

Rogue One is widely considered one of the better films to come out of the Disney Star Wars era. The movie made more than $1 billion during its original box office run and even earned two Academy Awards. If you don’t live near a theater with an IMAX projector, you can watch the film on Disney+.

In the first days of social media, to build a personal brand online you mostly just needed a basic working knowledge of html. In 2022, however, the influencer marketing industry's reach is estimated at around $16.4 billion. With so much money to be made, it's little wonder that an entire support ecosystem has sprung up to help get the next generation of PewDiePies camera-ready. In the excerpt below from her new book examining the culture and business of online influencing, Break the Internet, Olivia Yallop enrolls in a summer gaming influencer camp for teens.

Scribe US

Excerpted from Break the Internet: In Pursuit of Influenceby Olivia Yallop. Published by Scribe UK. Copyright © 2022 by Olivia Yallop. All rights reserved.

Beginning the course bright and early on a Monday morning in August stirs memories from classrooms past, as the students — myself, plus a small group of animated pre-teen boys hailing from across the UK — go around and make our introductions: an interesting fact about ourselves, our favourite foods, two truths and a lie. A pandemic-proofed schedule means we are learning remotely, in my case prostrated on my parents’ sofa. Once logged on, we meet our course coach Nathan, an upbeat, relentlessly patient Scottish instructor with a homegrown YouTube channel of his own, on which he reviews electronic synthesisers and (he reveals privately to me) vlogs whisky-tasting.

Twenty minutes into our induction, I realise I am already out of my depth: I have accidentally landed in a class of aspiring YouTube gamers. Within the influencer landscape, gaming is a microcosm complete with its own language and lore, each new game franchise spawning an expansive universe of characters, weaponry, codes, and customs. Whilst the students are happily chatting multiplayer platform compatibility, I am stealthily googling acronyms.

Far from the bedroom-dwelling pastime of the shy and socially reclusive, as it has been previously painted, gaming is a sprawling community activity on social media platforms. Over 200 million YouTube users watch gaming videos on a daily basis; 50 billion hours were viewed in 2018 alone, and two of the five largest channels on YouTube belong to gamers. And that’s just YouTube — the largest dedicated gamer streaming platform is Twitch, a 3.8m-strong community, which has an average of 83,700 synchronous streams — with 1.44 million viewers — taking place at any time.

Just a fraction of these numbers are users actually playing games themselves. Gaming content usually consists of viewing other people play: pre-recorded commentary following skilful players as they navigate their way through various levels or livestreamed screenshares to which viewers can tune in to watch their heroes play in real time. According to Google’s own data, 48 per cent of YouTube gaming viewers say they spend more time watching gaming videos on YouTube than actually playing games themselves.

If, like me, you find yourself wondering why, you’re probably in the wrong demographic. My classmate Rahil, a die-hard fan of Destiny 2, broke it down: ‘What makes these content creators so good is that they are very confident in what they do in gaming, but they are also funny, they are entertaining to watch. That’s why they have so many followers.’

Watching other people play video games is a way to level up your skills, engage with the community’s most hyped gaming rivalries, and feel connected to something beyond your console. Being a successful gaming influencer is also a way to get filthy rich. Video game voyeurism is a lucrative market, making internet celebrities of its most popular players, a string of incomprehensible handles that read to me like an inebriated keyboard smash but invoke wild-eyed delight in the eyes of my classmates: Markiplier, elrubiusOMG, JuegaGerman, A4, TheWillyrex, EeOneGuy, KwebbelKop, Fernanfloo, AM3NIC.

PewDiePie — aka 30-year-old Felix Kjellberg, the only gamer noobs like me have ever heard of — has 106m followers and is estimated to earn around $8 million per month, including more than $6.8 million from selling merchandise and more than $1.1 million in advertising. Blue-haired streamer Ninja, aka Detroit-born 29-year- old Tyler Blevins, is the most-followed gamer on Twitch, and signed a $30 million contract with Microsoft to game exclusively on their now- defunct streaming service Mixer. UK YouTube gaming collective The Sidemen upload weekly vlogs to their shared channel in which they compete on FIFA, mess around, prank each other, order £1,000 takeaways, and play something called ‘IRL Tinder’, living out the fever dream of a million teenage boys across the internet. For many tweens, getting paid to play as a YouTube gamer is a hallowed goal, and each of my classmates is keen to make Minecraft a full-time occupation. I decide to keep quiet about my abortive attempt at a beauty tutorial.

Class kicks off with an inspirational slideshow titled ‘INFLUENCERS: FROM 0 TO MILLIONS’. My laptop screen displays a Wall of Fame of top YouTubers smiling smugly to camera: OG American vlogger Casey Neistat, Canadian comedian Lilly Singh, PewDiePie, beauty guru Michelle Phan, and actor, activist, and author Tyler Oakley, each underlined by a subscriber count that outnumbers the population of most European countries. ‘Everyone started off where you are today,’ says Nathan enthusiastically. ‘A laptop and a smartphone — that’s all they had. Everybody here started with zero subscribers.’ The class is rapt. I try to imagine my own face smiling onscreen between professional prankster Roman Atwood (15.3m subscribers) and viral violin performer Lindsey Stirling (12.5m subscribers). Somehow, I can’t.

