Twitter permanently bans one of its most offensive users
Twitter has finally done it. After years of provocative actions, repeated suspensions and even an unchecking, Twitter has permanently banned conservative writer and Breitbart Tech Editor Milo Yiannopoulos, from its service. Twitter’s decision appears to come in response to Yiannopoulos leading an online trolling campaign against Ghostbusters star Leslie Jones. Jones has vowed to leave Twitter over her treatment, prompting a major online outcry.
Twitter has been busy over the past few days, scrambling to get ahead of fallout from Jones’ digital assault. The company announced earlier on Tuesday that it will open the verification process to the general public, along with the anti-spam and anti-harassment protections the Blue Checkmark enables.
This isn’t the first time that Twitter has had to show a prominent alt-right celebrity the door. Last March, Chuck Johnson, who once argued that homosexuality caused a horrendous Amtrak train crash and doxxed two NY Times journalists, was permanently barred from the site. Reddit too has recently cracked down on bad behavior in recent months. The site caused an uproar last August when it shut down and disbanded a number of its most virulent and bigoted groups.
We’ve reached out to Twitter for comment and will update when we hear back from the company.
Source: Buzzfeed
Twitter opens up application process for verified accounts
The little blue checkmark on certain Twitter profiles has long been an elusive identifier to obtain. Verified accounts are often awarded to personalities on Twitter to identify them as “authentic,” and you’ll generally see them on profiles owned by musicians, television personalities, actors, and other important figures.
But it’s not always been simple to ensure your profile receives the badge that denotes it as authentic to audiences. Twitter is introducing a simplified application process for users to apply for verification on their own, beginning today.
“We want to make it even easier for people to find creators and influencers on Twitter so it makes sense for us to let people apply for verification,” Tina Bhatnagar, Twitter’s vice president of User Services explained in a press release. An open application process makes sense, especially when even larger entities such as WikiLeaks can fall for spam requests for verification and several personalities, aside from the 187,000 verified accounts out there, that yet to have been verified.
You can head over to Twitter and begin the process right now, though it isn’t available in all areas right this moment. It’s expected to expand globally throughout the rest of the week.
Source: Twitter
NBA announces two original shows that will stream on Twitter
Earlier this month, a Recode report indicated that Twitter was in talks with the NBA and Turner to bring more sports video to the social platform. Today, the league announced the deal what will bring two “live original programs,” or TV-style shows, to Twitter, video content that will be exclusive to the social network. Details are scarce for now, but the first will be a weekly pre-game show while all the NBA is saying about the second “to-be-determined show” is that you’ll only be able to watch it on Twitter. If you were hoping for live game action, you’ll certainly be disappointed… for now.
In addition to the original programming, the deal also includes more video on the whole for Twitter, Vine and Periscope from the NBA. What it doesn’t offer is the key piece that most basketball fans want: live games. Recode reports that Twitter was interested in streaming game action, but it looks like it couldn’t get a deal done with the league and Turner (who owns the rights to NBA games) that included the activity on the hardwood. Another interesting tidbit is that you won’t have to be logged in to watch the streams when they make their debut. We’d surmise the premiere of both will coincide with the new season that begins in October.
It’s also unclear who will produce the new shows, but as Recode points out, Turner lends a hand with the league’s digital content, including apps and the web. The outlet also reports that Twitter isn’t paying the NBA for the shows, and instead the two will share ad revenue from the videos. This isn’t the first time the two sides have worked together though, as Twitter debuted 360-degree video during the NBA Finals. The social network also has an agreement with the NFL what will allow it to stream Thursday Night Football games this fall.
Via: Recode
Source: NBA
BuzzFeed and Washington Post turn to robots for RNC coverage
Both the Washington Post and Buzzfeed have sent robots to cover the Republican National Convention in Cleveland. Call it forward thinking, call it a gimmick, inventive, desperate… doesn’t matter. But it’s happening, and both outlets couldn’t be prouder of their efforts to modify their news gathering process and bring additional interactivity to their reporting.
The Post’s experiment involves a telepresence robot from Double Robotics and a partnership with Twitter. Basically, the machine is an iPad mounted on a Segway-style base. All week it’ll be roaming the floor of the convention, streaming live on Periscope. Viewers will be able to tune in and ask questions of delegates, politicians and anyone else who happens upon the bot. It will give those watching at home a much more candid look at the RNC than normal, but might also provide some excellent opportunities for the public to pepper officials with tough questions.
LIVE on #Periscope: Robot reporter rolls around the convention hall | Come 👀 #RNCinCLE https://t.co/t7RsZXLlh9
— Ryan Y. Kellett (@rkellett) July 18, 2016
BuzzBot is a little more elaborate. Rather than a physical robot, it’s a Facebook chat bot that both collects and delivers news from the ground in Cleveland. If you add the channel to your Messenger app it will, of course, deliver news updates from BuzzFeed reporters. But, more importantly, it’ll collect reports from delegates, protesters and anyone else who happens to be in Cleveland. You can choose to simply send pictures and other info to BuzzBot, but it will also occasionally ask you questions or request you submit details about your experience. What the bot asks will differ depending on why you’re in Cleveland. Not in town for the RNC? Well, do you live in the city? If so, BuzzBot is going to want to know what kind of impact the RNC is having on your daily life.
It’s also not hard to image that information pouring into BuzzBot could help shape the outlet’s coverage. Notices of protests, overheard conversations and the like could all be reported through Facebook Messenger and fed to reporters on the ground, who could then go digging for a story.
