The After Math: Pay up
This was a week of folks getting theirs. Brazil locked down $6 million of Facebook assets in its ongoing battle of WhatsApp. Disney shelled out $3.5 billion for the company that runs MLB At Bat. Hall-of-Fame running back Jim Brown squeezed $600,000 out of EA for its unlicensed use of his likeness. And Apple is reportedly about to spend big bucks buying Tidal from Jay-Z. Numbers, because how else are you going to measure financial debt?
Facebook is making it easier to post in multiple languages
Facebook has over 1 billion users around the world but, as you might expect, not all of them speak the same language. This can be an issue if you have friends and family who speak in different lingo. The company has supported multiple languages for several years now, of course, but what if you wanted to write a post that was readable by not only your English-speaking friends, but those who know Spanish and French too? Well, you could soon do that, thanks to a new multilingual composer that Facebook is testing out. With this feature, you can write a single post in multiple languages, while those who read the post will see it in just their preferred language. The feature actually rolled out earlier this year to Page authors, but is now being tested widely across all users.
This is how it works. When you’re writing a post, you’ll see some text asking you if you want the post to appear in another language. Click it, and you can then choose which languages you want from a drop-down list. It’ll then automatically fill out separate messages with the appropriate machine-translated text — the sort that you’d find on Google Translate, for example. You can go with these if you like, but if you’re multilingual and that machine-translation isn’t up to snuff, you can actually go in and fix it up so it reads correctly in those other languages. Doing this also helps teach Facebook’s machine-translation to get better over time.
As for which version of the post your friends will see, that depends on their preferred language. Their preferences are determined not only by their settings but also by which country they happen to be in and by a Language Identification process that figures out what lingo is most commonly used in their posts. So if their posts are mostly in Spanish, they’ll likely see the Spanish post instead of the English one. But if they speak a mix of English and Spanish (or a different language entirely) and it’s difficult to figure out what their preference is, they’ll just see the original text by default, at which point they can use the existing “See Translation” tool to read the translations.
Now, this feature is not available to everyone just yet. It’s just in testing right now, so that the team can work out any remaining kinks. But if you are part of the test group, you’ll find that you can enable the multilingual composer in the language section under settings. It’s desktop-only for now, though the aforementioned viewing experience should be open to all.
Social networks need to be more like online forums
Social networks are the modern day watering holes for the internet. But back in the ’90s, I didn’t have Twitter and Facebook. Instead, my destination was the online forum, a site where I could discuss a variety of topics in the form of posted messages (hence the term “message board”). Be it a bulletin board system (BBS) or a Usenet news group, these message boards were my first introduction to the social web. They’re still around today of course, but I’ve largely stopped using these forums in favor of the aforementioned social networks. But there is one thing I do miss about them: a sense of community.
When I first hooked up my computer to a dial-up modem in 1997, it was a revelation. See, I was a lonely nerdy girl in a small Southeast Asian country. But through the magic of the internet, I stumbled onto a world where I was no longer alone. I came upon online discussion groups, which offered me the chance to interact with like-minded people. Some were local, while others indulged in my interest in comic books, Conan O’Brien and MTV’s Daria. These were places where my thoughts and opinions mattered, where I was no longer just a quiet, meek face in a crowd. Soon, I found new friends, several of whom lived tens of thousands of miles away. I eventually met a few of them in real life, fostering friendships that last to this day.
On Twitter, however, I am just one of many voices. While I can certainly use it to keep abreast of what’s going on in the world, that feeling of being a part of a community is diluted. Sure, I can joke around with friends but it’s a lot harder to make new ones and connect with people outside of your immediate circle. After all, no one can see you tweet if you have no followers.
Most message boards have some kind of Newbie forum or an Introduction stickie where newcomers can wade in, but on Twitter, it’s often up to you to branch out and make first contact with specific people. Even Facebook is really only beneficial if you already have a network of existing friends. Of course, it’s also a lot harder to keep away from nasty trolls and spammers on Twitter compared to a message board that’s moderated.
And this, right here, is the problem. On the face of it, it seems that both message boards and social networks bring people together. But social media isn’t about building communities; it’s about sharing your thoughts with the world. Unfortunately, this often just means shouting into the void. Instead of a place where your thoughts and opinions matter, social media is where you need to fight to get your voice heard. This creates a culture of one upsmanship where the popular get more popular, the obnoxious get louder and people are vulnerable to hate.