Nathan hits play on early comedy vlogger nigahiga’s first ever upload — a 2007 viral video sketch entitled ‘How to Be Ninja’ that now has 54,295,178 views — and then a later video from 2017, ‘Life of a YouTuber’. ‘Look at that — 21.5M subscribers!’ Nathan taps on the follower count under the video. ‘It didn’t happen overnight. It took a year, 12 months of putting up content with 50 views. Don’t get disheartened. Take every sub, every view as a...’ he mimes celebrating like the winner of a round of Fortnite.

Thanks to its nostalgic pixelation and condensed frame ratio, watching ‘How to Be Ninja’ creates the impression that we’re sitting in a history class studying archival footage from a distant past: Late Noughties Net Culture (2007, colourised). In a poorly lit, grainy home video that feels like a prelapsarian time capsule, two teenage boys act out a hammy sketch in which they transform into martial arts experts, including off-tempo miming, questionable jump cuts, and a tantalising glimpse of old-school YouTube — running on Internet Explorer — that flies over the heads of my Gen Z classmates. The sketch feels like two friends messing around with a camera at the weekend; it’s almost as if they don’t know they’re being watched.

In the second video an older and now more-polished Higa — complete with designer purple highlights in his hair — breezily addresses his multi-million-strong fanbase in a nine-minute HD monologue that’s punctuated by kooky 3D animation and links to his supporting social media channels. ‘I am in one of the final stages of my YouTube career,’ he says, ‘and my YouTube life, so …’ The camera cuts to reveal his extensive video set-up, professional lights, and a team of three clutching scripts, clipboards, cameras, and a boom mic behind the scenes, all celebrating exuberantly: ‘That means we can get out of here right?’ asks one. ‘Yeah, it’s really cramped back here…’ says another, ‘I have to poop so bad.’

‘What’s the difference between these two videos?’ Nathan prompts us. ‘What changed?’ The answers roll in quickly, students reeling off a list of ameliorations with ease: better lighting, better equipment, a better thumbnail, slicker editing, a more professional approach, background music, higher audio quality, and a naturalistic presentation style that at least appears to be ad-libbed.

‘What makes a good video more generally?’ asks Nathan. ‘What are the key elements?’ When he eventually pulls up the next slide, it turns out Nathan wants us to discuss passion, fun, originality, and creativity: but the class has other ideas. ‘I heard YouTube doesn’t like videos lower than ten minutes,’ offered Alex. ‘There’s many things that they don’t like,’ Lucas corrects him. ‘The algorithm is very complicated, and it’s always changing. They used to support “let’s plays” [a popular gaming stream format] back in 2018, and then they changed it, and a lot of Minecraft channels died.’ Rahil pipes up: ‘They find as many ways as possible to scrutinise your video … if you do many small things wrong, you get less money, even though YouTube is paid the same money by the advertisers. So you should never swear in your videos.’ ‘No, demonetisation is different,’ corrects Fred.

There is something fascinating and incongruous about watching pre-teens reel off the details of various influencer revenue models with the enthusiasm of a seasoned social media professional. The fluency with which they exchange terms I’m more accustomed to encountering on conference calls and in marketing decks is a startling reminder of the generational gulf between us: though they may be students, they’re not exactly beginners on the internet.

As the conversation quickly descends into technocratic one- upmanship, Nathan attempts to steer our analysis back to entry level. ‘Once you reach 1,000 subscribers,’ he enthusiastically explains to the class, ‘that means you can monetise your channel and have ads on it.’ A heated debate about the intricacies of YouTube monetisation ensues. Nathan is corrected by one of his students, before another pipes up to undercut them both, and suddenly everyone’s talking all at once: ‘Most YouTubers make money from sponsorships, not advertising revenue, anyway,’ offers one student. There is a pause. ‘And merch,’ he adds, ‘the MrBeast hoodies are really cool.’

‘Okay then,’ says Nathan brightly, shifting the slide forward to reveal a list of attributes for creating successful content that begins, ‘Attitude, Energy, Passion, Smile’, ‘what about some of these…’

Looking at my notes, I realise Nathan’s original question, ‘What makes a good video?’, has become something else entirely: what does YouTube consider to be a good video, and thus reward accordingly? It’s a small elision, admittedly, but significant; good is whatever YouTube thinks is good, and interpretations outside this algorithmic value system aren’t entertained. His prompt about creative possibilities has been heard as a question about optimising the potential of a commodity (the influencer) in an online marketplace. ‘It’s all about value,’ he continues, unwittingly echoing my thoughts, ‘what value does your video bring to the YouTube community? How are you going to stand out from all the other people doing it?’

