Your favorite podcast might soon have an official, easy-to-find forum. Meta has teamed up with podcast giant Acast to offer exclusive Facebook Groups for podcasts using Acast+ paid subscriptions. Link your membership to your Facebook account and you'll have a ready-made place to discuss the latest episode with fellow fans — you won't have to hunt for a message board or use social network hashtags. You'll also get exclusives like livestreams and Q&A sessions with show hosts.

The two companies didn't say when subscriber groups would be available. Several podcasts are involved in a testing period, including the beauty show Fat Mascara. The price you'll pay will likely vary, but podcasters can enable Acast+ for free. 

Meta has struggled to compete in the podcasting realm, and began shutting down services in early June. The deal keeps the company involved in the category, however. The social media company can benefit from the rise of paid podcasts (through increased use of its services) without having to pour resources into creating or distributing content. This is the first time a podcast company is using Facebook's new platform for Interoperable Subscriber Groups, but it might not be the last if Acast's partnership proves successful.

Twitter has finally shown off its long-rumored feature for long form writing. The company confirmed that it’s beginning to test a new “Notes” feature, which will allow writers to publish freeform content on Twitter without a character limit.

Notes are essentially blog posts that appear within Twitter without the typical limitations of a tweet. There are no character limits, and writers can embed photos, videos and other tweets within a Note. Writers can also share their Notes via tweets, and their published Notes will appear on their Twitter profiles.

Notes could significantly change how writers interact with their followers, and give them more flexibility than the typical tweetstorm. In a Note announcing the launch, Twitter’s editorial director Rembert Browne wrote that Notes are meant to give writers an alternative to the lengthy threads without having to publish writing elsewhere and share it back to Twitter. “Since the company's earliest days, writers have depended on Twitter to share their work, get noticed, be read, create conversation — everything but the actual writing,” Browne wrote. “With Notes, the goal is to fill in that missing piece and help writers find whatever type of success they desire.”

For now, the feature is available to a “small group of writers” from Canada, Ghana, the United Kingdom, and the United States, though the company says it will eventually expand the test group as it gathers feedback. Notes is part of a broader push by Twitter to build features for writers. The company also renamed Revue, the newsletter company it acquired last year, to Twitter Write. So far, it’s unclear how Revue newsletters may be incorporated into Notes.

Google News turned 20 this year, and it's getting a major redesign that reflects changing priorities in journalism. The newly launched News desktop revamp now prioritizes catching up on important stories. In addition to top stories and personalized picks, there's a particular focus on local news. That section is finally at the top of the page, and you can add multiple locations in case one city's coverage isn't enough.

The company is also bolstering its fact checking. Google News now shows the original claim next to a headline, along with fact checks (from independent sources) that show whether the claim holds up. You aren't locked into the topics Google chooses, either. Click a "customize" button in Your Topics (pictured below) and you can add, delete or reshuffle subjects to match your tastes.

Google

The reworked site also marks Google News' official return to Spain. Google dropped the local offering in December 2014 ahead of a law that would have required paying publishers to use their content, including headlines. A newspaper coalition pushed for Google to restore News, however, and Google announced plans for a revival last November following a Royal Decree that let Google negotiate licenses with individual publishers (in sync with the EU's European Copyright Directive) instead of having to pay all of them.

The updated site helps support the Google News Initiative, a long-running campaign to support newsrooms amid concerns the internet is eroding access to quality journalism. Accordingly, Google has started taking applications for a Global News Equity Fund that helps back news for minorities and underrepresented groups. They have until July 21st to apply for money. The tech firm is also handing out its first round of funding ($1 million) for a Data-Driven Reporting Project that assists communities with data-heavy investigations.

It's too early to say if the redesign will prove a success. It does give local news much higher priority than in the past, though (you previously had to scroll past multiple sections just to see it). And simply speaking, the new layout is overdue — the cleaner, more modern look is easier to digest. In theory, this could get more people to use Google's hub instead of visiting specific media outlets or relying on dedicated apps like Apple News.

An advocacy group is calling on Meta to allow Facebook users to list more than one romantic partner in their profiles. In a letter the Organization for Polyamory and Ethical Non-monogamy (OPEN) sent to the social media giant on Thursday, it said the current design of Facebook’s relationship status feature is “exclusionary” towards people who practice ethical non-monogamy. The group has asked that Meta allow users to tag all their romantic partners.

“At best, this restriction perpetuates the erasure and marginalization of non-monogamous relationships; at worst, it harms non-monogamous users by perpetuating social stigmas around the validity and authenticity of their relationships,” OPEN said.

A Meta spokesperson told The New York Times the company is reviewing the letter and noted that Facebook already allows users to mention on their profile that they’re in an “open relationship” with one or more people. The timing of the request may seem curious given Facebook’s declining daily userbase, but it’s in line with the growing number of people who find themselves in non-monogamous relationships. According to data cited by OPEN, about four to five percent of American adults practice ethical non-monogamy.