If Twitter and Facebook want to start earning more goodwill, they need to do more than just tweak their algorithms. They need to start building communities too.
[Image credits: Getty]
Brazil freezes Facebook funds over WhatsApp evidence spat
A Brazilian court has frozen 19.5-million reals ($6-million) of Facebook’s cash after the social network’s messaging service, WhatsApp, failed to hand over data as part of a criminal investigation. Reuters reports that Brazilian law enforcement sought access to messages that could link drug smugglers from a number of recent raids. The court targeted Facebook Inc, as WhatsApp doesn’t have any financial operations in the country.
The action is the latest in a long line of similar moves from the Brazilian government. In recent months, WhatsApp has been blocked (more than once), and a Facebook executive was arrested — also due to failure to hand over messages or user data.
In this case, the frozen funds are equal to the total fines WhatsApp has incurred for not complying with law enforcement’s demands. There’s no mention of the service being blocked this time, so it’s possible the government is trying a different tact. The larger issue, for both sides, is that since April, WhatsApp has been encrypting all its messages end to end, so it couldn’t hand over the content of communications after that date even if it wanted to.
The messages involved in the drug smuggling investigation were likely sent before the activation of encryption, but Facebook reportedly claimed that messages weren’t stored anyway. There’s no official comment from Facebook or WhatsApp at this time.
Source: Reuters
Facebook adds new features to its Messenger bots
Several weeks ago, Facebook launched chatbots for Messenger, essentially letting you do everything from ordering flowers to finding the latest movie recommendations just by talking to a bot. Since then, over 11,000 bots have launched on Messenger and more than 23,000 developers have signed up on the company’s Wit.ai bot engine. Now, Facebook has announced a few more updates to its Messenger Platform that should please both users and developers alike.
For one thing, users can now offer star ratings and feedback for developers for these bots, just like they can with apps. There’s also a new feature called Quick replies, which are essentially buttons that refer to the bot’s most recent messages, thus allowing for faster conversations. So, for example, it might ask you to pick a color of a hat and simply offer “Red” or “Green” as the two Quick reply options. Bots will also now have the option of persistent navigation options in the window itself, just in case you forget a text command.
There’ll also now be an account linking option that’ll let businesses connect their customers’ accounts with their Messenger accounts. You could then hook up your account at, say, 1-800-Flowers, with your Messenger account for more personalized service. Facebook says it’s a secure protocol, but rest easy, security-conscious; account-linking will be opt-in.
Last but not least, bots will now have the option of sending GIFs, video, audio as well as files. If you’re interested in learning more about new Messenger bots, Facebook has also announced a new Messenger blog that’ll feature more about the up-and-coming platform.
Source: Facebook
Facebook’s new tool will help you raise funds for charity orgs
It’s now much easier to raise funds for your favorite causes and charity organizations on Facebook. The social network has begun rolling out a tool that’ll enable you to create personal fundraisers for 501c3 nonprofits verified by the company, including The Nature Conservancy, Alzheimer’s Association and Oxfam. Best thing about these campaigns is that they’ll allow your friends to donate money within Facebook itself — it won’t send them to an external website.
The company’s “Social Good” team, which was also behind Safety Check, designed it that way, because people are more inclined to give money directly through Facebook. They also found that people tend to be more generous if someone they know asks for help using their personal stories or photos. The company already launched a fundraising tool that organizations can use last year, but this one could compel more folks to open their wallets.
If you’re wondering if Facebook gets a cut, well, it does get a tiny percentage of the total funds raised — five percent, to be exact. Two percent goes towards the costs associated with vetting nonprofits and fraud protection, while the remaining three will go towards payment processing. Recipients will get 95 percent of whatever you raise.
At the moment, only one percent of users in US has access to the tool, and there are only 100 verified organizations. Facebook plans to make it available nationwide in the coming weeks, though, so keep an eye out if you want to help a nonprofit close to your heart.
Via: Mashable
Source: USA Today, The Mercury News
Facebook to Shut Down ‘Paper’ News Creation and Curation App
Facebook is shutting down news creation and curation app Paper, reports The Verge. Paper, which debuted in 2014, was the first product to come out of Facebook Creative Labs, which has since been dismantled.