This cuts to the heart of criticism against influencer training courses like this one, and others which have sprung up in LA, Singapore, and Paris in recent years: that it’s ethically inappropriate to coach young people to commodify themselves, that it’s encouraging children to spend more time online, that it’s corrupting childhoods. Influencers and industry professionals rolled their eyes or responded with a mixture of horror and intrigue when I’d mentioned the Fire Tech programme in passing. ‘That’s disgusting,’ said one agent, ‘way too young.’ (Privately, I thought this was an inconsistent position, given she represented a mumfluencer with a family of four.) ‘I respect it,’ said a Brighton-based beauty guru, ‘but I would never personally make that choice for my kids.’ ‘Crazy times we live in,’ offered a NYC-based fashion influencer, before admitting, ‘for real, though, I kind of wish I had had that when I was younger.’

If you visit a website you see on Facebook and Instagram, you've likely noticed that you're not redirected to your browser of choice but rather a custom in-app browser. It turns out that those browsers inject javascript code into each website visited, allowing parent Meta to potentially track you across websites, researcher Felix Krause has discovered. 

"The Instagram app injects their tracking code into every website shown, including when clicking on ads, enabling them [to] monitor all user interactions, like every button and link tapped, text selections, screenshots, as well as any form inputs, like passwords, addresses and credit card numbers," Krause said in a blog post. 

His research focused on the iOS versions of Facebook and Instagram. That's key because Apple allows users to opt in or out of app tracking when they first open an app, via its App Tracking Transparency (ATT) introduced in iOS 14.5. Meta has previously said that the feature was "a headwind on our business 2022... on the order of $10 billion." 

Meta said that the injected tracking code obeyed users preferences on ATT. "The code allows us to aggregate user data before using it for targeted advertising or measurement purposes," a spokesperson told The Guardian. "We do not add any pixels. Code is injected so that we can aggregate conversion events from pixels. For purchases made through the in-app browser, we seek user consent to save payment information for the purposes of autofill."

Krause noted that Facebook isn't necessarily using the javascript injection to collect sensitive data. However, if the apps opened a users' preferred browser like Safari or Firefox, there would be no way to do a similar javascript injection on any secure site. By contrast, the approach used by the Instagram and Facebook in-app browsers "works for any website, no matter whether it's encrypted or not," he said. 

According to Krause's research, WhatsApp doesn't modify third-party websites in a similar way. As such, he suggests that Meta should do the same with Facebook and Instagram, or just use Safari or another browser to open links. "It's what's best for the user, and the right thing to do." For more, check out the summary of his findings here. 

Facebook's crackdown on hate speech apparently has room for improvement. As The Washington Postexplains, the non-profit watchdog Tech Transparency Project (TTP) has published a study indicating that white supremacist groups still have a significant presence on the social network. Over 80 of these racist organizations have a presence on Facebook, some of which the company has already labeled as "dangerous organizations" it normally bans. Researchers found 119 pages and 20 groups, including 24 pages Facebook auto-generated when users listed white supremacist groups as employers or interests.

Searches were also problematic, according to the watchdog. Facebook displayed ads next to searches for white supremacist groups, even when those outfits were on the social site's blocklist. Recommendations steered visitors to other hate pages, and Facebook's tactic of redirecting users to pro-tolerance groups was only effective for 14 percent out of 226 searches. Some searches for supremacists displayed ads for Black churches. This could effectively identify targets for extremists, TTP said.

In a statement to Engadget, Meta said it "immediately" began removing ads from searches linked to banned groups. It also said it was fixing the issue with a "small number" of auto-generated pages. The company further vowed to keep working with outside experts to "stay ahead" of hate and other extremist content. You can read the full statement below.

The survival of these groups on Facebook isn't completely surprising. University of Michigan associate professor Libby Hemphill told The Post that hate groups are increasingly aware of how to dodge content restrictions. Online platforms are frequently scrambling to adapt, and the TTP study suggests they're not always successful.

Even so, the findings add to Meta's headaches. They come just weeks after GLAAD accused Meta brands of doing too little to protect LGBTQ users, and relatively soon after whistleblower Frances Haugen said Facebook's algorithmic content filtering only caught a "tiny minority" of hate speech. There's plenty of pressure to ramp up anti-hate measures, and it's not yet clear how well the latest fixes will help.

"All 270 groups that Meta has designated as white supremacist organizations are banned from our platform. We invest extensively in technology, people, and research to keep our platforms safe. We immediately resolved an issue where ads were appearing in searches for terms related to banned organizations and we are also working to fix an auto generation issue, which incorrectly impacted a small number of pages. We will continue to work with outside experts and organizations in an effort to stay ahead of violent, hateful, and terrorism-related content and remove such content from our platforms."

Spotify's Soundtrap is now more useful for artists who want to make music with distant friends. The online digital audio workstation (DAW) now has an opt-in beta for a live collaboration feature that lets multiple people make and see changes to a tune in real time. If you want to add a sick beat, you don't have to tap a sync button to ensure everyone hears it.

Another opt-in beta adds an (arguably overdue) auto-save feature to preserve your work. If you'd rather not participate in any tests, you can now leave Google Docs-style comments on tracks to guide your fellow composers.

Soundtrap starts at $10 per month, or $8 per month if you pay yearly. That's not as affordable as a collab-friendly alternative like Soundation ($5 per month when paid yearly), but it could make the DAW more compelling if you crave unlimited projects (Soundation's entry paid tier is limited to 10) or simply want Spotify's resources at your disposal.