As AI turbocharges digital abuse, UK agencies urge parents to limit who sees kids’ photos online

The UK's NCA and IWF are urging parents to tighten social media privacy settings as AI tools make it easier to turn ordinary images into abuse material.

Pranob Mehrotra     July 4

Google Maps could soon order food for you using Gemini

Google Maps is reportedly developing a Gemini-powered feature that could let users discover restaurants and place food orders without leaving the app.

Moinak Pal     July 3

Most Americans want kids off social media before 16, new survey shows

A new Pew Research Center survey has found that 56 percent of Americans support banning social media for anyone under 16, with support crossing party lines and age groups.

Pranob Mehrotra     July 3

Meta under scrutiny after Instagram approved child abuse advertisements in India

Instagram approved and displayed advertisements promoting child sexual abuse material in India before removing them following an investigation.

Moinak Pal     July 3

WhatsApp pausing usernames for hundreds of millions of users over fraud fears

WhatsApp’s username feature has run into trouble in India, where officials are concerned about impersonation fraud and fake accounts.

S. Kumar Manglam     July 2

X wants you to go live with its new streaming hub, and is offering $1 million to make it worth your while

X has launched Live Studio, a dedicated streaming command center inside Creator Studio, and is putting $1 million on the table to incentivize creators to go live on the platform.

Pranob Mehrotra     July 2

Reddit is ending anonymous browsing on old Reddit, and longtime users are not happy

Reddit is locking down old.reddit.com with a login wall, and the admin's post hinting it may not last forever has longtime users worried.

M. Priyadarshini     July 1

TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube are failing kids with broken safety features, research finds

A new study tested 86 child safety features across TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, and YouTube, and found that more than half were broken, buried, or missing entirely.

M. Priyadarshini     June 30

Yet another research proves TikTok injury advice is just downright bad

A new study found TikTok videos about ACL rehab exercises were poor overall, raising fresh concerns about teens using viral clips for injury recovery advice.

Vikhyaat Vivek     June 30

Instagram is testing a more convenient way to tune recommendations

Instagram is testing new shortcuts for Your Algorithm, making it easier for users to adjust recommendations while browsing Feed and Reels.

S. Kumar Manglam     June 28

Snapchat planets explained: order, meanings, and how to find yours

Snapchat Planets turns your friendship ranking into a tiny social solar system, where being Mercury is elite and Neptune might sting a little.

Vikhyaat Vivek     October 14

Instagram lands on Samsung TVs, with episodic series and live TV coming to your screen soon

Meta is testing interest-based channels, phone-to-TV casting, and a horizontal video hub as Instagram for TV expands beyond Samsung's launch.

M. Priyadarshini     June 22

TikTok’s AI slop problem is worse than you think — and kids are seeing the most of it

A new study suggests AI-generated junk content has become one of TikTok's defining features. Worse still, children and educational content appear to be among the platform's hardest-hit corners.

Shimul Sood     June 21

Your Instagram photo dumps just got a caption for every single slide

Instagram now lets you add a unique caption to each of up to 20 carousel slides, rolling out to all users starting today.

Shikhar Mehrotra     June 18

TikTok feeds show 3 times more AI slop than YouTube, study reveals

A new Kapwing report found that 59% of videos shown to new TikTok accounts are AI slop, roughly three times the rate found on YouTube.

M. Priyadarshini     June 17

Threads makes it easier to find your community and tune out what you don’t want to see

Threads is rolling out upgrades to its Communities feature and a new feed personalization tool called Your Algo.

Pranob Mehrotra     June 17

Facebook now has an answering genie for all your burning questions, just like Google Search

Meta is rolling out AI Mode on Facebook, a new feature that uses Meta AI to answer questions by pulling from public content across Meta apps, rather than returning standard search results.

Pranob Mehrotra     June 15

Yet another study finds too many kids are seeing harmful content on social media

A Molly Rose Foundation study found 34% of UK teens encountered suicide, self-harm, or eating disorder content on social media in a single week, barely unchanged from before the Online Safety Act took effect.

Pranob Mehrotra     June 14

Facebook and Messenger outage sparks logout panic as Meta services stumble

A brief Meta outage logged users out of Facebook and Messenger, sent Downdetector complaints surging, and also affected Instagram while Threads remained less clear in available reports.

Paulo Vargas     June 12

The social media scrolling habit is more harmful than you think, especially for teens

A new Australian study links two or more hours of daily social media use in early adolescence with poorer mental health outcomes one year later.