But journalists shouldn’t worry just yet. Neither the Washington Post’s nor BuzzFeeds bots are advanced enough to cover a convention on their own. In fact, without humans guiding them or feeding them information they’re pretty useless.
Source: BuzzFeed, The Washington Post
Twitter was quick to pull extremist tweets following Nice attack
Twitter’s response to online extremism has changed a lot in the past few years. Observers at observer groups like the Counter Extremism Project report that the social network was exceptionally speedy in removing pro-extremist accounts and tweets in the hours following the truck attack in Nice, France on July 14th. It moved with “swiftness we have not seen before,” CEP says. Twitter hasn’t commented on the specific actions, but it’s apparent that the company is serious about its ban on terrorism.
The rapid takedowns are a sharp contrast with Twitter’s former hard line on free speech. While it still tends to value freedom of expression as a rule (particularly in countries where Twitter restrictions are mainly used to stifle dissent), it’s now eager to scrub tweets instead of waiting until officials step in. Twitter isn’t the only tech company taking a more active approach — talks with the US government have led to a broader anti-extremism push that includes Facebook and Google. However, its breakneck pace this time suggests that it may be one of the first (if not the first) to purge extremist material from now on.
Source: Reuters
After Math: Fun and games
This was a big week for diversions. Nintendo is sitting pretty thanks to its overnight smash hit, Pokémon Go — not to mention the excitement surrounding its upcoming NES Classic Edition mini-console. Additionally, MoviePass rolled out its revised film subscription rates. ESPN is finally giving eSports the attention it deserves. And Twitter tripled the size limit for displaying animated gifs to a whopping 15MB. Numbers, because how else will you know who holds the high score?
Researchers can guess your age based on your Instagram likes
If you’re the sort of person who carefully prunes your unloved Instagram photos, chances are good you’re a teenager. At least, that’s one of the findings in a new set of research papers on social media behaviors from Penn State University. As associate professor Dongwon Lee told the Atlantic, the practice of going back and deleting photos is common among teens on the platform because they, “want to be very popular so they’re very conscious of the likes they’re getting.”
Teens also tend to interact, comment and like more photos than their older counterparts, Lee’s team found, but they also post fewer of their own photos. (Although, this might only seem true, since teens are more likely to go back and delete their own content.) On the other hand, adults tend to have a broader range of interests, whereas teens usually post about their “mood or personal well being.”
Lee’s team focused their research on Instagram and its 500 million users because the API was the easiest to work with out of the major social networks. They also found that a “Like” on Instagram is a much less complex compared to a similar reaction Facebook or Twitter, where a heart could mean anything from “I like your tweet” to “I saw this and now I’m ending this conversation.”
Twitter’s latest sports streaming deal is for Pac-12 college games
Twitter already has a deal in place with the NFL to stream Thursday Night Football games this fall, and reports indicate that the social network has its eye on even more sports live action. Adding to the slate of streaming agreements, Pac-12 Network announced today that Twitter will host over 150 events during the upcoming 2016-2017 academic year. More specifically, the deal is for content from Pac-12 Plus: “a broadband network” of live coverage produced by the 12 universities that make up the conference.
While the lineup of content is still being sorted out, the Pac-12 says streams will cover events in Olympic sports of soccer, volleyball, gymnastics, baseball, ice hockey, swimming and diving, softball, track and field, wrestling, lacrosse, tennis and water polo. You’ll notice that football is absent from that list. No, it’s not an Olympic sport, but it is the most popular college athletic action besides basketball — which also isn’t mentioned. Those two sports typically command big money television deals, so it’s understandable if Twitter couldn’t nab those rights as well.
Via: TechCrunch
Source: PAC-12
Pizza Hut and Whole Foods debut social media chatbots
If you can’t be bothered chatting with Facebook’s news and weather bots, maybe a pizza bot can change your mind. Pizza Hut is launching a Facebook and a Twitter chatbot this fall that can take your order and show you current deals. The Facebook bot even comes with something extra: it can connect your FB with your Pizza Hut account, so it can list your past orders. You know, in case somebody asks you to prove that you’ve never had Hawaiian before. But what if you eat healthy and don’t like pizza? Well then, you’ll probably enjoy chatting with Whole Foods’ Facebook bot instead.
It’s not a delivery bot like Pizza Hut’s. Instead, it features thousands of curated recipes you can explore using keywords (e.g. vegetarian or gluten-free) and emoji. Since it’s not clear when Whole Foods’ bot is coming out, you may want to keep an eye out for it. Both chatbots use the Conversable platform and were launched at Venturebeat MobileBeat conference today. Similar to other social media bots, you can access them by striking up a conversation with the companies’ official social media accounts through Facebook Messenger or Twitter DM.
Source: Pizza Hut
Twitter ups its GIF size limit to 15MB for the web
Finally, you won’t ever have to tweet unsatisfying GIFs that end too soon. The social network has upped its GIF size limit to 15MB, three times larger than its old 5MB limit. Twitter quietly updated its FAQ with the change — a welcome one for those who’d rather watch moving images than videos, we’re sure — where it also dropped the bad news: You’re still stuck with posting files 5MB and below if you tweet on mobile. You can only post monster files if you access Twitter.com on the web. It’s still a start, though, and there might come a time when you can tweet video-length GIFs even from your phone or through Tweetdeck.
ALERT: Twitter now supports gifs up to 15MB! pic.twitter.com/PfyAiYRg5K
— Jessica L. Conditt (@JessConditt) July 11, 2016
Source: Twitter
AIVAnet 