Paper, a Flipboard competitor, consisted of a news reader that pulled content from a user’s Facebook News Feed and a variety of well-known online publications, organizing it all into a magazine-style layout with sections ranging from technology to animals. A team of editors curated the most popular online content for users and for a time, it was a popular replacement for the traditional Facebook News Feed.
Though it received positive reviews and was one of Facebook’s most downloaded apps, it was not able to attract and maintain a large audience, leading to Facebook’s decision to shut it down. Paper has been defunct for a while, going without an update since March of 2015.
According to Facebook, many of the concepts introduced in Paper, like Instant Articles, have since been added to its other apps and services. Instant Articles is a platform designed to speed up the loading times of articles and news stories and it adopted much of its design language from Paper.
Paper has been removed from the App Store as of today and existing app users will no longer be able to use the app after July 29.
Tag: Facebook
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Facebook’s Paper news-reading app to shut down next month
Facebook has announced that it is shutting down its news-reading app Paper. The application was introduced in 2014 as an alternative to the main Facebook app, featuring a sleek layout with a complete focus on showcasing articles — rather than status updates from your friends. As unexpected as the announcement may be, it shouldn’t come as a surprise considering that last year Facebook shuttered Creative Labs, the design team behind Paper.
According to a message being displayed on the app, which was only available for iOS, it will no longer be supported as of July 29th. “We know that Paper really resonated with you — the people who used it,” reads the farewell message on Paper, “so we’ve tried to take the best aspects of it and incorporate them into the main Facebook app.”
In other words, thank you for using it, but it’s time to go back to the real Facebook app.
Thank you for using Paper
In 2014 we launched Paper, a standalone app designed to give people a new way to explore and share stories from friends and the sources they care about. Today we’re announcing that we are ending support for the app and users will no longer be able to log into the app after July 29.
We know that Paper really resonated with you–the people who used it–so we’ve tried to take the best aspects of it and incorporate them into the main Facebook app. For example, the same team that built Paper also built Instant Articles—a fast and interactive experience for reading articles in News Feed—using many of the same tools, design elements, and fundamental ideas as Paper. Our goal with Paper was to explore new immersive, interactive design elements for reading and interacting with content on Facebook, and we learned how important these elements are in giving people an engaging experience.
We know not all the features you love will move over to Facebook, but we hope you’ll continue to notice elements from Paper improving the Facebook experience for everyone. We can’t thank you enough for using the app and exploring Paper with us over the past couple of years.
-The Paper team
Via: The Verge
Facebook and the folly of self-regulation
There’s a whole bunch of content that you aren’t allowed to post on Facebook. Threats against public figures and other users, claims of imminent self-harm, harassment and bullying (in theory at least) and the purchase, sale or trade of regulated goods like drugs and weapons. What’s more, Facebook made a subtle change to its Community Standards back in January, effectively banning the peer-to-peer sale of firearm, ammo and explosives. Firearm shops and online retailers are still allowed to promote offline sales on Facebook — assuming all applicable laws and regulations are met — but private citizens can no longer offer their own weapons on the site. Now, while this is a commendable policy shift on FB’s part, the site’s enforcement of the new rules has been checkered at best.
See, Facebook doesn’t actively police its site for offending content. There’s no team of staffers or automated algorithm scouring for infractions. Instead, Facebook relies entirely on the user community to report banned content. Once a post, image or group is flagged by other users, a Facebook team will review the content and take the appropriate action either removing the content, temporarily suspending the user’s ability to post, shutting down the group wholesale or any combination of the three. In all, Facebook receives roughly one million reports each day, according to Forbes, though there’s no word on how many of those are gun-related.
“Facebook relies on the community of 1.6 billion people on Facebook to report anything – posts, photos, videos – that violate our terms, including our policies on firearms,” a Facebook rep told me during a recent phone call. “Given the volume of content shared each day, we believe this is an efficient way to identify content for review. Closed and secret groups are subject to the same policies, and we receive reports for content in these groups as well.” Of course, content within closed and secret groups are only visible to their existing members — not the larger FB community — so they’re basically expected to regulate themselves.
This method of enforcement does not sit well with a number of Facebook users — especially Mike Monteiro, Design Director at Mule Design. For the past few weeks Monteiro has advocated that users seek out and report groups and users that continue to flaunt the Community Standards and engage in peer-to-peer firearm sales. “We’re not trying to get anybody to change their stance on anything,” Monteiro told me. “We’re trying to get Facebook to do what they said they were going to do.”