Vikhyaat Vivek     June 12

Instagram’s new voice message effects let you sound like a pirate, a grandma, or a World Cup fan

Instagram is expanding its AI-powered effects for voice notes to more users, growing the feature from eight effects at its India launch in March to 15, including a new Goal! filter tied to the FIFA World Cup.

Pranob Mehrotra     June 11

Reddit comments are getting video replies, and it could be more useful than it sounds

Reddit’s new video comments could make replies more useful in DIY, cooking, makeup, fitness, and tutorial communities, where showing a step can be easier than explaining it in text.

S. Kumar Manglam     June 11

TikTok is testing voice calls in DMs, because you must talk where you doomscroll

TikTok is testing voice calling in DMs, according to screenshots shared by a user on X. The feature will reportedly require both participants to be friends and offer a "Mute calls" option in DM settings.

Pranob Mehrotra     June 10

TikTok’s “Not Interested” button fails you in merely a few minutes, finds research

New research from Northeastern University found that TikTok's "Not Interested" button loses effectiveness quickly, with flagged content resurfacing on user feeds within minutes after they stop pressing it.

Pranob Mehrotra     June 10

You can now tell Instagram’s algorithm exactly what you want to see on your main feed

Instagram is giving users real control over their feeds with Your Algorithm, a feature that lets you add and remove topics across the whole app.

M. Priyadarshini     June 10

UK’s film body is saving internet memes and viral videos. Yes, “Charlie bit my finger” is on the list.

The British Film Institute is preserving 430 viral videos and memes, including Charlie bit my finger, Badgers, and the Liz Truss lettuce livestream.

Vikhyaat Vivek     June 8

Instagram finally lets you rearrange your profile grid any way you want

You can now rearrange your Instagram profile grid any way you like, with no limits on how many times you reorder your posts.

M. Priyadarshini     June 8

Netflix says there is no future for theatrical releases in its streaming universe

Mr. Lin emphasized that “Narnia” was an exception and insisted that the company’s perspective on movie theaters had not changed. “There is a group of filmmakers who still want theatrical. Those are filmmakers that we’ve accepted we just won’t work with,” he said, deploying what’s become his trademark bluntness.

Shimul Sood     June 6

Snap sent alerts to students during class hours despite knowing the risk of distraction

Internal documents from lawsuits filed by 1,400+ school districts reveal how Meta, Snap, TikTok, and YouTube deliberately targeted students, even during school hours.

Rachit Agarwal     June 5

Google makes it easier to follow the social media shenanigans of your favorite personalities

Google is giving creators a fresh spotlight in Search, and it could change how you keep tabs on your favorite online personalities. The update brings a new way to discover content without endlessly jumping between apps.

Shimul Sood     June 5

Facebook’s new AI Creator Assistant wants to be your personal content strategist

Meta has launched Creator Assistant, a conversational AI tool built into the Facebook creator dashboard that analyzes your content performance, explains why it worked, and suggests new ideas based on trending content.

M. Priyadarshini     June 4

Instagram will stop bombarding teens with the same kind of obsessively unhealthy content

Meta is testing a new Instagram feature to prevent teens from being repeatedly served the same content, as it expands 13+ content settings globally.

M. Priyadarshini     June 2

X app now lets you directly record reaction-style videos and outrage at just about anything

X has launched React with Video, a new feature that lets iOS users respond to posts with a recorded video reaction using green screen, split screen, or picture-in-picture modes.

Rachit Agarwal     June 2

Instagram Plus may tempt creators, but WhatsApp Plus is an easier skip

Meta is bringing paid features to Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp. Instagram Plus may appeal to creators and heavy users, while WhatsApp Plus looks harder to justify.

S. Kumar Manglam     May 28

X wants to stop creators from farming stolen viral clips for easy money

X is cracking down on repost accounts and content thieves by reducing payouts and shifting engagement credit back toward original creators.

Varun Mirchandani     May 24

The police have entered the chat and they want social media bans for users under 16

UK police are done waiting for tech companies to act and are now pushing the government to block under-16s from unsafe platforms entirely.

M. Priyadarshini     May 23

Social media is stealing your happiness one scroll at a time

The World Happiness Report found that the more time you spend on social media, the greater the loss to your well-being, and young people in the West are feeling it the most.

Rachit Agarwal     May 23

Meta built a Reddit rival out of Facebook Groups

Meta’s new Forum app turns Facebook Groups into a standalone hub for questions, recommendations, and AI-powered search, giving the company a Reddit-like test built from communities it already owns.

Paulo Vargas     May 22