If you have a tendency to talk to people you don't know on LinkedIn, you may want to take extra care. According to a CNBC report, the company has acknowledged a "recent uptick of fraud on its platform," and this time the scams involve persuading users to make investments in cryptocurrency. It's been deemed as a "significant threat" by Sean Ragan, the FBI's special agent in charge of the San Francisco and Sacramento field offices in California, who spoke to the outlet.

CNBC said the schemes typically began with someone pretending to be a professional and reaching out to LinkedIn users. They would engage in small talk, offering to help users make money through crypto investments. First, they would tell their targets to go to an actual crypto investment platform, but "after gaining their trust over several months, tells them to move the investment to a site controlled by the fraudster." Thereafter, the money is "drained from the account."

According to victims interviewed by CNBC, the fact that they trusted LinkedIn as a platform for networking lent credibility to the investment offers. 

Ragan told CNBC that "the FBI has seen an increase in this particular investment fraud," which the outlet said "is different from a long-running scam in which the criminal pretends to show a romantic interest in the subject to persuade them to part with their money."

Linkedin

In a statement published yesterday, LinkedIn encouraged users to report suspicious profiles. The company's director of trust, privacy and equity Oscar Rodriguez told CNBC that "trying to identify what is fake and what is not fake is incredibly difficult."

LinkedIn's article urges users to "only connect with people you know and trust" and to "be wary of... people asking you for money who you don't know in person." The company added "This can include people asking you to send them money, cryptocurrency, or gift cards to receive a loan, prize, or other winnings."

It also lists "job postings that sound too good to be true or that ask you to pay anything upfront" and "romantic messages or gestures, which are not appropriate on our platform" as signs of potential fraud attempts.

The company isn't fully relying on its users reporting suspicious accounts as its only defense against scammers on its platform. "While our defenses catch the vast majority of abusive activity, our members can also help keep LinkedIn safe, trusted, and professional," Rodriguez wrote in the statement. LinkedIn also reported that "96% of detected fake accounts and 99.1% of spam and scams are caught and removed by our automated defenses."

While it’s no secret that social media shapes our political discourse, a new study by the Pew Research Center reveals to what extent. Nearly one in three tweets posted by American adults are political in nature, according to Pew’s analysis of a sample of a year’s worth of English-language tweets from US adults. But only eight percent of the original tweets Pew analyzed were political in nature, while more than 40 percent of retweets and quote tweets were classified as political. This shows that users are a lot more likely to share political content from a small group rather than create their own.

It’s important to note that the study analyzed tweets that were posted between May 2020 and May 2021 — a particularly tumultuous time period that included a US presidential election, a summer of political protests, a pandemic and the January 6 insurrection. It’s a significant uptick from 2019, when only 13 percent of US tweets were about politics. But Pew also significantly changed its methodology from 2019, which only focused on politics at the national level.

“This definition excluded mentions of state or local politics and politicians, as well as discussions of policy issues and current events that carry a political valence but do not explicitly reference national political figures or groups,” wrote Pew’s researchers in a blog post.

Still, the findings include some interesting insights on who shapes political debate on Twitter and how. First off, the study found that Americans who were 50 years and older produced 78 percent of all political tweets. While this age group only makes up a quarter of Twitter’s US user base, it virtually dominates the political discussion on the platform. Meanwhile, only seven percent of tweets from US Twitter users between the ages of 18 and 49 were political in nature.

As mentioned earlier, a large chunk of retweets and quote tweets are political in nature — suggesting that most users spread political information on Twitter rather than post original commentary. Roughly 44 percent of retweets and 42 percent were quote tweets were political in nature, as opposed to eight percent of original tweets. Many users voice their political opinions in the replies — an estimated 26 percent of reply tweets discussed politics. 

Republicans and Democrats also appear to perceive Twitter very differently from each other. For example, Democrats seem more likely to treat Twitter as a place to encounter like-minded people. Roughly 40 percent of Democrats said they mostly followed Twitter accounts with similar political beliefs to their own, as opposed to 20 percent of Republicans. This is likely helped by the fact that Twitter’s most prolific users swing left. A 2020 Pew study found that of Twitter’s most active users, roughly 69 percent identified as Democrats.

Instagram is testing a new full-screen version of Instagram’s feed that would make scrolling through posts look and feel a lot more like TikTok. Mark Zuckerberg shared a preview of the test on his Instagram Story, saying that the new look would be available to some people “soon.”

The app began testing a version of a “full-screen” feed last month, but in that test feed posts didn’t actually take up the entire screen of the app. But with the latest version shared by Zuckerberg, posts extend all the way to the top of the screen, much as they do on TikTok. The new look also tweaks the shortcuts for accessing your inbox and creating new posts.

Though still an experiment, the new look is in-line with Meta’s stated desire to make competing with TikTok a top priority. On instagram, that’s meant inserting more Reels and “suggested” content into users feed, as well as emphasizing video more than static images. “Photos are still an important part of Instagram, and we're working on ways to improve the way they show up in a full-screen Feed too,” Zuckerberg wrote.