.@monteiro 76 gun groups pulled from FB today, total of 449. pic.twitter.com/ol7HZoUTmy
— John Sibley (@jbsibley) June 27, 2016
To date, he estimates that more than 1000 groups have been shut down for gun sale violations — in no small part due to the efforts of John Sibley. “I have no idea how he’s doing this and I never met him before this,” Monteiro said. “The amount of pages that he’s managed to get shut down is amazing.”
Not everybody is happy with Monteiro’s efforts, mind you. “I’ve got an inbox full of death threats,” he said. “None of it surprised me, I’m not going to lose any sleep over it. Most of these guys — and it’s always guys — are coming in with their ‘Good Guy with a gun’ arguments and immediately issuing death threats.”
Of greater concern to Monteiro are the actions of Facebook’s director of engineering, Chuck Rossi. As a recent Forbes article illustrates, Rossi has used his position and influence within the company to actively undermine the new gun sale rules and help to get a number of banned gun sale groups reinstated.
“I am 100 percent laser focused on getting your groups back to you so you have a chance to get them to comply with the new policy. It is my sole freaking purpose in life until it is done. I’m dumping extra work on my managers and my teams to cover for me while I take on this new role,” Rossi wrote in a February post to Admin Contact, a private assembly of FB administrators working on behalf gun-themed groups. “I know this new policy sucks. I personally don’t agree with it and everyone in Facebook is pissed about how it was rolled out.”
Rossi has reportedly managed to reinstate as many as 80 percent of gun-related pages removed in the past three months, an Admin Contact administrator told Forbes. “I’m not sure how somebody gets to keep their job” when they go against their employers publicly-stated policies, Monteiro said. “He’s not just disagreeing with it, he’s saying ‘I’m going to make sure the policy doesn’t work.’”
Whether this method of community-based policing will actually be effective in the long term remains to be seen. It could well become a game of Whack-A-Mole with pages and groups being shut down for violating the Community Standards only to immediately resurrect themselves and continue on as if nothing happened. Either way, the battle over guns on Facebook — like the larger issue of gun control in America — doesn’t look like it will be settled anytime soon.
Facebook updates News Feed to show your friends’ posts first
Over the next few weeks, Facebook is tweaking its News Feed ranking to ensure you see your friends’ and family members’ status updates before anything else. The social network gave its feed algorithm an overhaul back in 2015 to prioritize people in your friends’ lists, but it sounds like that upgrade didn’t quite do the trick. This update is supposed to make sure all the posts by people you know show up and that they’re near the top above updates made by FB Pages. But how does Facebook pick out the person you want to interact with the most? The company has also explained how its upgraded feed works.
As you’d expect, your feed will prioritize posts by people whom you’ve chosen to “see first,” and those whose posts you’re inclined to Like or comment on. “[I]f you tend to like photos from your sister,” Facebook VP Adam Mosseri said, “we’ll start putting her posts closer to the top of your feed so you won’t miss what she posted while you were away.” On the other hand, it will assume that you’re not as thrilled to hear from people whose posts you hide all the time.
Since you probably follow various Pages, as well, such as those owned by businesses, publications or celebrities, the revamped News Feed also ranks their posts based on how informative and entertaining they are. If you liked a lot of stories about a certain celeb in the past, for instance, your News Feed will deem reports about that celeb informative and will make sure you see them in your stream. At the same time, if you’re inclined to like photos and Live videos, then the social network will put those near the top.
The company also took the chance to say that it doesn’t “favor specific kinds of sources — or ideas” and that it’s not “picking which issues the world should read about.”
Mosseri explained:
“Our aim is to deliver the types of stories we’ve gotten feedback that an individual person most wants to see. We do this not only because we believe it’s the right thing but also because it’s good for our business. When people see content they are interested in, they are more likely to spend time on News Feed and enjoy their experience. “
Facebook didn’t detail what compelled it to issue that statement. If you’ll recall, though, the Senate Commerce Committee launched an official investigation in May after the website was accused of routinely suppressing politically conservative news stories. The company denied the allegations that it gamed the Trending Topics section and announced after an internal investigation that it didn’t find evidence of political bias.
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