Meta is also planning a major revamp of Facebook’s app that would insert more “recommended” content in users’ feeds, rather than posts from friends and pages they follow. Zuckerberg has said the changes are part of broader pivot toward AI-driven recommendations rather than simply relying on users existing social graphs.

Mark Zuckerberg and other Meta executives have made it clear for some time that competing with TikTok is their top priority. Now, we have additional details about how they plan to completely overhaul the Facebook app to accomplish that.

The social network is working on a major redesign of Facebook’s main feed that would heavily emphasize recommended content from pages, creators and people you don’t already follow, according to a memo from a Facebook executive that was published by The Verge.

The memo, from Tom Alison who heads up the Facebook app at Meta, states that the goal is to shift Facebook into a “Discovery Engine,” which would heavily rely on recommendations, similar to TikTok’s “For You” feed. Recommendations would mainly come from “unconnected” content, including Reels, and users would see fewer posts from friends and family in their feeds. The plan would also bring Messenger’s inbox back into the Facebook app in an effort to encourage users to share more content from said “Discovery Engine.”

It’s not clear how long it will take Meta to implement these changes, some of which mirror changes already happening at Instagram. But it’s not the first time Meta executives have hinted at big changes to come in Facebook’s app, or even the first time we’ve heard about an upcoming pivot from social network to “Discovery Engine.” Zuckerberg said in April that the company was in the midst of a “major shift” that would change the dynamics of feeds to emphasize AI-driven recommendations over users’ social graphs.

Still, the memo from Alison makes clear just how important the new priorities are for the company, which is desperately trying to catch up to TikTok.

But the shift to more recommendations could also be problematic for the company. The company’s current recommendation algorithms have been blamed for exploiting divisiveness and promoting misinformation. While Alison told The Verge that there would be stricter rules for recommended content, the company has often struggled to enforce its own rules. And, notably, in his memo Alison states that the company is changing the way it views its obligation to reduce “negative experiences.”

“‘Reducing negative experiences’ has been removed as a product priority since it’s more aptly tied to the product culture we are trying to build throughout our approach of being ‘Trustworthy,’ ‘People-Centric,’ and ‘Unified,’” Alison wrote. “Our focus is doing this holistically across all of our products as a permanent part of our culture as opposed to a short-term priority.”

Meta is introducing new parental supervision features for Quest virtual reality headsets and Instagram. The VR safety tools, which were announced in March, are rolling out worldwide. 

The parental supervision process needs to be initiated on a teen's account (the minimum age to have a Facebook account is 13). A Parent Dashboard in the Oculus app will allow parents and guardians to block apps (including web browsers), see a list of apps on the teen's account and view their friends list. A teen can ask to buy an age-restricted app, then their parent can approve or deny the request. Parents can also view headset screen time, receive alerts when an app is purchased and block the Link and Air Link features to stop teens from using PC content on their headset.

On top of that, Meta is debuting a parent education hub, which includes information about the VR supervision options. The company says it worked with industry experts, teens, parents and policymakers on these controls. It will refine the tools over time.

At the start of this year, the Information Commissioner's Office in the UK said it would hold talks with Meta over how Quest 2 complies with a children's code that's designed to protect young users. These new measures could go some way toward addressing the watchdog's concerns.

Meanwhile, Instagram's parental supervision tools, which launched in the US in March, will arrive in the UK, Japan, Australia, Ireland, Canada, France and Germany this month with some expanded options. Parents can now invite teens to set up supervision tools (rather than requests solely coming from teen accounts).

Parents and guardians can limit access to Instagram at certain times by scheduling breaks. They can view more details about an account or post their teen reports, including the person in question and the type of report. They can also see which users their teen follows and who follows them. Instagram plans to roll out the tools globally later this year.

In the UK and Ireland, Instagram is testing a nudge feature. Teens will be encouraged to look at different posts if they spend too much time with the same kind of content in the Explore tab. The aim is to prompt them to be more mindful of their Instagram use. As part of a different test, teens in certain countries may see a prompt to turn on the Take a Break feature after watching Reels for a while.

Elsewhere, Instagram is adding more resources to its educational Family Center. There's a new page that provides teens with details about privacy settings for Quest, Instagram, Facebook and Messenger. Parents and guardians can access information about how to talk to kids about online safety issues.

Twitter's newly improved tweet-reporting tools are now available to everyone on the platform. The company first began testing the new process for reporting harmful tweets in December, saying it was trying to take a “people first” approach that would make it easier to flag tweets.

Previously, Twitter’s reporting process required users to navigate a series of menus in order to identify the specific rule they believed had been broken. The process was confusing, even for those familiar with Twitter’s policies, and often resulted in problematic tweets not being properly flagged.

The revamped process instead begins each report by asking users to describe “what happened,” rather than prompting them to guess which rule may have been broken. It also makes it easier to report tweets in which someone else is being targeted, and gives users more options for reporting hate speech.

That simplified approach is already paying off, according to Twitter. The company says the new reporting process has resulted in a 50 percent increase in “actionable reports” since it began testing six months ago.